Randy Sartin/AP
Former University of Tennessee head football coach Jeremy Pruitt claims he was influenced by the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor when he made payments to players and their families.
On Friday, the NCAA announced sanctions for the university as a result of its investigation into the payments. For more than 200 infractions committed during Pruitt’s three-year tenure, the university has been fined more than $8 million and will be on probation for the next five years. Eighteen of those infractions were classified as Level I violations, the most severe per NCAA regulations which normally include direct payments to players or family members.
According to records obtained by Knox News, Pruitt cited Floyd and Taylor when explaining to investigators why he gave a player’s mother $300 in a Chick-Fil-A bag.
“Then you throw in George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, OK,” Pruitt said, “so you sit there as a white man and you see all of this going on and you can see these kids suffering … (It’s) pitiful when you sit in a room and you hear grown men, and I’m talking about our coaches too, when they talk about growing up and the circumstances that they’ve been under, because it’s hard for a white man to understand, right.”
In addition to the fines and probation, the University’s football program will be without 28 scholarships throughout the probationary period. Pruitt has also been given a six-year show-cause penalty, meaning a team cannot hire him unless the NCAA approves it. If he is hired during this period and NCAA approves it, he’ll then be suspended for the first year of employment.
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