Let's be clear, for those critical of Barta's hiring abilities.

Thawki

Thawki

Well-Known Member
Some people act like Bump Elliott was the man when it came to hiring the right coach. After all, he hired Hayden, TD and Gable. Then again, he hired Lauterbur and Commings before Hayden. He also hired Dick Schultz before he hired Lute. And The Raveling hire is not one many here would ever tout.

So don't act like Barta and his one hire of Lick make him out to be an idiot compared to Bump. Barta was smart enough to figure out a way to get Alford to leave for a "lessor" program and he didn't have to pay him a buyout. Pretty much anyone chirping now was glad when that happened, and if you act like you weren't you're probably a liar or an idiot.

Barta was good enough to get this facilities upgrade funded with a coach who doesn't have much of an engaging personality for fund raising purposes and the program was in the worst shape in terms of fan support and wins-losses that it has ever been in. And yet he made the facilities upgrade happen in the worst possible of economic times.

So, let's see, he has one bad hire on his watch, and he didn't handle the football players/sex scandal very well. Other than that I can't see much wrong with what he has done.

I don't want to see another basketball hire that doesn't work either. But don't act like he can't make the right call because he missed on the first one. And don't pretend that Bump Elliott could do no wrong. I am a huge Bump Elliott fan, but he wasn't perfect when it came to hiring coaches.
 
I think his hiring process the last time was poor and I question his judgment and willingness to dig beneath the obvious to find the best candidate. However, your post reads as though it matters what any of us might think or say about our confidence (or lack thereof) in Barta.

It doesn't matter. He will hire whomever he wants to hire no matter what any of us say or think about it--at least those of us who aren't on the search committee, in University administration, or regularly making six-figure-plus donations.

So, you really don't need to concern yourself with the validity of anyone's thought process on this issue.

Barta does need to do well with it this time, though, because if he doesn't he may not get the chance to do it a third time.
 
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Thawki said:
Some people act like Bump Elliott was the man when it came to hiring the right coach. After all, he hired Hayden, TD and Gable. Then again, he hired Lauterbur and Commings before Hayden. He also hired Dick Schultz before he hired Lute. And The Raveling hire is not one many here would ever tout.

So don't act like Barta and his one hire of Lick make him out to be an idiot compared to Bump. Barta was smart enough to figure out a way to get Alford to leave for a "lessor" program and he didn't have to pay him a buyout. Pretty much anyone chirping now was glad when that happened, and if you act like you weren't you're probably a liar or an idiot.

Barta was good enough to get this facilities upgrade funded with a coach who doesn't have much of an engaging personality for fund raising purposes and the program was in the worst shape in terms of fan support and wins-losses that it has ever been in. And yet he made the facilities upgrade happen in the worst possible of economic times.

So, let's see, he has one bad hire on his watch, and he didn't handle the football players/sex scandal very well. Other than that I can't see much wrong with what he has done.

I don't want to see another basketball hire that doesn't work either. But don't act like he can't make the right call because he missed on the first one. And don't pretend that Bump Elliott could do no wrong. I am a huge Bump Elliott fan, but he wasn't perfect when it came to hiring coaches.
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I agree with everything you say, except maybe the practice facility. Did he really raise the necessary money for it or is the money coming from increased windfalls from the BTN?
 
Lick was the national COY. Not many people complained about this hire at the time. It looked like a good hire just as the hiring of Alford looked good at the time. They just didn't work out. Most AD's anywhere would have made those hires under the given circumstances.
 
Last time we had to form a committee to find our new coach. Won't we have to go through that again or can Barta make the decision by himself?
 
As I have said,you do not fire an AD for one bad hire, or one bad contract. Hiring an AD is a painful process.

Good points for Barta:
Barta did get the bb facility going,finally.
It looks like he is going to stop the bleeding in the bb program pretty quickly.

Mistakes:
Hiring lick... I do not care what you say, he is the one who examined the whole resume and spent hours interviewing the man..he should have seen this coming..Butler is not Iowa,and his track record with recruiting and personnel management were not great.

The ultimatum to SA was a mixed bag. If he was determined to fire SA anyway,then I guess he saved the buyout, but I am not sure he should have been determined to fire SA in the first place.

So, Barta still has this hire to make...it could be his last at Iowa if it is not reasonably good. Make it good,Gary.
 
SBHawk said:
Lick was the national COY. Not many people complained about this hire at the time. It looked like a good hire just as the hiring of Alford looked good at the time. They just didn't work out. Most AD's anywhere would have made those hires under the given circumstances.
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If the same AD had made both of those hires, he'd probably be looking for a new job himself.
 
Thawki, good post. Good stuff in it.

The only thing I would say is that when Elliott made those early hires that didn't pan out, college athletics was not the big business that it is today, therefore the number of opportunities that Elliott had to get it right will likely be greater than those afforded an athletics director in today's 'big business' climate.

