ST. LOUIS — In this week’s Frankly Speaking, 5 On Your Side Sports Director Frank Cusumano tackled the idea of the University of Missouri paying an outside search firm for the next football coach.
“When Mizzou made their decision to fire Barry Odom, I knew in finding the successor I would soon be hearing about that vogue organization in college sports…. It’s just two words – search firm,” Cusumano said.
Over half of the division one institutions use them to hire football and basketball coaches. Texas paid a search firm $267,000 to tell them to hire Charlie Strong, who went 16-21 and was fired three years later.
“If you’re the athletic director, you should hire the coach – don’t let anyone else do your work.”
Cusumano said, “Do I ask news anchor Anne Allred to do the sportscast?”
She’s actually not bad, but it’s MY job to do sports.
‘So the Mizzou A.D. is going to pay a search firm over 50 grand to help him hire the coach. The average cost according to one report is 54 grand. What exactly is the athletic director paid to do? I think he should clear his schedule from Lion’s Club lunches and do it himself.’ Cusumano tweeted on Nov. 30.
“I know the positive of these search firms… It can keep the negotiations more confidential and they can do a lot of vetting, but the university is paying athletic director Jim Sterk $700,000 a year and he has quite a support staff, can’t they make the hire themselves?”
I can’t stop this growing trend in college sports, but I don’t have to agree with it either.