"...but you don't put the future of the entire athletic program on hold for months or more just to enhance our chances that the chancellor and athletic director will like each other."
I think it has to do more with prospective AD candidates knowing who their boss will be, and having a sense of his or her big-picture goals, expectations, and standards. Not knowing this makes the job less attractive, just as not knowing who the AD will be makes the head football coach position less attractive. Can we afford for these jobs to be any less attractive?
If this were not academia/government, these hires would take place top down.
I think it has to do more with prospective AD candidates knowing who their boss will be, and having a sense of his or her big-picture goals, expectations, and standards. Not knowing this makes the job less attractive, just as not knowing who the AD will be makes the head football coach position less attractive. Can we afford for these jobs to be any less attractive?
If this were not academia/government, these hires would take place top down.