jdub27

If the salary difference isn't that big, it is more of a plus in my mind, meaning it is more about the opportunity and not necessarily just a pay raise. The more I read his bio, the more encouraged I am about him.

She still isn't my top candidate but she has plenty of experience in the budget portion of her previous jobs along with overseeing quite a few people in her previous jobs. I get (one of) the reasons people don't like her is the amount of jobs she's had. She addressed that by pointing out a handful were term jobs (2 Olympic appointments and some fundraising projects). Frankly, her experience is easily the most impressive of the 3 who have interviewed so far, which by no means makes her the best candidate but is probably the main difference she has.

One common theme that all three candidates have stated is that firing a coach is not an issue. If you are in constant communication with coaches, both sides know what they need to be doing and where they need to be at. That also means it is a two-way street with the coaches getting the resources they need in order to meet the benchmarks set. None of the candidates are going to have knee-jerk reactions and buying out multi-year contracts because fans want them to. There are going to be up and down years and some of that will be dictated by outside circumstances (injuries, players transferring, etc) and despite people claiming those are excuses or accepting mediocrity, a good athletic director takes them into account when working with coaches and making decisions for the future.

Both candidates have done well in their interviews, playing to their strengths and keeping the conversation around those things. Porter has done well at WMU and they have done some good things while he was there. I'm not sure how much of that he is directly responsible for, but obviously some of it. He seemed to understand the culture of UND and said the right things. One of the big flags was why he was at WMU for so long, but his answer for was good enough to make it a non-issue for me. Mike did a great job yesterday and was able to play a lot on his experiences as a coach (being part of a team) and his ties to UND. No doubt he has the passion for the job and his ties definitely give him a certain advantage in the fundraising part. However I think his lack of experience with the actual "athletic director" portion is a bit of a hurdle to overcome. I also am a little wary of the thought of him having to rely on his staff for some of the things he doesn't have experience in as I think the general consensus is there are a couple people that should be replaced on that staff. I think the candidate today is a wild card who has a wide variety of experience and the candidate tomorrow comes in as the favorite on paper. I look forward to their interviews.

I don't believe he was interested in it. Enjoys his current job.

Who exactly did you expect to apply? Two senior associate/deputy AD's from schools that are higher up in the athletic hierarchy than UND, a sitting AD at a peer school plus the top internal candidate. Seems like a pretty logical group of finalists to me.

Tom's article covers it pretty well. Answered questions the right way and seemed to "get" it. His answer on why he was at WMU so long was important and should alleviate some concerns in regards to that.

Mike knew what he was getting into when he applied and there is no chance he wasn't aware there is a chance he wouldn't get the job and would be reporting to whoever did, especially with his lack of experience. He cares for UND too much to even consider something like that if someone else is chosen. Situations like that are common in the professional world everywhere.

The nickname was literally a public vote.

Availability issue, that meeting was scheduled to be there before finalists were announced regardless of who it was.

I agree with you. However can you think of any decision a president or AD has made recently without input that hasn't actually had that exact reaction? That reaction is why UND keeps ending up with all these committees that try to be inclusive.

Fair enough. However with ND hiring and open record laws, there is absolutely zero chance for the process you described to happen. They hired a consulting firm just to be able to do a portion of what you described, including reaching out to potential candidates to judge interest. Not saying it's right or fair, it is just the way it is. FWIW, NDSU had a committee of 10 (vs. 16 for UND) when they hired their AD a few years ago. The main difference was UND had a representative from the REA, a few well-respected former athletes and a couple extra operation level people, but the committee make up was pretty similar. The finalists they ended up with were: a G5 senior associate (who grew up in ND and went to college at Concordia), an internal candidate, a FCS senior associate and sitting AD at a small east coast D-1 school (that didn't have football). Hard to say, in terms of resumes/titles, that at UND didn't draw candidates that are at minimum, on par.

Until she is no longer the chair of SIAC, good luck. You can't actually be serious? Being a state institution, that would violate about every hiring process required. The fact that the laws were changed to only have the finalists released was a pretty big victory. But you tipped your hand on why you're so upset about the whole thing....

Shhhh...You're only allowed to look at the most recent games or whatever fits your narrative in your analysis. Like below, this is solid analysis on how the coach is bad:

Did you even bother to look who was on the commitee? It isn't even close to a "committee of educators". Tom DiLorenzo, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Darcy Deutsch Cascaes, Women’s Basketball Letterwinner 1990-1993 and Women’s Basketball Assistant Coach 1995-1999 Jill Cholewa, Entrepreneur, Volleyball Letterwinner and Chair of of the Women’s Athletic Leadership Council Dick Clay, Men’s and Women’s Cross Country Coach Scott Guldseth, practicing psychologist in the Twin Cities and all-time leading scorer in Men’s Basketball Lindsay Hathaway, President of Student Athletes Advisory Committee student-athlete, Softball Jody Hodgson, General Manager of the Ralph Engelstad Arena Sue Jeno, Associate Professor of Physical Therapy and Faculty Athletics Representative Peter Johnson, Interim Vice President for University & Public Affairs Kim Kenville, Professor of Aviation, Aerospace Graduate Programs Director, and Chair of the University Senate Intercollegiate Athletics Committee Erik Martinson, Assistant Athletics Director for Operations Tanner Rosendahl, Digital Marketing Manager Karla Stewart, Associate Vice President for Finance Reid Taubenheim, Vice President of Student Athletes Advisory Committee and student-athlete, Football Drew Wrigley, Senior Management Advisor for Sanford Health Systems, UND alum, and former Lieutenant Governor DeAnna Carlson Zink, CEO, UND Alumni Association & Foundation

I'd probably agree with that ranking. I think the on-campus interviews will make it more clear why each candidate was chosen. The committee did 12 interviews and selected the 4 finalists from that. I trust these ones definitely stood out in that process.

He said the players didn't excecute the offense in the second half and needed to quite trying to play hero ball.

Kind of like Richman did last night saying his players went away from the game plan and didn't execute the offense in the second half?

She has the only P5 experience of the group as a Deputy Director at Florida State plus experience at two G5 schools, is a proven fundraiser and has a variety of experience outside of an athletic department. I'd say the actual knock on her is she seems to job hop. She's not at the top of my list but I struggle to see her as a distant fourth. As for the California thing, the slam dunk candidate they couldn't get to apply has spent his last 30 years out there...

Agreed. I don't know his fundraising capabilites but EWU would be a tough place to showcase it.

Must be a land grant thing.

Links to bios: Bill Chaves Monty Porter Mike Mannausau Kellie Elliott

He spelled "worst return on investments" wrong.

I believe on-campus interviews were preliminary scheduled for next week, so Tom is likely correct.

Fair point. Wish UND had all 3 available. All of them had a skill set that would be really useful and help this team out.