CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WVLT) -- Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton spoke further in Chattanooga Wednesday about Bruce Pearl's recent admission that he committed an NCAA violation and lied about it to investigators.

"People make mistakes," Hamilton said at a meeting of the Chattanooga Rotary Club. "In this situation he acknowledged his mistake."

"You're left with two alternatives -- do you make a change, or do you accept his apology and take your punishment and move ahead?"

Bruce Pearl's job is safe, Hamilton said.

"We've decided that he's our guy and we want him to be our coach for a long time. We accepted that apology.

"We had to extract some punishment preliminarily, and that does not mean the NCAA wouldn't do more, but we took some advance steps to hopefully mitigate that."