ESPN SEC Blog

Posted by ESPN.com's Chris Low 

	Jason Parkhurst/US Presswire
	Phil Fulmer was served a subpoena by a Birmingham law firm on Thursday.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Tennessee's Phillip Fulmer has won a lot of games -- 147 to be exact -- in what will surely be a Hall of Fame career some day.

In fact, the only five coaches in history to have won more SEC games are already in the Hall of Fame -- Bear Bryant, John Vaught, Vince Dooley, Ralph "Shug" Jordan and Steve Spurrier (enshrined as a player).

Fulmer didn't win Thursday at the SEC media days, though. He lost -- and lost badly. He allowed himself to be blindsided by a bunch of Alabama attorneys, who succeeded in turning this event into more of a mockery than it already is.

Maybe next year, SEC officials will break their own record and hand out 1,000 media credentials, or maybe they'll just open it up to anybody who passes through the doors at the Riverchase Galleria Mall, which adjoins the Wynfrey Hotel.

As we now know, Fulmer was served a subpoena by the Birmingham law firm of Blankenship, Harrelson & Wollitz as he was getting out of his vehicle to arrive at the SEC media days on Thursday morning. It's the same firm representing disassociated Alabama booster Wendell Smith in his defamation suit against the NCAA.

Their goal is to get Fulmer under oath to discuss his role in the investigation of Alabama that landed the Crimson Tide on NCAA probation earlier this decade.

And if they embarrass him along the way, so be it.

It's debatable whether or not Fulmer will ever have to give a deposition, and if he does, rest assured that his attorney will make sure the parameters of what can and can't be asked will be extremely rigid. Something tells me the Sept. 25 deposition date -- two days before Tennessee plays at Auburn -- won't stick, either.

"I guess I'm not surprised that he was served a subpoena, but I am disappointed that someone would stoop to that level to ambush him," said Jeff Hagood, Fulmer's attorney. "For them to stake him out the way they did, that tells you a little something about what we're dealing with."

Perhaps so, but Fulmer was his own worst enemy here. By not being completely truthful, or, at least, not thinking out the whole thing a little bit better when word first started to leak out that he'd been subpoenaed, he allowed a non-issue to become THE issue that dominated the day.

Media members in Alabama already had copies of the subpoena minutes after Fulmer walked into the lobby of the Wynfrey Hotel. About that same time, the Tuscaloosa News had a story up on its web site.

In the meantime, Fulmer stuck to his story that he hadn't seen any kind of subpoena. He was asked several different times in several different settings.

At one point, I asked him specifically if he had been served a subpoena after he'd just finished telling a group of reporters that "somebody was just screwing around."

Fulmer's response was a very firm, "No, I haven't seen anything."

Then came another denial. Fulmer was asked if anybody came to visit with him while he was getting out of his vehicle.

"No, I didn't see anybody particularly that wasn't a fan or wanting an autograph that I didn't recognize. ... I didn't see anything. You guys are asking me about something I really don't know anything about at this particular point."

Now, what actually happened, according to Fulmer's attorney, is that the service processor sort of threw the subpoena at Fulmer and it fell to the ground. Fulmer picked it up, didn't look at it and instead gave it to Bud Ford, the Vols' associate athletic director for media relations, to put in a briefcase with the rest of Fulmer's papers.

Hagood said Fulmer didn't actually look at the subpoena until he was on the plane leaving Birmingham.

Later in the evening, he issued a scathing statement ripping the Alabama law firm that subpoenaed him.

The bottom line: Tennessee fans had better hope Fulmer handles his team better this season than he did this whole subpoena fiasco.

Even if he wasn't completely sure what he had been given before entering the hotel lobby, he had to know something was up when he started getting so many questions. Why not take a look then at what he'd given Ford to put in his briefcase?

SEC commissioner Mike Slive and Fulmer talked about the matter before the Vols' coach departed, and Slive was clearly upset that it happened. A fair question becomes: Is it time for this event to leave Birmingham and bolt for Atlanta, Nashville or somewhere in Florida?

Maybe I'll subpoena Slive, who refers to himself as a recovering attorney, and ask him.