Search Committees Are Lame

DuffMan said:
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.
Click to expand...

Where was this paraphrased from?

And I'm confused. You appear to be in favor of legal technicalities, against Freedom of Information, in favor of saving face, and against using proper grammar... You sir, are an anomaly.
 
troy said:
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.
Click to expand...

What makes you think Search committees and a list of potential canidates are mutually exclusive?

Common sense would dictate that a smart person utilize both of them.
 
DuffMan said:
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.
Click to expand...


There are two different groups here:

There is the Parker Search Firm that we hired to do all the contacting/plausible deniability deal...and then

There is the Search Committee that is made of of Mims,Barta,Hansen ect...this is more of a seeking of a concensus among Iowa insiders,and just getting feedback.
 
koolhandlick said:
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.
Click to expand...

I doubt the majority of people on this forum are famous enough that anyone here would recognize their names... does that mean none of us know what we're talking about, including you?
 
troy said:
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.
Click to expand...

What's wrong with a search committee? Have you been a part of the hiring process of a successful company? Say - to make things equal - by a fortune 100 company?

Last job interview I had was in front of a committee of 6 people - that was after I was filtered through a list of candidates from an office separate from the facilities conducting the interviews... plus had a 2nd phase of interviewing with another group after that... before you decide to bash that process, the same company had a record in total sales of over 9 billion 2 years ago and we almost tied that last year - in a media driven down year. None of them were experts in my field... the next phase of interviews came from experts in my field... sound familiar?
 
TooLegit said:
Where was this paraphrased from?

And I'm confused. You appear to be in favor of legal technicalities, against Freedom of Information, in favor of saving face, and against using proper grammar... You sir, are an anomaly.
Click to expand...

I'm confused on proper message board ettiquite. Do I mount a counter attack agaisnt this dbag even though he's banned?
 
DuffMan said:
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.
Click to expand...

You've accurately described the work of a private search firm like Parker - not the search committee.

Search committee = figleafery, particularly around minority hiring.

Anyone who imagines otherwise is naive. And you will never hear anyone admit this on the record. Not to say committee members won't also provide valuable input and perspective, they will - but Barta could get that without a formal committee.
 
Husky28 said:
What's wrong with a search committee? Have you been a part of the hiring process of a successful company? Say - to make things equal - by a fortune 100 company?

Last job interview I had was in front of a committee of 6 people - that was after I was filtered through a list of candidates from an office separate from the facilities conducting the interviews... plus had a 2nd phase of interviewing with another group after that... before you decide to bash that process, the same company had a record in total sales of over 9 billion 2 years ago and we almost tied that last year - in a media driven down year. None of them were experts in my field... the next phase of interviews came from experts in my field... sound familiar?
Click to expand...

You make a lot of good points. However, I don't think the hiring process for college coaches falls into the traditional corporate interview process model, but I appreciate the points that you made. My point was to give Barta the freedom to identify a candidate and the ability to go get him. Timing and urgency are important, because coaches who are having successful seasons are sought after. They don't usually have to send in their resume when a coaching job comes open, because AD's are aware of successful coaches and try to hire them. Roy Williams was happy at Kansas, but Carolina went after him and got him. Now Iowa isn't Carolina, but if Gary Barta finds a coach that is a good fit for Iowa, I believe he should have the power to use all available resources to make an offer to that coach, regardless of what the committee says. Barta will be supervising the coach, not the committee.
 
GhostofBTT said:
Quote:
Originally Posted by troy
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.
Click to expand...

I'm going to go with troy on this one ... YES, it is.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Share this page

Top