Yes, obviously the best recruiter that UK had, proven by the fact that Brooks made him the Recruiting Coordinator AND gave him part of his salary to keep him when there was talk of him getting a better position at some school named Bama, you probably have heard of them. Oh, by the way, he was also the RC at Florida, two top five classes in his two years there, wonder what the difference was?
Couldn't have been the available talent in state, the COMMITMENT TO FOOTBALL (or lack thereof), etc, etc, or could it have been? Joker was an excellent coach, PROVEN by taking two LATE three stars from in state, a two star JC transfer, and a FOUR POINT NINE legacy recruit, and turning them into the best receiving corp in UK history-------three of them with good NFL careers (Burton cut short by injuries just when he became a starter) and Lyons with a shot, again hampered by injuries.
NOT a good head coach apparently, and one of his biggest mistakes was firing some very good veteran coaches because he knew they didn't like to leave the city limits to recruit, but then they didn't have much to sell at the time either, did they? One picture of the "recruiting room", which all the SEC coaches had framed and readily available, was all it took to tell any recruit that the coaches telling UK was committed to FOOTBALL was a bald faced liar and not to be trusted------were the fans committed, big time (averaged ABOVE listed capacity in 07 for a team with a losing SEC record) was the athletic department, get real.. LOL, at the fans criticizing him for not fighting for top recruits, unless they were die hard fans of UK why waste your time and resources? And then home state loyalty doesn't have much place in a lot of spoiled athletes lives, not when you can never get your uniform dirty and be a part of a NC.
Of course Tee did pretty well recruiting, but then he admitted he LIED about our facilities and avoided some of them like the plague.
Don't forget all the OTHER SEC ADs recognized that FOOTBALL was the money cow and were pouring resources into it for years while UK had a recruiting budget for 25 football recruits a year LESS than for the basketball program that has EVERYTHING, with typically four or five commits a year (before Cal), Brooks worked miracles by finding AND coaching up overlooked recruits (He said 5.3 Trevathan was a four star-------as soon as he was safely signed, and he was low in his estimate)------so yeah, I guess Joker deserves a lot of ridicule, he wasn't a miracle worker like Brooks was.
Once again I would like to thank all the long time dedicated season ticket holders that had tickets in the family for generations for sacrificing them in order to FORCE the changes we have had lately. And although we did lose millions (and still are) in the process it was a big help in reviving our program, although it is hard to spend all the money the SEC generates now, and thank FOOTBALL for that.
