MEMPHIS -- Taylor Tyndall is Donnie Tyndall's older daughter -- the one cameras caught celebrating when her father's team beat Louisville in the 2011 NCAA Tournament. The one Erin Andrews subsequently interviewed on national television. The one who actually told Tyndall to leave Morehead State for Southern Miss in March 2012 because she, even back then, at only 12 years old, completely understood dad's dreams and goals.
Grace Tyndall is Donnie Tyndall's younger daughter.
She, unlike her sister, did not want her father to relocate in 2012.
Which made sense, really.
Taylor and Grace live with their mother, you see. And their mom is Tyndall's ex-wife. So this wasn't a situation where the entire family would be moving to Hattiesburg, Miss. Taylor, Grace and their mother would remain in Kentucky regardless of how the coaching carousel turned. So Tyndall accepting the offer would require Taylor and Grace to live, for the first time in their lives, in a different state than their father. And Grace didn't like the idea of that.
But Taylor?
Taylor insisted he go.
"I remember she said, 'Daddy, if you're ever going to be like John Calipari, you have to go," Tyndall recalled. "We were living in Kentucky. So she knew John Calipari. And that's what she said. She said, 'Daddy, you have to move up if you're going to be like Calipari.' "
Shortly thereafter, Tyndall took the Southern Miss job.
He spent two years there.
Then, after winning 56 games in those two years, Tyndall was offered the chance to coach the Tennessee Volunteers, which would put him in the SEC and closer to Calipari than most coaches ever get. Again, Donnie Tyndall asked Taylor Tyndall for her opinion.
"Daddy, it's the SEC," she said. "It's your dream. You have to do it."
For that reason and plenty of other obvious ones -- most notably a multiyear/multimillion-dollar contract -- Tyndall took the job and went straight to work. He recruited relentlessly. Spoke to any group who'd listen. Tried like crazy to recapture some of the enthusiasm Bruce Pearl once injected into Tennessee. And, by all accounts, he was doing well.
Meantime, the NCAA was looking into the Southern Miss program he left behind.
Investigators found violations.
To what extent, and how much Tyndall was involved, remains unclear. But there's no denying investigators found violations which occurred during Tyndall's watch. So he coached last season under a cloud of uncertainty. And on March 26, after speaking with NCAA officials, UT AD Dave Hart requested a meeting for the following morning.
Tyndall entered Hart's office at 7 a.m.
First person he saw was a representative from human resources.
"And, for the first time, right then, that's when I knew I was done," Tyndall said.
Hart delivered the news quickly and matter-of-factly. Forty-five minutes later, CBSSports.com reported the development. Other outlets then aggregrated the story while Taylor Tyndall, Donnie's older daughter, sat at home completely unaware that what she had correctly called her daddy's dream a year earlier had just been taken away.
"But she has my name on a Google alert," Donnie Tyndall said. "So it's early that Friday morning. And she's just waking up. And she starts getting all these alerts saying I've been fired. So she goes into her mom's bedroom to ask if it's true."
Tyndall paused at this point in the story. His voice cracked a little.
"Whoo," he continued. "You just crumble. Having her find out that way was sickening. Her mom told me she just collapsed bawling. And that was the hardest part of the whole thing."
Donnie Tyndall doesn't want you feeling sorry for him.
Because he doesn't feel sorry for himself.
And this is not a story about how a man might've been wronged by a former assistant turned rat. Or about how UT arguably pulled the trigger on him prematurely. Or about how it's weird that some coaches get extensions during scandals while others get canned.
Those are all possible stories for another day.
But this story?
This story is a simpler story -- a story about what it's like to work your whole life for something only to have it fall apart abruptly. About what it's like to sign a six-year contract worth nearly $10 million and then have it voided 11 months later. About what it's like for a man to try to adjust to unemployment for the first time as an adult.
"It's been devastating," Tyndall said. "I'm 45 and starting over. No other way to say it."
We were sitting at the historic Peabody Hotel on a recent morning, Donnie Tyndall and I. He was sipping water. I drank coffee. He was in town to spend time with Memphis coach Josh Pastner. The Peabody Ducks were in the fountain a few feet behind us.
If it's possible to alternate between despair and optimism, Tyndall did and does.
On one hand, man, he's lost it all. A job he loved. A big salary. And the idea that the NCAA still hasn't sent a notice of allegations to Southern Miss means Tyndall remains a ways away from learning what, if any, penalties he'll be forced to endure. That leaves him very much in limbo and essentially unhirable, even as an assistant, and the Division I level.
That's the root of the despair.
On the other hand, though, Tyndall is only 45. And he's won everywhere he's been. And even if the NCAA investigation that got him fired discounts that in some people's minds, Todd Bozeman, Kelvin Sampson and Bruce Pearl are living examples of coaches who endured harsh penalties and reemerged. And that's a fact Tyndall grips tight.
That's the root of the optimism.
"I was the youngest head coach in the SEC last season," Tyndall said. "So I'm not giving up on my hopes and dreams. My dream has always been to play on a Monday night and win a national title, and that's still my dream. So people may say I'm delusional. But my dream is still to get back into coaching and coach on that Monday night."
Whether that dream ever becomes a reality is up for debate.
Regardless, Tyndall isn't sitting still.
He's spent the past few months networking -- talking and visiting with just about anybody who has time to talk or visit. He has no hobbies, you must understand. He doesn't golf or fish. He doesn't hunt or garden. He's a basketball coach, plain and simple. So he's been on the phone with everybody from Billy Donovan to Frank Martin, visited with people who work for the Spurs and Pistons, and chatted with countless athletic directors.
To a man, basically without exception, folks have been helpful.
Encouraging, even.
Especially other college coaches.
"Guys have been good," Tyndall said. "Because they all know ..."
Tyndall didn't complete his thought, but the implication was clear. When he said they all know, what he meant is they all know they could theoretically be him because, at the high-major level, let's be honest, almost nobody is squeaky clean -- proof being that there are only six active Hall of Fame coaches, and three of them (UNC's Roy Williams, SMU's Larry Brown and Syracuse's Jim Boeheim) have endured recent NCAA investigations while another (Kentucky's John Calipari) will forever be tagged with two vacated Final Fours.
"So nobody is trying to be holier than thou," Tyndall said.
Still, again, what's next for him is unclear.
But Tyndall insisted he wants to get back to work, ASAP.
He could, in a matter of months, end up in professional basketball here in the United States. There's an international job that might present itself. TV and radio is always a possibility. And he'll be spending time with the Toronto Raptors during the NBA's summer league.
After that, we'll see.
Either way, the biggest source of hope comes from a man Tyndall was, just four months ago, trying to emulate at UT. The most encouraging call yet came from, yep, Bruce Pearl.
Pearl rang shortly after Tyndall was fired.
He invited him to come and spend a few days at Auburn.
He reminded Tyndall of what he too went through at Tennessee.
"The biggest thing he said was, 'Donnie, I know you're sitting there thinking your career is over and you'll never coach again; I had the exact same thoughts,'" Tyndall recalled. "'But I'm telling you, you'll be back.' That's the best thing he told me. He told me I'll be back."
