ISU basketball: University bypassed diversity rules to hire Hoiberg

DesMoinesRegister.com
Updated 5:39 pm

Most Iowa State basketball fans are giddy about Fred Hoiberg returning to Ames to become new head men's basketball coach for the Cyclones.But two longtime observers of intercollegiate hiring practices questioned last week why the school didn't follow its own mandated hiring procedures for such an important position and why Hoiberg had no competition for the post. Iowa State president Gregory Geoffroy defended the decision."Process is as important as hiring because you are looking for the most qualified person," Richard Lapchick, director of University of Central Florida's Devos Sports Business Management program, said. "A process that limits your choices is short-sighted because a pool of qualified people makes your chances of success that much greater."
Meanwhile, George Raveling, former University of Iowa basketball coach and founding member of the National Association of Black Coaches and Administrators, questioned why Iowa State would fill its coaching vacancy without following its regular procedures that include affirmative action."It just shows that we still have a long way to go in improving the atmosphere and process for the hiring of qualified coaches from different backgrounds," said Raveling, who is now director of international basketball for Nike. "It looks to me they made a mockery of their own procedures. If the usual process isn't good enough to hire a head basketball coach, why do they have a process at all?"
Iowa State's Geoffroy explained why the school didn't follow its usual processes for hiring, including those designed to ensure equal opportunity and affirmative action."When it became obvious we would have a vacancy for our head men's basketball coach, I authorized Jamie Pollard to move ahead quickly with the search. He did that, and I'm comfortable with the process and delighted that Fred Hoiberg accepted our offer to become our coach," Geoffroy said in a statement.
The hiring practices of NCAA schools have been subjected to scrutiny for a number of years, with annual report cards being issued by the National Association of Black Coaches and Administrators. Ironically, the 2009 report card for hiring of head football coaches in major college football gave Iowa State one of only seven 'A' grades for its procedures in the hiring of Paul Rhoads.In that report card, Iowa State was recognized for "actively seeking the best people for the position, including people of color who meet the schools' job description criteria," the report said.
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But that isn't what happened last week.Iowa State officials announced Hoiberg's hiring on Tuesday a little more than 24 hours after former coach Greg McDermott accepted an offer from Creighton University to replace Dana Altman, who took the Oregon job the previous weekend.Pollard has acknowledged that he interviewed Hoiberg at his Chaska, Minn., home on Monday evening and offered him a contract on the spot. Pollard said he contacted Hoiberg on Sunday after being informed that McDermott was considering leaving.Records obtained by the Des Moines Register under the state open records law show Pollard also acted on Sunday to get a verbal waiver from the school's standard hiring procedures.State Board of Regents equal opportunity policies require that all vacancies are to be advertised publicly for at least five days. Iowa State's policy requires public advertising of positions for 15 to 30 days, depending upon the position and pay grade.Records show Geoffroy granted the waiver verbally on Sunday and formally on Wednesday in response to a written request dated on Monday from Pollard.
In his request, Pollard said the waiver would permit him to expedite the hiring of a new coach so that four new recruits, as well as recently hired assistant coaches Nick Nurse and Jeff Grayer, could be provided with certainty about their futures as soon as possible."By waiving the normal search process, we will be able to hire a new coach sooner and thus provide these young men the opportunity to best evaluate their choices, especially given how late we are in the recruiting process," Pollard said.
He added that the waiver would give Nurse, who has announced he will return to his position as head coach of the Iowa Energy of NBA Development League, and Grayer, who has accepted a position on Hoiberg's staff, the opportunity to make career decisions."If we do not expedite our search, I am concerned we will either lose their commitments to our institution or impact their opportunities to find alternative employment opportunities in our industry," Pollard said.
Waivers from the school's hiring policies are granted only in cases when an immediate offer has been made, said Carla Espinoza, associate vice president of Human Resource Services and director of Equal Opportunity and Diversity at Iowa State.Since January, the waiver procedure has been used about 20 times for hiring of faculty and others for the next school year, she said, adding that amounts to less than 10 percent of total hires."Hiring in athletics is often based on timing and who they are able to attract. I know from talking to Jamie Pollard that sometimes he finds himself in a delicate situation requiring that he ask for a waiver from President Geoffroy. That is what happened here," she said.
Espinoza also pointed out that Hoiberg's hiring contrasts with the procedures followed in the hiring of McDermott, who was chosen in 2006 over University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee head coach Rob Jeter, and in the hiring of Kevin Jackson in 2009 as ISU's wrestling coach.Iowa State now has two minority head coaches - Jackson and Armando Espinosa, head women's tennis coach - and five minority assistant coaches, making up 13 percent of the full-time paid coaching staff. In 2008-09, minority athletes made up 29 percent of scholarship athletes at the university.
Espinoza said Hoiberg, who played at and graduated from Iowa State and has been in the front office of the NBA Minnesota Timberwolves for four years, had the credentials to be hired immediately even though he has no coaching experience."It always is disturbing when you don't have the opportunity to create a broader pool, but sometimes creating the broader pool isn't as important as getting the best candidate available to you," she said. "In this particular instance, and there have been others that impact faculty as well, we take action when there is an outstanding candidate to make sure we are able to hire them."
But Lapchick, whose department provides annual report cards on intercollegiate hiring practices among NCAA schools, doesn't believe that quick selections are necessarily the best ones."Athletic directors always want to move quickly with basketball and football coaches, but I disagree," he said. "It seems to me that a better and greater field of candidates will get you a better coach almost every time."Raveling, who also was head coach at Southern California and Washington State, said attention to affirmative action processes remains an issue.
"People don't take it seriously," Raveling said. "It is more of a facade. ... There has been significant progress on racial issues in many ways, but it is things like this that shows us just how far we still have to go."

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