|
Sidelines
Kalani Simpson
|
Frazier has no problem waiting until the last minute
MAN, I cannot believe I was not put on the selection committee for the new Hawaii men's basketball coaching search.
Oh, right, it's an "advisory committee." Well, even better then. More perfect. I'm used to giving UH athletic director Herman Frazier advice, and he's used to ignoring it. We could go straight to the working relationship without all the awkwardness of establishing my role in the process. Or even in my trying to explain that role later. ("I got the coffee.")
(By the way, the advisory committee for Iowa's coach search? The faculty representative for athletics, the president of the UI President's Committee on Athletics, an associate AD for academics and compliance who is a former Iowa player, a retired CEO who is a former Iowa player and former Iowa player B.J. Armstrong.)
Luckily, there is a huge amount of interest in this job -- at least 71 applications. And with 71 applications, as you know, it may as well include me (eh, it does pay up to $400,000; gotta give it a shot).
Frazier has said he wants to look at these applications "all at one time." Which I take to mean him looking over at them, all at once, and saying, "Wow, that really is a big pile of applications," and then making a phone call to the guy he wanted all along.
Which is good. You don't find someone for a job like this by stumbling through a stack of résumés ("Hey, the No. 2 assistant at Xavier!"). No, you do it by going out and getting who you want and then having him fill out the state-mandated paperwork later.
This is what big-time athletic directors do. They spot talent. They have relationships. They have their wish list waiting in the top drawer.
I mean, you don't write it into the last guy's contract that he's on the way out without having Plans A, B and C already in place. Right?
Um, right?
I mean, I don't think Frazier would have left something this big to the last minute, counting on his well-known superior skills as a wheeler dealer to save the day ...
Right?
Right?
Anyway. Luckily, Frazier is at the Final Four now, and the Final Four is always crawling with coaches looking for jobs. I can imagine it now, Frazier striding purposefully through the hotel lobby, on the hunt, to the tune of a blaring "Peter Gunn" theme. I can just see him -- close-up shot! -- peering through his glasses, focused, like a hawk. Cut to a dramatic long shot of the guy he's identified, all the way across the room. We can't see who it is. But Frazier can. A slight pause. Then the pounce.
This is how it's done.
Then, face to face, Frazier can sit down, look the guy in the eye and ask him the most important question he's ever been asked:
"Hey, do you know anybody with an open football date on Oct. 20?"