Barnes defends use of search firm in Pitt's hiring of Stallings
After the initial surprise that Pitt had tabbed veteran coach Kevin Stallings to be the Panthers’ next head basketball coach, the focus for fans turned to the process by which Stallings had been hired.
Stallings, who spent 17 years as the head coach at Vanderbilt, seemed to be different from what many expected Pitt to look for in Jamie Dixon’s replacement. So how did Pitt Athletic Director Scott Barnes decide to make the hire?
One element in the search was Barnes’ retention of Collegiate Sports Associates, a search firm founded in 2010 by former athletic director Todd Turner. Turner led the athletic departments at Connecticut (1987-90), N.C. State (1990-96), Vanderbilt (1996-2003) and Washington (2004-08).
Those last two stops were the ones that raised questions, since Turner hired Stallings at Vanderbilt and worked with Barnes at Washington, forming a triangle with the three central figures in Pitt’s search and hire.
“Todd Turner’s connection, I worked for Todd Turner at Washington; I’ve used Todd Turner several times for searches,” Barnes said during Stallings’ introductory press conference Monday, when the first question from the assembled media dealt with the topic of using a search firm. “You get familiar with folks that you use and that do a great job that are excellent. That’s exactly what we did to move this forward.”
Moving the search forward was the primary objective in using a search firm, Barnes said.
“It gives you an opportunity with the timeliness of a search to extend the feelers, to put the piece together so you know who’s interested and where they sit.”
The search firm also allows the school to gauge the interest of potential candidates without having direct contact with those candidates, thus allowing all parties - at the very least, the school and the candidates - a certain level of plausible deniability regarding contact during a search.
Search firms also help athletic directors and search committees looking for information on potential candidates, and that data has made the process of retaining a search firm popular in the industry of college athletics.
“The use of a search firm, I would venture probably in the neighborhood of 80-90% of searches that are done now are by a search firm,” Barnes said. “So we were happy to have that process because it helps you to move things along. It gives you a pulse, particularly when coaches are in the field, when they’re still playing. So that was actually a very good opportunity for us to move forward quickly.”
Pitt’s search started last week when Dixon left to become the head coach at TCU. Barnes said that the process involved five interviews, including four sitting head coaches, three of which were in Power Five conferences (including Stallings).
“This was a highly-coveted job, for sure,” he said.