The Illinois AD Search

[Second and Chalmers]

And by the way, my guess is, the attitudes of a lot of faculty members and admissions staff members towards this is not so much genuine substantive concern over the consequences of letting in lesser-credentialed athletes, but horror and disgust over the system that already exists.

To have admissions standards be a "problem" for the DIA serves the same function for these folks as it does for a lot of our fans and a lot of NCAA fans in general, to block out the reality of what college sports is. To say "oh, we're different" and walk briskly along before the stench of the lie reaches your nose.

Power Five football and men's basketball are a total farce pretty much any way you look at it, and are a pretty ugly thing if you choose to look at it that way. But you can self-justify in a way that both reflects reality and doesn't artificially hamstring the whole purpose of the farcical enterprise to begin with.

 

[AutoPoster 3000]

Letting in 85 football players and 13 basketball players on reduced standards isn't going to have any effect on the appearance of our academics.

While I agree that letting in a handful of elite athletes with sub-par qualifications wouldn't hurt the academic perception of the university as much as, let's say for argument's sake, maintaining a "clout list" of politically and socially well-connected applicants who receive "special consideration" for admission, we can't forget that we have a reputation to uphold here. I for one applaud the university president, chancellor, and at least seven of the nine members of the board of trustees for steadfastly protecting the integrity of our fine institution by ensuring that these unqualified, not-children-of-influential-state-power-brokers, 4- and 5-star athletes are kept out of our classrooms.

 

[AutoPoster 3000]

I think the most important thing to understand is that we're already there and have been for a long time.

The caliber and background and preparedness of entering students that make up our two revenue sport teams is very little different than it was in 1990 or 1970 or whatever.

The caliber of the average student at large on campus, however, has skyrocketed and continues to go up. Every year it's higher ACT's and better grades and more test prep and more tutoring and more flashy extracurriculars and on and on and on.

The athletes don't belong. You can spot them a mile away. That doesn't mean they're dumb or they don't deserve to be there, or that their classroom experience isn't of value to them in their lives, but they are just different sorts of students than everyone else. The DIA makes up for this by having a large, expensive infrastructure to shepherd the revenue sport athletes along that inches right up to the borderline of academic fraud as necessary. It is the INTENTION of the academic support staff at Illinois that the athletes complete and have sovereignty over their own classwork. The extent to which that is always true, hey, don't ask don't tell.

So where it becomes ludicrous is when you are happily admitting 28 kids every year who are total mismatches for the school, but it would mean THE END OF THE UNIVERSITY to admit a handful who are ever-so-slightly more of a mismatch for the school, and virtually always on matters of preparedness rather than intelligence and study habits. A class their high school didn't have, an extra semester of a foreign language they'll never use, little piddling stuff like that. Meaningless distinctions.

If a kid won't meet academic services halfway on being a meaningful student, UNC-like curricular workarounds should not be tolerated. Becoming a criminal enterprise like Florida State is gross and should not be tolerated. But in terms of opening the doors to a bunch of kids that don't belong at the school and exist on an island propped up by team-provided "tutoring"? That's the world we're already living in. You can't be halfway pregnant.

Also this. It sums up the absurdity of this "academic integrity" garbage perfectly. It's not about eliminating our standards; it's about taking standards that are already reduced by 60% and reducing them by another 10%. But we don't want to do that, because self-righteous administratorians don't want to give up the spot on their little 6" soapbox from which they can peer down their noses at "lesser" institutions like Ohio State and Missouri that, by every other measurement, don't do anything differently than we do.

EDIT

... except win a lot more.

 

[Second and Chalmers]

it's about taking standards that are already reduced by 60% and reducing them by another 10%

I would quibble with both of those numbers, honestly. More like 100% and 3%, perhaps.

 

[84Illini]

If a kid won't meet academic services halfway on being a meaningful student, UNC-like curricular workarounds should not be tolerated. Becoming a criminal enterprise like Florida State is gross and should not be tolerated. But in terms of opening the doors to a bunch of kids that don't belong at the school and exist on an island propped up by team-provided "tutoring"? That's the world we're already living in. You can't be halfway pregnant.[/QUOTE]


For the sake of argument, I'm going to draw a distinction between supporting students to allow them to participate, however unsuccessfully, in existing curriculum, and creating new curriculum to match the academic abilities of students so woefully unprepared that no amount of support would allow them to participate in the university as it exists. That's how I read the (possibly apocryphal) Rick George conditions.

 

[Umgawa1]

"full and sole control over coaching hires.." If this means what it says, it's never going to happen. The Administration would never accept the hiring of some brilliant but slimeball coach.

 

[IlliniJim20]

No but they also have the perfect situation for them. Real AD in place, coach who knows how to periodically get the most out of his talent situation. Also NW is a private school.

NW shouldn't be our aim. We should be acting like a large public university, like 98% of the other Power 5 public schools. Letting in 85 football players and 13 basketball players on reduced standards isn't going to have any effect on the appearance of our academics. Nor is it going to affect the other 33,000 undergrads or 12,000 grad students on campus. We're talking about 0.3% of the student population here. I think we have some room to start acting like other big schools.

Good points.

Where is the university of Michigan ranked v Illinois in most general academic polls?

Where do they, historically, rank v. Illinois athletically? Michigan seems to have figured out how to do both.

Wisconsin is comparable to Illnois academically, yet has been able to have a nationally ranked, consistent winner.

