‘I can’t tell you how many times Tennessee head coaches said no to me’ – Vols legend struggled to get a coaching job at Tennessee
Tennessee Vols legend Tee Martin spent two seasons — 2019 and 2020 — as an assistant coach on Rocky Top before landing a job in the NFL with the Baltimore Ravens. Martin, who led Tennessee to a national championship in 1998, wanted to coach at his alma mater long before he was hired as the […]
Tennessee Vols legend Tee Martin spent two seasons — 2019 and 2020 — as an assistant coach on Rocky Top before landing a job in the NFL with the Baltimore Ravens.
Martin, who led Tennessee to a national championship in 1998, wanted to coach at his alma mater long before he was hired as the program’s wide receivers coach by then UT head coach Jeremy Pruitt in 2019.
The former Vol, however, detailed recently that he was told no numerous times by Tennessee head coaches.
As a result, Martin’s first coaching job in the SEC was at Kentucky in 2010 when he served as the wide receivers coach under Wildcats offensive coordinator Randy Sanders (Sanders, who also played at Tennessee, was Martin’s offensive coordinator at UT in the late 90s after David Cutcliffe left to become the head coach at Ole Miss).
Tee Martin details being told ‘no’ by Tennessee head coaches
Martin recently appeared on the Chatty Baddies podcast, where he opened up about his coaching journey and the challenges he faced getting hired at Tennessee.
“Without a doubt, it’s Randy Sanders,” said Martin when asked who his biggest coaching mentor has been. “Randy was our running backs coach when I signed with Tennessee, but he was also the recruiting coordinator — so I kind of had a loose relationship with him.
“Randy was always the coach on the sideline that talked to me the most, because David Cutcliffe was upstairs calling the plays. And so in between the series, I talked with him, and he always had this confident way of talking to me; he always had this very loose type of demeanor that kept me loose during games. And when David Cutcliffe took the Ole Miss job the month before the national championship [game], Randy had to call the plays for the national championship. And we had a very short period of time to really, really get to know each other, to build trust, and for him to call that game. It was the biggest game for not only me and the players, but it was the very first game that Randy ever called as an offensive coordinator. And so that just made our bond even closer to do something that special in that short period of time.”
“Then when I got done playing NFL football and Canadian league football, I wanted to get into coaching,” continued Martin. “He (Sanders) was coaching at Tennessee, then he went on to Florida State, went on to Kentucky, and we just stayed in touch over the phone. And I let him know that I was serious about coaching. I ended up taking a job at the University of New Mexico, and I was only there for one year. At the end of that season, Randy called and said, ‘Hey, we got a position at Kentucky. Do you want to take it?’ And I was like, ‘Sure.’ And that really was the first time I got a chance to work with him on the coaching staff. But he was the first coach, or the only coach, from that Tennessee family that reached back out to me to offer me an opportunity to get into coaching. I had tried several times with other coaches. I can’t tell you how many times Tennessee head coaches said no to me when I was trying to come back and coach. But Randy was the one who actually gave me an opportunity at Kentucky to coach.”
Martin previously detailed his attempts to get hired at Tennessee (after his playing career ended in 2005) during a conversation with former Vols wide receiver Joey Kent on 104.5 The Zone’s 3 The Pro Way podcast.
“I had sent in job applications at LA Tech (Louisiana Tech), got turned down,” said Martin. “[I sent in a] job application at Georgia Tech, got turned down. [I] had asked to be a GA (graduate assistant) at Tennessee — they looked the other way.”
Phillip Fulmer, Lane Kiffin, Derek Dooley, and Butch Jones are Tennessee coaches who all had the opportunity to hire Martin. It’s unclear which of them said no (though the timeline Martin provided seems to indicate Fulmer was one), but at least a couple of those names apparently said “no thanks” to the UT football legend before he was eventually hired by Pruitt.
Things worked out just fine for Martin, though. He’s been on the Ravens’ staff for the past five seasons, including the last few as the franchise’s quarterbacks coach. In 2023, with Martin as his position coach, Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson was named the NFL MVP.
Not too bad for a guy who was repeatedly told no by his alma mater.
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