The Process Matters
Written by Daniel on April 18, 2008 – 9:38 am - Welcome, if you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or subscribe to our email newsletter. Thanks for visiting!
My column in the most recent edition of The Warrior:
“Wear your blue and gold to weelcome Marquette’s new men’s baskletball coach”
The foregoing was the opening line in the Special News Brief from Marquette University announcing the hiring of new head men’s basketball coach Buzz Williams. I count three errors. Let’s hope it’s not an omen.
The hurry to get out the News Brief, and hence the lack of appropriate editing, is indicative of the way this entire hire has gone: rushed and garbled.
Even if it’s not all their fault, the blatant mishandling of Tom Crean’s departure has left fans and students casting a skeptical eye at the athletics department. To earn that trust back, the Department needs to act humbly and recognize that process matters.
At a press conference immediately following Crean’s departure, Athletics Director Steve Cottingham said, “We are not going to have a search committee. I think that the level that we’re at, it is a management decision within the university.”
They followed through on that pledge, turned around a very quick hire, and promoted Buzz Williams. The Williams pick appears to be driven by a short-sighted desire to keep a few key recruits for next year rather than a long-term vision for the program.
There was no search committee for Cottingham’s job either. When Bill Cords departed as AD well over a year ago, we were told that Cottingham’s number one job as interim AD would be to recruit a great successor. Fourteen months later, not a single interview had happened, even though over 60 eager and qualified candidates had applied. One day, Cottingham decided he thought he should stay on permanently, and a “management decision” was made that gave him the job.
The athletics department did empanel a search committee once in the last few years, for the hire of the men’s soccer coach in 2006. Student-athletes were selected to interview candidates and provide feedback. Cords made a “management decision” to hire Louie Bennett, and the search committee was not involved at all.
Allow me to further note that the search committee for the provost (at least there is one!) does not have any student members, so this problem is not just in the Athletics Department.
My point is this: Process matters. When people trust the management, it is easier for the management to make an executive decision. When trust has been bruised, however, then a committee process that includes all the stakeholders is important. Transparency is important. Take your time and think things through.
We talk often at Marquette about dialogue, empowerment, and community. Perhaps we would avoid both superficial and substantive mistakes if we followed a process that made stakeholders feel confident and included.
Last 5 posts by Daniel- WisEye in Wis Lawyer - November 16th, 2008
- 2nd MU GOPer in the House - November 8th, 2008
- Textbook Case - November 3rd, 2008
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- That's not a good thing - November 3rd, 2008
Posted in Marquette Golden Chickens |
April 19th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Daniel, why I agree with you that going through a process like you illustrated is the best option for positions in the academic realm, it’s not always a realistic option when it comes to hiring coaches, especially a position the profile and caliber of men’s basketball coach.
Crean basically pulled the wool over MU’s eyes with the way he left; he let his players find out thru the media, left a voicemail for Cottingham while he was on a plane to Colorado, and Fr. Wild didn’t even speak to him until Crean’s private jet was on the tarmac in Bloomington. Not to mention he left the basketball office in arrears from what I have been told (much of MU’s basketball paperwork concerning recruiting was MIA, and the remaining staff was scrambling to get in touch with recruits).
When you are competing against 20+ other major D1 programs for a new coach, it has to be a MANAGEMENT decision who you hire, since it has to be done so quickly. All good ADs, like Cottingham, always have a list of replacement sprepared for a situation like this, and once we dug thru the first 24 of chaos, we handled this situation as well as could be expected.
MU went thru a process, to the extent of which we won’t fully know, but we do know this. We know that Cottingham ran the decision thru many members of the Board of Trustees, including many minds in the know such as Doc Rivers. I’ve also been told the BoT gave clearance to Cottingham to offer whatever he wanted for a new coach, to the extent that Tony Bennett reportedly turned down $2+ million a year. And other names, like Sean Miller, were reportedly contacted as well, but were not interested. So it came down to Buzz, the #3 choice.
It may not be the community-centric approach you want, but it’s a far different type of decision than hiring a new Provost. Students will continue to come even if you don’t have a provost, but you can’t guarentee your current team will stay or incoming players will come without a coach. So long as Cottingham knew that Buzz was his man after going thru his process, why wait to pull the trigger?
I think people are going to be very surprised in the next couple of months as we start seeing the vision Buzz Williams has for MU basketball. From what we have heard from some of his incoming recruits so far, Buzz will be selling Marquette University as not just a basketball program, but as an experience, and is going to bring in a staff that will sell the complete Marquette experience beyond basketball, which would prove to be quite a refreshing change from the previous regime.