Leading Candidate? (Updated Twice)

According to a post on Ye Olde Green Wave Forum Forum, WWL-TV in New Orleans is reporting that Rich Dickson, the Tulane Athletic Director is the leading candidate for the SMU Athletic Director position. WWL is the New Orleans CBS affiliate, so the chances of them making this up are slim. That being said, I think they may be reaching with "leading candidate." Last I heard, no one had been interviewed by the full search committee. That doesn't eman no one has been interviewed, it means nobody as far as I know has been interviewed by the full search committee.

Also, I would note that WWL-TV is a Belo station, along with WFAA-TV here and also the Dallas Morning News. Should not be hard for the DMN to get to the bottom of this quickly.



Here is Rich's Bio. I am going to have to look into this, Dickson has not picked a football coach at Tulane, he has selected a basketball coach, but that coach hasn't done much. Nor did he select a football coach at Washington State; Mike Price was there before and after. Before, Washington State, he was the AD at Tulsa; his claim to fame is that he selected Tubby Smith.

I am chasing it down, but I was told he previously was offered AD jobs at other BCS universities. Truth be told, if not for Katrina, he probably would not have much interest in leaving Tulane for SMU.

This guy is a fundraiser and that is all. Whooptie doo. This guy is a big yawner to me. Give me UNI's Hartzell over this guy.

Update:I am sorry, but with the exception of Tubby Smith who he hired at Tulsa fifteen years ago, I can't find one coach that he picked that has done anything. He is on Men's BBall coach no. 2 at Tulane; the first went 60-86.

Unless someone shows me something on this guy that I don't know and can't find, I have to conclude he's an empty suit. He seems good at all the things the faculty and administration care about: grades, money, gender-equity. Blah blah blah. How about a track record of finding coaches that win friggin' games?!?!?!

If this guy is going to come in and sell a few more tickets, raise a little more money and build one pretty building, and then see everything dry up because the programs keep losing, I am sorry but I have no interest in it. We already saw that with Copeland. We got enamored with Copeland because he came from Virginia; let's not be enamored with this guy just because he is the AD at Tulane and he is interested.

Update II:While at Washington State, the Cougars went to the Rose Bowl in 1997. Did he hire that coach (Mike Price)? No. To Dickson's credit, he didn't fire Mike Price after three sub-.500 seasons after that Rose Bowl appearance; at some point that was a good decision.

When Dickson went to Washington State, Kelvin Sampson was the basketball coach. Samson left shortly thereafter. Dickson hired Kevin Eastman who took Samson's returning Big Dance team and went to the nit (twice) and never the postseasona again, fired after going 69-78. Dickson then hired Paul Graham who went 31-79. Dickson was at Tulane when Graham was let go.

At Tulsa, Dickson hired Tubby Smith, a great hire. He never hired a football coach and Tubbs left after Dickson left for Washington State.

So, in the "revenue" sports, Dickson has made five hires. One worked out-Tubby Smith. The others didn't.