Anybody have any early favorites??
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=527546AD search will take some time
By DON WALKER
dwalker@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Nov. 6, 2006
The search for a new athletic director at Marquette University will last until at least the summer of 2007, a top MU official said Friday.
Steve Cottingham, senior associate vice president for the university, said he would lead the process, with other top administrative officials assisting him.
Cottingham will also act as interim athletic director when Bill Cords leaves the position at the end of the year. Cords announced his retirement last month. He had been athletic director since July 1987.
Cottingham said there already had been inquiries from potential candidates. Asked if he was interested in the position, Cottingham said his primary focus was to get the best person for the job.
With Marquette's membership in the Big East Conference, the job will likely attract some top candidates.
Mike Cleary, executive director of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, said schools of MU's caliber needed candidates who are skilled at generating revenue for the athletic program.
"It's a fact of life today that athletic directors have to be conversant in business and marketing," Cleary said.
Although Marquette does not have a football program, he said, there might be candidates who have a football background who would be interested in the job.
That was the case with Cords, who came from Texas-El Paso, which had a football program.
Another possibility, Cleary said, is a candidate from the Big East Conference who is familiar with the Marquette program and the conference.
Tom Crean, men's basketball coach, said a new athletic director must understand the "landscape of a private institution." An athletic director like Cords, he said, understood what it meant to be a coach, and that's what Marquette should be looking for in a new one.
From the Nov. 7, 2006 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel