Whether Jeff Long will take the Arkansas AD job or is still merely considering it is unclear. It seems salary issues aren’t nearly that big a difference. Long makes somewhere around $200K at Pitt and it’s likely that Arkansas would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $250K.

I found this amusing old school rant on how retiring icon and AD Frank Broyles has been frozen out of the hiring of his replacement. Not to mention the next guy not being a Razorback

Long and Dickson have more in common than not being from the Broyles tree. Both have strong connections to private schools.

And none to the Razorbacks.

Dickson hails from Tulsa, played football there and was the AD there, but who knows if he has ever been in the state ?

Or if Long’s entry and exit by jet was the first time he had seen the Boston Mountains up close and personal.

Maybe the new tradition at Arkansas is to hire folks for athletic positions who have never called the Hogs.

No offense intended to either of the men, but do they know anything about the history of the Hogs ?

Or the passion that once seized almost an entire state every Saturday in the fall?

Those are things that guys like Scott Bull, Bill Montgomery and Chuck Dicus know personally, but if they got anything more than a courtesy interview, they are the only ones who know it.

It appears that to be a candidate for one of the most significant hires in recent history, you have to be null and void of Razorbacks red blood.

I’m trying to figure out Long’s “private school” connections since it isn’t at Pitt. It wasn’t at Eastern Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Michigan. I’m guessing old Wally believes Pitt is a private school, and has no idea what Long’s resume says. But dammit, he knows Tulane is a private school.

This leads to the issue of what do schools want from a modern Athletic Director. Broyles is the last (or one of the last) of the “old school” ADs in major college athletics. That is, a former coach who moved up to the AD position.
I’m sure many of you won’t be shocked to learn there is actually a dissertation related to ths matter by a doctoral student (PDF).

Actually, the topic is what athletic donors want from modern ADs today (Athletics Donors’ Preferences for an Athletics Director’s Leadership Characteristics and Behaviors), but there is a bit about what the modern AD is about that I find useful.

Due to the complex nature of IADs today, institutional presidents hire search firms and/or put together inclusive search committees to match the experiences of qualified candidates with institutional needs. Corporate business backgrounds, public relations expertise, law degrees, and business development experience are commonly sought characteristics of some of the ADs hired today. A coaching background no longer appears to be a prerequisite. In 2000, the University of Michigan hired businessman and President of the United States Olympic Committee, Bill Martin, to take its IAD from the red into the black. In 2004, Colorado State University hired bank president Mark Driscol from the private sector to sit in the number one spot in athletics on the Fort Collins campus.

Today, every decision made by an AD is examined under the public’s microscope, particularly those having to do with how money is spent. This is very different from the days when an AD had complete autonomy.

The twenty-first century AD also has a much more demanding, complex set of responsibilities than in the past. She/he is responsible for cost control, compliance with continually changing NCAA legislation, fundraising, recruiting of student athletes, and overseeing the coaching staffs. The AD is also responsible for organizing and motivating employees, complying with institutional, NCAA, and federal rules and regulations, and directing all operations of the department. And, of course, the AD must never lose sight of winning the expected number of yearly contests.

Increasingly, the ADs success is measured by the fulfillment of traditional business or educational leadership objectives, in addition to demonstrating ongoing success in the arena of intercollegiate athletics. ADs today carry the weight of responsibility when it comes to keeping the department financially solvent.

One of the aspects that you can also look to in success at major programs is longevity/stability at the AD position. It’s one area that Pitt has yet to get.

If you look at the overall Pitt athletic department, the improvements to Pitt have continued under Long. The women’s basketball team has become respectable and is now getting ranked. The baseball team has been slowly improving. There is an effort to provide real facilities and actually treat the other sports as better than club teams.

We can decry the issue of color and logo, but that’s a minor issue in reality. It really is. And I say this as someone who prefers the old school There isn’t any angst over that during basketball season — partly because there is no old memories of associations with the script and colors and greatness in basketball. But also because the basketball team is winning. Winning helps a lot of that stuff.

Overall, trying to look at this issue objectively, I think I would prefer Long to stay. The stability and work he has done on the whole athletic department pushes me to that position. However, tepidly.