Bruce Pearl (1978)

College basketball coach

What is Bruce Pearl (1978) known for?

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Bruce Pearl (born March 18, 1960) is a distinguished American college basketball coach with an illustrious career. Pearl attended Sharon High School in Sharon, Massachusetts and is a well-known alumnus. He stands out as one of the few Division I basketball coaches who never played high school basketball, a distinction he carries due to a shoulder injury during his first year of high school whilst playing American football.

Pearl started his coaching career as an assistant coach at Stanford from 1982 to 1986, later moving to Iowa in the same role until 1992. Following his stints as an assistant coach, Pearl took up the head coach position at Southern Indiana from 1992 to 2001. He then served as the head coach at Milwaukee from 2001 to 2005 and Tennessee from 2005 to 2011. He has been the head coach at Auburn since 2014.

Boasting an impressive record, Pearl has tallied 652 wins with a winning percentage of 0.717 in his head coaching career and 190 wins with a 0.629 winning percentage at Auburn specifically. In his tenure, his teams have had significant success in tournaments. They have an overall record of 17 wins in NCAA Division I, a win in NIT, 13 wins in SEC, 5 wins in the Horizon League, and 8 wins in the GLVC.

His coaching genius has won him multiple Championships, notably the NCAA Division I Regional – Final Four in 2019 and the NCAA Division II tournament in 1995 with Southern Indiana. Additionally, Pearl's teams have won 4 GLVC regular seasons, 2 Horizon League tournaments, 2 Horizon League regular seasons, and 3 SEC regular seasons.

Pearl's excellence in coaching has not gone unnoticed, earning him the NABC Division II Coach of the Year in 1995, the Sporting News Coach of the Year in 2006, and the Adolph Rupp Cup in 2008. He has also been named GLVC Coach of the Year twice (1993, 1994) and Horizon League Coach of the Year three times (2002, 2003, and 2005). In the prestigious SEC, he has been named Coach of the Year three times (2006, 2008, and 2022).

Apart from his college coaching career, Pearl also contributed internationally. He led the Maccabi USA men's basketball team to a gold medal victory at the 2009 Maccabiah Games.

Pearl is an alumnus of Boston College, where he graduated in 1982 and served as the manager of the men's basketball team. His career has not only created a legacy in basketball coaching but also inspired many who have aspired to follow in his footsteps.