Barta used an outside search firm to find Lickliter and other candidates, among other means. I can't recall specifically how much he relied on their help, either exclusively or partly, in coming to terms with Lickliter. Hiring a national coach of the year as Gary did is some pretty good cover, IMO. And I remember thinking that Iowa could have nabbed an older version of Lute back at the time of Lick's hiring. Perhaps that was over the top optimistic thinking, as I was just giddy at the thought of fresh blood bringing the fanbase back together following the divisiveness of the Alford era.

However, I don't think anyone saw the worst three years in program history coming down the pike, or that Lickliter would be lacking on the communication front with his players the way he has here at Iowa.

There will be a lot more to say about this in the coming days
 
Thawki said:
So, let's see, he has one bad hire on his watch, and he didn't handle the football players/sex scandal very well. Other than that I can't see much wrong with what he has done.

.
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So what else has he had to do? I don't have much faith in him.

Jamie Pollard = Greasy Little Weasel
Gary Barta = Nice guy, empty suit
 
What role has Barta had in keeping Ferentz here? I genuinely do not know. I know Kirk appears to be comfortable and has a pretty good personal situation that may add to his satisfaction.

But I also know a bad boss can screw up even the best of cirumstances, and there are some skills required to keep a solid performer motivated, happy and well fed, particularly when the occasional problem arises (eg: player arrests.)
 
One thing about ADs involved in hiring and the use of search firms. In the old days athletic directors were former coaches and had an old boy network to rely on, today athletic directors are almost all career administrators. They may have to be more reliant on search firms and word of mouth from other career administrators.

I don't think you can kill Barta for a bad hire. I am sure he has learned some valuable lessons from this.
 
Busting on Barta for hiring Lick is stupid. Maybe he should've dug deeeper and done a little more "back ground" checks on him but hiring him was certainly plausable to me.
If the current situation shakes out with Lick looking for a new job and the info regarding meetings with players etc. is true I'd say he's done a pretty good job of staying on top of the situation.
His casual openly supportive statement about a month ago concerned me only because it appeared like he was just doing the CYA thing and not directing his programs.
Most of the info that has come out, if true, makes me think that Barta is exactly the leader I want to see running things.
 
Another thing that should help Barta in the next hire is that he should now have a much better understanding of what kind of coach it will take it will take to be successful at Iowa. The new coach must have many of Bruce Pearl's traits to be successful and turn this thing around (a very good recruiter and communicator with players/media/fans).
 
I'm not sure if the search comittee/search firm thing is something mandated by university policy or not but it does seem to have a downside. I know a search firm is able to "unofficially" put out feelers to guage interest from prospective coaches with no damage done to eithetr side.That's certainly a posisitve.

However, it seems like there were some folks (including former players, recruiting experts, etc.) that were left out of the process the last time around and maybe they shouldn't have been.

IF a change is in the works, I hope Barta does more listening this time around.
 
SBHawk said:
Lick was the national COY. Not many people complained about this hire at the time. It looked like a good hire just as the hiring of Alford looked good at the time. They just didn't work out. Most AD's anywhere would have made those hires under the given circumstances.
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When Barta hired Lickliter he didn't even KNOW that Lickliter had won COY, he was quoted in several papers as saying this. This indicates to me that Barta did not do his due diligence when he hired Lickliter and I think that it is tough to argue that the result turned out to be a success. I hope that he has learned from that experience but I personally am not optimistic about the next hire and I think that the result will be that the program will continue to be horrid until Barta eventually leaves (fired) and another AD is brought in that is capable of hiring a coach that can turn the program around - I do not believe that Barta will be successful in this regard.
 
Barta and Sally should have been fired after the sex scandal. He said he did not do anything wrong, but the point is he didn't DO much at all. It was an embarrassment. A leader who lets something that horrible get out of hand should not be entrusted with the legacy of Iowa athletics.

If he can't handle a crisis like that, why should he be permitted to select coaches that affect Iowa success for years to come?

This our school and our legacy, not his. I lost my passion knowing a guy like him is sitting in the luxury suite representing my alma mater.
 
I agree that Barta,if this is going down as reported, has actually stepped into a bad situation of his own creation,and is taking charge to minimize the damage of his bad hire...that is a definite positive. The last thing we need is a stubborn AD who is willing to go down in flames to validate his initial mistake.

I has to show that he has learned from getting burned,tho. He has to show he has a better understanding of the unique challenge of the Iowa bb job,and not just hire the anti-SA,which is what Lick looked like...
He has to get down in the trenches and demand a realistic gameplan for getting Iowa back to a competitive bb program from candidates...specifics...like staff qualifications,and history,and recruiting prowess in areas we can pull players out of.

None of this...''just trust me Gary'' crap...he has to nail down specifics this time.
The ball is in his court...time to prove your value,Gary.
 
I'd say that one has to be careful of giving to much credit/criticism to any AD's hiring abilities. The way I see it is hiring a good coach is mostly luck. You don't really know who is going to be successful where.
 
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