I would never presume to be important enough to offer a suggestion to the president of a major state university. And Susan Herbst, the new president at the University of Connecticut, has no reason to ask for my input.
Herbst seems to be an extremely capable and intelligent person. She casts the image of an organized, competent and confident administrator. Resolute, she has been called. Herbst has been receiving plenty of advice in recent weeks – from columnists, boosters, and UConn fans – regarding the position of director of athletics at UConn. So she doesn’t need anyone else barking instructions in her ears.
But let me say this: There’s really no need to form a search committee to handle the hiring a new athletic director. Paul Pendergast should be the guy who permanently moves into Jeff Hathaway’s office as the new UConn AD.
Herbst announced Sunday that Pendergast would become interim AD on Sept. 19, after Hathaway officially departs Storrs on Sept. 15. Hathaway was fired Friday after eight years in charge of the athletic department. It has been a dizzying few days at UConn. I suppose the university has to go through the formality of a search to avoid any legal issues. And I understand why the interim tag must follow Pendergast at this stage of the process.
But I’m convinced Herbst has already found the right person for the job.
“It could be [permanent],” Pendergast said Monday. “I think I have to act that way.”
The best thing about Pendergast was that he wasn’t acting. He was just being himself. And that put a lot of UConn people at ease already.
Paul Pendergast is the guy this department needs right now. All the smiling faces around Storrs Monday made that obvious. UConn called the media together for a little meet-and-greet at the Burton Family Football Complex. For many it was a chance to shake hands and say welcome back to Pendergast, who is a former senior associate AD for development at UConn. For the coaches and other members in the athletic department, it was a chance to meet the new boss in a staff meeting.
The new boss set a very good tone. He wants to be in the mix when that search committee does its work – whenever that will be. Herbst hasn’t announced a timetable, but she certainly has placed a lot of trust in Pendergast.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily the idea of putting your finger in a dike and holding the level of water where it is,” Pendergast said of his assignment. “You can’t be a leader unless people are willing to follow.”
The UConn athletic department has been a dysfunctional family the past five or six years. That is putting it mildly. That finally caught up with Hathaway, who simply was not a “people person.” Hathaway is not a bad person and it is regrettable that things played out this way at the end. He did make mistakes. At the same time, UConn athletics enjoyed unparalleled success during his reign. That conflict has brought national attention to the situation.
Hathaway is packing his boxes today but it’s not just because he didn’t get along with men’s basketball coach Jim Calhoun or former football coach Randy Edsall. Under Hathaway’s watch there were issues with compliance, attendance, academics and fundraising. That’s too much to overcome.
So now there is a changing of the guard.
Pendergast, who left UConn in 2006 for Saint Francis Hospital, helped raise money for the football complex he stood in Monday. But, he noted,“there’s two people who walked in here for the first time today and I was one of them.”
The other person just happened to be Calhoun, who slipped out a back door to avoid reporters. One of the major disagreements Calhoun had with Hathaway was over the lack of a practice facility that could be used by the men’s and women’s basketball teams. Calhoun has long been jealous of the football practice facility, which is outstanding and up to NFL grade, and he refused to walk through the doors of the Burton Complex.
Until Monday.
Herbst and Pendergast support the idea of a basketball facility. So Calhoun should be extra happy.
“There’s at least 40 others in the NCAA that have facilities that we should have here,” Pendergast said. “I’d like to put a hole in the ground today, but not just have it be a hole in the ground.”
Calhoun hasn’t issued a statement regarding Hathaway’s “retirement.” Don’t hold your breath until he does. Women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma, on tour with his squad in Italy, stirred up things Sunday with a statement he sent home to the women’s beat writers. He questioned the decision to replace Hathaway and mentioned a “disgruntled few” who chose to focus on the negative. It didn’t require a lot of reading between the lines to conclude that Auriemma was pointing a finger at Calhoun, booster Bob Burton and perhaps others.
Asked about Auriemma’s statement, Pendergast deferred to Herbst. She had already downplayed it during a conference call with reporters Sunday, saying, “Geno and I will keep talking.”
Calhoun and Auriemma have a long history of not getting along. Geno’s jab from Italy won’t improve that. But you’ve got to love Pendergast’s response to all of that, when he was asked Monday.
“The two coaches run separate programs,” he said. “In my mind, they don’t need to hold hands wherever they go. That’s kind of bizarre because it doesn’t happen in any other sports. . . . But [based on] the idea that we do something like a building that’s going to benefit both, I think there’s going to be times when Jim and Geno need to be on at least the same page as us.”
There’s an honest and simple answer we haven’t heard during the previous two administrations of Hathaway or Lew Perkins. Pendergast is a straight shooter and a people person. That’s why he has been successful as a fundraiser and as a leader. That’s why a couple of Hall of Famers with huge egos won’t stop him from doing his job.
Worried about his age at 65? Forget about it. He has more energy and desire that two 30-year-olds put together – more wisdom and expertise too.
College athletics has been taken over by some stiff, arrogant boardroom types in recent years. They punch the numbers, worry about the bottom line, lose track of the students who are athletes, and they’ve taken the fun out of the games. Pendergast isn’t in that mold. He is a businessman, but he talked about bringing fun back to UConn games again. There is so much room for that and his ideas are going to be innovative.
That’s good news for UConn fans. Many won’t be happy to hear that he wants to raise ticket prices for games against high profile opponents, but that’s one of those national trends that won’t go away. It’s a new way to find revenue and that’s part of his job.
Here’s why it would be fun working for Paul Pendergast.
“It starts with respect and trust,” he said. “If people like you and trust you, you’ve got a chance.”
That’s so refreshing. He talked about accountability. He talked about being able to come to work, raise a hand, admit a mistake, or just ask for help. That’s all about communication and there hasn’t been much communication in this athletic department the last few years.
Pendergast and Herbst have called compliance one of the pillars of an athletic department. UConn learned about that the hard way with the NCAA sanctions in the Nate Miles case. But Calhoun’s program isn’t alone. Look at USC, Ohio State, North Carolina and now the University of Miami.
“I would say be vigilant with one another,” Pendergast said when asked one thing he would stress in compliance. “If we’re constantly vigilant and making each other aware of where there may be an issue – at another school even or a trend we should be on the lookout for – the idea is sharing with one another.”
Pendergast’s best answer of the day came when he was asked about the possibility of searching for a new men’s basketball coach during his interim term as AD. It’s hard to imagine Calhoun not returning for the 2011-12 season, but he hasn’t made a definitive statement about his future. Until he does, anything is possible.
“I didn’t ask him the question,” Pendergast said. “It’s not fair for me to even speculate.
“But the man has a contract. He has a contract.”
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