Search Committees Are Lame

troy

Well-Known Member
One of the job repsonsibilities of a Division I Athletic Director is to keep a short list of possible future coaches in case a job comes open. A good A.D. should always be prepared. If I was Barta, I would want to be able to do the job I was hired to do, without the input of a search committee.
 
If I were the AD of Iowa things would be done a little different.

I would rent a Brinks truck and drive down to Knoxville. My truck would have one of those loops play like an ice cream truck does from its microphone but mine would play the Iowa Fight Song.

Using my fancy GPS I would locate the residence of Mr. Bruce Pearl. If he attempted to say no, each time he would try I would play Fight, Fight, Fight FOR IOWA so loud it would drown out his no's. Ultimately he would have to concede to the black and gold......and green!
 
One of the job repsonsibilities of a Division I Athletic Director is to keep a short list of possible future coaches in case a job comes open. A good A.D. should always be prepared. If I was Barta, I would want to be able to do the job I was hired to do, without the input of a search committee.

No it's not.
 
If I were the AD of Iowa things would be done a little different.

I would rent a Brinks truck and drive down to Knoxville. My truck would have one of those loops play like an ice cream truck does from its microphone but mine would play the Iowa Fight Song.

Using my fancy GPS I would locate the residence of Mr. Bruce Pearl. If he attempted to say no, each time he would try I would play Fight, Fight, Fight FOR IOWA so loud it would drown out his no's. Ultimately he would have to concede to the black and gold......and green!

First I was going to mock you. Then I was going to 1-up you. Then I wanted to mock myself.

Ultimately, if this worked, I'd probably be ok with it.
 
You had better hope you don't get lost down there. Instead of the Iowa Fight Song you might hear banjo music and be squealing like a pig.
 
You do realize that virtually ALL colleges and universities utilize search committees for the hiring of athletic coaches, especially for high profile sports (read: revenue generating). They do it for faculty as well.

This has absolutely NOTHING to do with Iowa being overly politically correct or anything like that. It's done like this all across the country.

I'm just constantly amazed at the naiveté demonstrated by the average person.
 
The difference is that the other schools pick people who actually know something about basketball. Outside of Bobby Hansen it's just a bunch of stuffed shirts.
 
No it's not.

Ghost, here's my reason for that statement: I really believe that AD's need to have some vision and foresight to anticipate changes. Look at the Keno Davis situation a few years back. He was on Providence's short list. Bo Ryan wasn't Wisconsin's first choice several years ago, but because he was on the short list, he got a chance, and look what he has done at Wisconsin. Tennessee's A.D. should have been aware that Lane Kiffen would at least try to get an interview with U.S.C. When that job came open, we knew Kiffen's name would be on the list.
 
The difference is that the other schools pick people who actually know something about basketball. Outside of Bobby Hansen it's just a bunch of stuffed shirts.
Search Committees are a perfunctory measure and have been utilized for decades. Do you think Kentucky is a great Basketball program? Here's some links on Kentucky using a search committee to land Calipari w/ the AD, one former player, and two others:

Kentucky Basketball Must Hit A Home Run In Search for New Head Coach | Bleacher Report

Newspaper article here from the 80's -- Kentucky used a search committee then too:

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Google News Archive Search

Stop worrying about the Search Committee please, let them do their job
 
You do realize that virtually ALL colleges and universities utilize search committees for the hiring of athletic coaches, especially for high profile sports (read: revenue generating). They do it for faculty as well.

This has absolutely NOTHING to do with Iowa being overly politically correct or anything like that. It's done like this all across the country.

I'm just constantly amazed at the naiveté demonstrated by the average person.

I get your point. Committees are the way things are done these days. However, with the state of Iowa basketball this past year, it would be hard for me to believe that Barta did not already have a list of possible replacements- before the season started. Lickliter had problems with recruiting, retention, discipline, game attendance, keeping players eligible, and winning games. If an AD isn't anticipating a possible change after all of those problems, I would question if he was paying attention to his program.
 
You do realize that virtually ALL colleges and universities utilize search committees for the hiring of athletic coaches, especially for high profile sports (read: revenue generating). They do it for faculty as well.

This has absolutely NOTHING to do with Iowa being overly politically correct or anything like that. It's done like this all across the country.

I'm just constantly amazed at the naiveté demonstrated by the average person.

You should check with Jon to find out if he would create an Above Average forum on this site for you and all your friends. I can only the imagine the laughs you guys would generate with your bioecomics topics!
 
With the makeup of our search committee, other than Bobby Hanson. Are we hiring a cook or a basketball coach.
 
I assume that a ''search'' committee is more ''smell test committee'' than search committee....Barta finds the candidates...then runs the finalist past the group for a smell test.
 
There are three primary purposes of the committiee.

1) They vet potential candidates. Regardless of the competence of the AD and his staff they are not trained properly nor do they have enough staff to properly vet the candidates. The preliminary list will likely contain at least a dozen names. Each one of them will have their backgrounds thoroughly checked. If one of these guys farted in church once bet your *** the search committee will know about it. If you want an example of what happens when you attempt to do this yourself but don’t have the ability or resources to do it properly look at ND and their football hire a few years back… whoops.

2) They also allow plausible deniability. When the search committee asks Pearl’s agent do you have interest in Iowa and he tells them no Iowa saves face because the university never officially inquired to see if he wanted the job. Saving face is a pretty important thing. Again I refer to ND, remember the last time they had a coaching vacancy and all those names came up as turning it down?

3) They avoid freedom of information act BS. Because the search is conducted by a private company and not a state institution they are under no requirements to make documents regarding the search public. This is partly for the same reasons as #2 but also covers the U’s *** in the unlikely of future litigation.
 
The search committee really doesn't search at all. They merely affirm the AD's choice, and posibly offer suggestions. I think it is mostly a figurehead type of deal.
 

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