Bruce Pearl on if his son Steven could succeed him at Auburn: 'He's ready'

Bruce Pearl believes his son, Steven, is prepared to take over as a head coach. Steven Pearl has been an assistant on the Auburn staff under his father since the 2017-18 season and was promoted to associate head coach in 2023-24.

Bruce Pearl turned 65 in March, and was asked on The Sideline with Andy Katz whether he would want Steven to take over when he eventually retires. Houston has a similar situation where current head coach Kelvin Sampson‘s son, Kellen, is an assistant on staff and has already been deemed as the “coach-in-waiting” in his contract with the school.

Pearl didn’t address whether anything like that could happen at Auburn. He did, however, assert his confidence that his son is deserving of a head coaching gig somewhere with a short but firm answer.

“He’s ready,” Pearl said.

Katz pressed one more time for Pearl to answer if that could possibly be with the Tigers, but the coach didn’t budge. He did, however, explain that he has primarily put Steven in charge of drawing up the defensive schemes for Auburn when game planning.

The Tigers had the ninth-best adjusted defensive efficiency rating in the country this past season according to KenPom. That could certainly be a strength that Steven Pearl could bring to a team whenever the time comes for him to get his chance as a head coach.

“He’s ready,” Pearl repeated. “Listen, new concept now. Steven’s my defensive coordinator and Mike Burgomaster is my offensive coordinator. I’m getting a little bit older. I can still game plan, like I’ve always been able to teach and things like that, (but) it doesn’t work quite as fast as it used to work. So I’ve got great coordinators helping me coach my team. It’s a new concept and I think it’s something other coaches should look at.”

Prior to accept an assistant role in 2017-18, Steven Pearl was a strength and conditioning coach in 2014-15. He took over as the director of basketball operations the season after that and kept the role for the next two years. He also played college basketball for his father at Tennessee from 2007-11.

Bruce Pearl took over as the coach at Auburn in the 2014-15 season. He has since gone on to become the winningest coach in program with a 246-125 record since then and led the team to two Final Fours.

One of those came this past season, though the Tigers went on to lose against eventual champion Florida. They’ll look to get back to the Final Four again in 2025-26 as Steven Pearl prepares to enter his ninth year as an assistant coach.