The Illinois AD Search
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Seems to be clearly two lists.
Frazier, Chun, Heeke, and Mehrtens are a demographically diverse and inclusive group of outsiders from other schools which are clearly the progeny of the administration, the search committee, and the search firm.
Tiley, Whitman and Michael are the Rick George fallbacks that have been chosen by the donors who orchestrated Thomas' demise.
Seems to me that any of the top list would face a basically impossible task, coming as an outsider trying to win back the support of the Guentherites who shunned Mike Thomas. And of course all three of the others have deep Guenther ties with all the worries that brings.
I'd be shocked if the choice was one of the first four as opposed to the latter three, but I have been shocked at least three times in the last few months.
Mehrtens in particular is a fun name to have on the list, I can't imagine a better person to represent the sum of all fears for the way this process has gone and people's perceptions of the agenda of the administration.
Frazier, Chun, Heeke, and Mehrtens are a demographically diverse and inclusive group of outsiders from other schools which are clearly the progeny of the administration, the search committee, and the search firm.
Tiley, Whitman and Michael are the Rick George fallbacks that have been chosen by the donors who orchestrated Thomas' demise.
Seems to me that any of the top list would face a basically impossible task, coming as an outsider trying to win back the support of the Guentherites who shunned Mike Thomas. And of course all three of the others have deep Guenther ties with all the worries that brings.
I'd be shocked if the choice was one of the first four as opposed to the latter three, but I have been shocked at least three times in the last few months.
Mehrtens in particular is a fun name to have on the list, I can't imagine a better person to represent the sum of all fears for the way this process has gone and people's perceptions of the agenda of the administration.
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Tiley and George are the top two candidates by a country mile.
Tiley is an exceptional coach and leader. He's my #1 right now. His ceiling is so high that I think he's worth the risk.
An educated speculation:
Tiley 2/1
Whitman 3/1
Frazier 15/1
George 50/1
The Field 100/1
Tiley 2/1
Whitman 3/1
Frazier 15/1
George 50/1
The Field 100/1
That sounds about right.
Read this on Tiley if you're not convinced: Australian Open miracle is story of both sporting and financial success
That's $200MM+ USD.
We're lucky Tiley is even interested.
That's $200MM+ USD.
We're lucky Tiley is even interested.
Shannon Ryan @sryantribune 10m10 minutes ago
#Illini concluded AD interviews in Indy today. Committee met w/ candidates 90 minutes, chancellor for 30-45 min. That's pretty quick.
#Illini concluded AD interviews in Indy today. Committee met w/ candidates 90 minutes, chancellor for 30-45 min. That's pretty quick.
Agreed. Love this quote by Tiley.
“It’s never easy. But we’re a very fast-growing business,” TA CEO and Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley told Sport360 in Melbourne. “We’re a new leadership team and I’ve been the CEO for two-and-a-half years now and our objective every year is to innovate, push the limits, challenge the status quo and do things that are different because we know our fans like that. And that’s why our ticket sales are up and that’s contrary to what many sporting events are experiencing.
Well 7 candidates is too much for in depth interviews, need to cut that down to 2-4 candidates and make the final selection after that. At least that would be my plan, but I also would've done this a month or so ago.
Sounds to me more like the people powering the decision already know the three guys who are in actual consideration and these interviews are merely due diligence.
Which is fine, get the PC stuff out of the way. I just wish it didn't take this long to get to this stage but whatever, select the right guy and I'll be less butthurt.
While I hope you are right - I would place a bet on the field given that.. well.. we're Illinois. Pretty good payout!
Have you factored in our ability to land the candidate - i.e., we will we pay up or are going to be cheap?
I think the odds are higher for Frazier and a little lower for Tiley because I'm afraid we'll be cheap and let Tiley go over a few hundred thousand dollars when he could add millions of dollars of value over the next decade (between fundraising, positive PR for athletics, increased admissions, etc.).
Here's my ranking of the candidates:
A+: Rick George, Craig Tiley - both have excelled at everything they do and both are loved by alumni
B: Sean Frazier - Alabama and Wisconsin background - good results at NIU in fundraising and sports success
B-: Josh Whitman - not a lot of history, but high upside with some risk
C: Dave Heeke - average results at CMU in my opinion - nothing that screams anything more than competent to me
D: Tom Michael, Patrick Chun - haven't proven much yet, Fla Atlantic is having an abysmal season with Chun's hire and their football team is hot garbage as well, worse than the Illini in both sports by a long way
F: Kelly Mehrtens - 78 days to hire a below average basketball coach, presided over a similar scandal that did Thomas in, tanked fundraising and divided the alumni base...did she do anything positive?
I would have hired Tiley on the sport as soon as he said he was interested, no interview and I'd have him write the amount he wants to be paid on the contract....that's how much I believe in Tiley.
Here's the thing. Tiley flew all the way from Australia. If he doesn't end up being the guy when he's clearly interested, that's going to be a really tough pill to swollow.
Agreed, they could have done a teleconference with him while he was in Australia if they werent that interested in him. I think he has to be the odds on favorite if money weren't an object.
Money shouldn't be an object. Tiley will make the University millions more than they would pay him, and he'd bring in a lot more money than any of the guys other than Rick George.
icengineer
- Southern Illinois
I know some of us have been disappointed in the length of time it's taken to get this done. BUT... If Tiley expressed an interest in the AD position when it became open, then the timing here makes perfect sense. George wanting the job would have sped the process up considerably. George opting out basically left the position open for Tiley if he wanted it. Unfortunately we had to wait for Tiley to be available to be included in the process. The right thing to do was give Tiley the time he needed to see the Australian Open through to its conclusion. And here we are!
Said it before but Tiley seems like a fundraising dream. He's going to make this school a lot of money I would think.
mattcoldagelli
- The Transfer Portal with Do Not Contact Tag
Do we know this? I guess I assumed interview didn't necessarily have to be in person.
If it was in person...
We agree, but do Wilson and Killeen think that way? I fear they will ultimately make a decent, but not good enough offer to Tiley. They need to get to $1MM+ to get George and that's why odds are low for him.
Yes, and one would hope that they already know they can make him a good enough offer, but this is Illinois...
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