Stallings on Barnes

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Pitt Athletic Director Scott Barnes has been linked to the same position at Oregon State. In a statement Wednesday night, Barnes denied that he has accepted the job. On Thursday morning, Pitt men's basketball coach Kevin Stallings, who was hired by Barnes, met the media to discuss the basketball team, but inevitably, the topic of the Athletic Director came up.

Here's a transcript of what Stallings had to say to the assembled press.

Do you expect to have a different AD before the end of the season?
No, but that’s kind of a smart-aleck answer because I doubt, if Scott leaves, that the Chancellor gets somebody hired that quickly. I really don’t care and it doesn’t pay any dividend to speculate because I’ve been in Scott’s shoes and it’s no fun where there are reports out there that are just completely untrue. I have my own personal stories, a long line of them that I can tell you, and it just doesn’t benefit anyone and it doesn’t benefit the situation to speculate.

I do feel confident in this: if Scott Barnes decides to leave, I’ll know before you guys know. That, I’m sure of. I got asked last night if whatever, and then I wake up this morning and all I could say was I haven’t heard anything and I wake up this morning and see that Scott’s issued a statement, and it completely confirmed what I believed in my heart at that particular moment, and that is, if he makes a decision to leave or anything like that, I’ll know before the media knows.

But to speculate beyond that, I don’t think it’s fair to him.

Have you had a chance to speak to him at all in the past 12 or 18 hours?
I got a text from him last night late. Certainly, I won’t divulge what the text said. I spoke to Scott last Friday; we had our regular meeting that we normally have. He texted me congratulations after the game on Saturday. Then I had not had any dialogue with him until I got the text last night.

Was it a reassuring text?
It was just a text. Again, it just - I wouldn’t say that it was reassuring other than it just confirmed what I already knew, and I wasn’t surprised to find out that there were erroneous reports of him taking a job that were false. Because unfortunately there are people that it’s not their job to report the news; they think it’s their job to create the news. So when you go and report that a guy is taking a job and you haven’t spoken to him and it’s not true, that’s just not right.

That confidence that he would tell you first, does that kind of give you some peace when something like this gets reported and not panic or anything like that?
I’m a big boy on these things. I’ve been through them and you literally feel like you’re at the eye of a storm, because the media makes such a deal about it and wants to be the first to report something and says things that just aren’t true. And like I said, I’ve been there personally; I’ve been that guy. And it’s not any fun for you, it’s not any fun for your family, it’s not any fun for the people you work with, and ‘any fun’ is not even - it’s not fair. It’s not a fair way and a professional way to deal with these things.

So I just feel like I know Scott Barnes well enough to know he is a complete professional, he is completely full of integrity and whatever happens, happens. But it will be handled by him in the most professional, upright, upstanding, honest, ethical way that it can be handled. Because that’s who he is.

I know you don’t want to speculate, but are you confident that he will be here in a month?
No, I’m not - no. But I’m not confident [basketball sports information director Matt Plizga] will be here in a month either. Because nobody likes him…

Here’s what I know about jobs and things. Roy Williams told me this a long time ago, after the first year that I worked for him: it’s never the right time, really. It’s never a good time. There’s never a good time. And no one ever knows the external forces that exist and that go on in a person’s life that helps dictate decisions. People will just jump to a conclusion and say anything, they’ll say anything that almost puts a bad spin on it.

And something else that Roy Williams used to say - and this will sound like Roy - is, don’t condemn thy neighbor until you’ve walked in his moccasins for two full moons. It sounds kind of silly, but unless you know, you don’t know. If Scott leaves, professionally we’ll all be disappointed. Those of us that know him and know the external forces, we will understand. That’s as forthcoming as I can be at this point.

What do you mean by external forces?
It can be anything. It can be family. It can be - that’s the first thing that comes to my mind, is family. It can be lots of things. Lots of things. So, it can just be - people can talk about timing or people can talk about - the naysayers are going to say what they’re going to say. Anytime, you leave for a job and somebody’s mad. Somebody’s happy but somebody’s mad. Jamie Dixon left here, somebody was mad. I left Vanderbilt, somebody was mad. And they start - they don’t know. Unless they’ve walked in your shoes, unless they’re living your life, they don’t know. People have to do things for reasons that they have to do them, and even though we’re in public jobs, we still have private lives. We still have our own issues that you guys don’t get to see.

So, Roy was right. Don’t condemn thy neighbor until you’ve walked in his moccasins for two full moons. That’s a good one.