The university needs to stop looking down their noses.

Like that commercial, we not both? Academics and athletics.

 

[Second and Chalmers]

Wisconsin is comparable to Illnois academically, yet has been able to have a nationally ranked, consistent winner.

Despite playing the same stupid academics games we do and having a domineering nutbar who doesn't realize he's not the head coach anymore for an AD.

What Wisconsin represents is the triumph of having a coherent plan and identity that makes sense and seeing it through. They know who they are, their coaches know who they are, their players know who they are, recruits know who they are, and the fanbase knows, identifies with, and embraces who they are.

Winning did that, of course, you can't do that without winning. But it's more than that, with every 8-5 football season and second-round NCAA exit in basketball, Wisconsin has solidified and cemented that culture. They didn't deviate from their course in an effort for more, or a shortcut to the elite.

 

[IlliniJim20]

"full and sole control over coaching hires.." If this means what it says, it's never going to happen. The Administration would never accept the hiring of some brilliant but slimeball coach.

There is always room for negotiation. George cannot Change the fact the BOT Must approve hires. He will however negotiate to have as much control as he can up to that point.

 

[ThreatLevelMidnight]

Jeremy Werner ‏@JWernerScout 4m4 minutes ago
University of Illinois announces it has hired Korn Ferry to assist in the search for a new #illini AD.

 

[Second and Chalmers]

Not really sure how to react to that.

 

[AutoPoster 3000]

"My hope all along was to identify a [search] firm that had the experience and network to add value to our efforts," Wilson said.

Korn Ferry is to search firms what Coke is to soft drinks, if Pepsi didn't exist and all its market share was absorbed into Coke's. Glad it took six and half weeks to figure this out. Yay competency!

In a related development, Wilson confirms that we have in fact made "efforts." So there's that.

 

[Smacko]

Basically we are paying $140,000 to people who have no skin in the game because the people in charge are too chickenshit or incompetent to make a decision themselves.

 

[Dan]

Consultant Korn/Ferry will be paid $140,000, UI says.

http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2015-12-16/ui-decides-firm-ad-search.html

Executive search firm selected for athletics director recruitment

https://news.illinois.edu/blog/view/6367/295772

 

[217sports]

Better late than never I guess

 

[217sports]

Basically we are paying $140,000 to people who have no skin in the game because the people in charge are too chickenshit or incompetent to make a decision themselves.

$140,000 is nothing to get it right. Should've been done a lot sooner.

 

[FeelYourPaign]

$140,000 is nothing to get it right. Should've been done a lot sooner.

Its not the $140k, its the 6 weeks and the endless nothing. We've lost all opportunity to do anything in the timeframe that could affect the football coach hiring process by waiting to fire MT, then waiting to properly staff the search process. It gives one no confidence. btw, not meaning to pick on you personally, as you said it exactly right, should've been done a lot sooner

 

[Smacko]

$140,000 is nothing to get it right. Should've been done a lot sooner.

You are assuming that an outside search firm will get it right. Search firms are just as capable of screwing the pooch as anyone else.

 

[Second and Chalmers]

If a genie granted me three wishes, I'm pretty sure I would waste one of them making Illinois message board posters understand what a search firm is and what it does.

They are simply a middleman. There is no pooch for them to screw.

 

[Ryllini]

You are assuming that an outside search firm will get it right. Search firms are just as capable of screwing the pooch as anyone else.

According to the News Gazette: http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2015-12-16/ui-decides-firm-ad-search.html

They have had their hand in the Texas AD hiring, fired two years later, in the hiring of Steve Sarkisian, fired for being drunk, and the hiring of Herman who was fired in an admissions scandal.

They may have hit numerous hires out of the park, and it is obvious they have, but they(NG) didn't illustrate any specific names of those recent hires.

 

[CUWPC]

Interesting part of the article is that Korn Kerry has helped with a few other big schools.

"Korn Ferry has served in that role in searches for high-level athletic administrators and head coaches at universities including Michigan, Oregon, Texas and Virginia."

 

[Second and Chalmers]

They may have hit numerous hires out of the park.

Wow, did you see Korn Ferry fax that resume? What a job. Set the scan setting darker too, that's the mark of a real professional. :hand:

(Seriously though, if you're scanning something that's just black-and-white text, you should always set your scanner to the darkest possible setting. Pro tip.)

 

[thatguy92]

If a genie granted me three wishes, I'm pretty sure I would waste one of them making Illinois message board posters understand what a search firm is and what it does.

They are simply a middleman. There is no pooch for them to screw.

Remember when I said it was going to take a while? Hurdles have been cleared and now the ball is rolling. Whether you like the plan or not, it is being executed in the exact way it was designed - in order to have the best shot at getting the best candidate, not simply trying to quickly fill the vacancy. Still fans must remember the general population does not know most of what is going on. I am encouraged by seeing that things are going according to plan which IMO still has the top candidates that most smart fans want as the end goal.

 

[Second and Chalmers]

it is being executed in the exact way it was designed

 

[Smacko]

If a genie granted me three wishes, I'm pretty sure I would waste one of them making Illinois message board posters understand what a search firm is and what it does.

They are simply a middleman. There is no pooch for them to screw.

I know exactly how a search firm works. Being arrogant doesn't make you right. There is such a thing as a bad middleman, and while the search firm does not make a final decision, they are paid to provide guidance and information on candidates. Those judgments are not always sound.