Athletic Director Search Advisory Committee

I've been meaning to address this for a while since it's been awhile since Gary Cunningham stepped down. Now that I've got a free moment, I wanted to address something that provides the perfect microcosm for why things at UCSB can never be simple.

Take a look at the Search Advisory Committee in the search for UCSB's new Athletic Director. For those of you too lazy to click the link, there are 22 members in the committee by my count. Here is a list of the committee members, along with their relationship to UCSB:

Janis Ingham, NCAA Faculty Athletics Representative, Co-Chair
George Thurlow, Executive Director, UCSB Alumni Association, Co-Chair
Marty Davis, Head Coach, Men’s Tennis
Elizabeth Downing, University Physician; Director, Student Health Services
Rune Eliasen, Community Member
Mark French, Head Coach, Women’s Basketball
Jay Glazer, Community Member
Tsuyochi Hasegawa, Professor of History; Member, Intercollegiate Athletics Policy Board
Amy Jacobs, Staff Representative; Member, Intercollegiate Athletics Policy Board
Bethany Nickless, Student-Athlete Representative; Co-Chair, Student-Athlete Advisory Board
Fyl Pincus, Professor of Materials and Physics
Lynn Reitnouer, UCSB Foundation Trustee; Former Men’s Basketball Team Member
Cedric Robinson, Professor of Black Studies
James Romeo, Lecturer, Exercise and Sports Studies
Denise Segura, Professor of Sociology
Associated Students Representative, TBA
Graduate Students Association Representative, TBA

Ex-Officio Representatives
Ricardo Alcaino, Director of the Office of Equal Opportunity
Bobby Castagna, Associate Athletic Director
Todd Lee, Assistant Chancellor for Budget and Planning; Chair, NCAA Self-Study Group
Diane O’Brien, Associate Athletic Director; Senior Women’s Administrator
Paula Rudolph, Sexual Harassment Officer; Title IX Coordinator

Talk about too many cooks in the kitchen. Or too many chiefs and not enough indians. You get the point, but Dr. Yang did not. I have no idea what he was thinking, but I wonder if he really believes that 22 people in a room can come to a consensus on the one man or woman who can lead UCSB's Athletic Department. You can't please everyone Henry. Unfortunately, in your quest to appease everyone, you've left one big clusterf***.

Not that Yang would have asked me, but I could have pared this list down extensively for him.

1. Why do we need two community members on this list? I know we're trying to reach out to the community and all, but the only team (besides the "smaller" sports) that seem to have a problem attracting people is the Men's Basketball Team. I think one member, if any, would suffice.

2. Um, the University physician? I didn't even know we had such a position. Why does the physician need to assist in the choosing of the AD? Not sure about this one.

3. There are five professors on the committee. Do we really need five (really? five?) professors? My guess is that two professors would have done the trick. Jim Romeo will be good and Professor Hasegawa due to Hasegawa's position on the Intercollegiate Athletics Policy Board.

4. Really though, the ex-officio members would have done just fine, along with one student representative and one current coach.

This is ridiculous. I cannot imagine how on earth these people will come to some sort of general consensus as to their choice.

The ultimate problem with this is that, just like the search committee, we're going to get a new AD who amounts to nothing more than the status quo (i.e. Gary Williams). The new AD will have to please 22 people, so they're not going to pick the best candidate (i.e. the one most likely to fire/not renew the under-achieving Bob Williams) who will make tough decisions (is that a tough decision?), but they're going to pick the AD who keeps things the same.

The bottom line is that it's a shame because UCSB deserves someone who can give our school national recognition through our sports programs. Having a visible sports program increases knowledge about UCSB and, in my opinion, opens more doors in the career search of a UCSB graduate. If we go with another plain vanilla AD, we can expect some of the same old shit. The coaches with the drive and fire (Vom Steeg) will continue to succeed, while the coaches who are content to wallow in mediocrity and collect a paycheck perform on a .500 basis year-in, year-out.

Like I said, that would be a shame.