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12:46 PM CST on Tuesday, March 21, 2006
By CALVIN WATKINS / The Dallas Morning News



Tulane athletic director Rick Dickson said in a statement Tuesday that he has removed his name from consideration for the AD opening at SMU.

The position becomes vacant May 31, when Jim Copeland retires.

On Monday, The Dallas Morning News reported that SMU was looking at four college athletic directors: Dickson, Rick Hartzell of Northern Iowa, Chet Gladchuk of Navy and Gary Barta of Wyoming.

Tulane officials confirmed Monday that SMU president Gerald Turner spoke with Tulane president Scott Cowen about Dickson. The two presidents are close friends and served on various NCAA committees.

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This comfirms the report on the CUSA board.

Wyoming's Barta is saying he has no interest.

SMU Football Blog wrote:Wyoming's Barta is saying he has no interest.

Can't pry him away from Laramie huh? Now that's concerning.

Question:
Do you think we are losing AD candidates because our Faculty Senate has a reputation for not working with athletics? False Piety at it's finest.

Even Rice has a college for athletes.

Let's shoot for 60 to 65 % grad rates for Mr. and Mrs. players and WIN some games!!!

Does any one really talk in the office about the 28% grad rate at Texas... answer: Only if they are from SMU

I don't want to like that but 60 to 65 % is good enough for me.

BUS wrote:Question:
Do you think we are losing AD candidates because our Faculty Senate has a reputation for not working with athletics? False Piety at it's finest.

Even Rice has a college for athletes.

Let's shoot for 60 to 65 % grad rates for Mr. and Mrs. players and WIN some games!!!

Does any one really talk in the office about the 28% grad rate at Texas... answer: Only if they are from SMU

I don't want to like that but 60 to 65 % is good enough for me.

Maybe we are losing AD candidates because Turner has been quoted as saying he is leaning towards a power conference AD. Or maybe we are losing them because they know someone has been picked and they have been given the opportunity to back out to save face.

No. I predicted a candidate would bail quickly, and I expected it to be Barta. It just happens that Dickson bailed, too. Like any job, as soon as names got out there for another position, pressure started getting put on those people to make a decision. I have no doubt these guys were legitimately interested.

There is absolutely no reason to be concerned, but the fact is SMU needs to start moving.

This is what I just put on the blog:

Imagine Craig Swann's "Block up front, Men! Block up front!" Now, replace it with "Move fast, Committee! Move fast!"

Look, as soon as names got out there, pressure started getting put on those people to make a decision. That pressure builds over time. The pressure is really going to be on Hartzell. Northern Iowa's basketball coach Greg McDermott is going to be named the coach at Iowa State within days. The pressure is going to be on Hartzell to do something, and saying he wants to put it off a few weeks while he waits and see if he gets the SMU job will not be an acceptable response. Fortunately, speculation is that UNI will name an assistant to replace McDermott.

Get Gladchuk and Hartzell on campus and in front of the committee pronto.

I really hope it is Hartzell, Jimmy Tubbs beware.

If I remember right from my childhood, UNI is D2 in football and holds the honor of being Kurt Warner's alma mater. Has he hired a coach or anything, or did he recently leave Bucknell? UNI dominated when they had Terry Allen as coach, and then he sucked at Kansas and was replaced by Mr. BurgerWar himself.

McClown27 wrote:I really hope it is Hartzell, Jimmy Tubbs beware.

If I remember right from my childhood, UNI is D2 in football and holds the honor of being Kurt Warner's alma mater. Has he hired a coach or anything, or did he recently leave Bucknell? UNI dominated when they had Terry Allen as coach, and then he sucked at Kansas and was replaced by Mr. BurgerWar himself.

University of Northern Iowa is Div. 1AA and very successful with FB and BB. Both teams got to the playoffs.

McClown27 wrote:and then he sucked at Kansas and was replaced by Mr. BurgerWar himself.

Love It, nice board reference.

McClown27 wrote:I really hope it is Hartzell, Jimmy Tubbs beware.

If I remember right from my childhood, UNI is D2 in football and holds the honor of being Kurt Warner's alma mater. Has he hired a coach or anything, or did he recently leave Bucknell? UNI dominated when they had Terry Allen as coach, and then he sucked at Kansas and was replaced by Mr. BurgerWar himself.

You really should read the blog.

I thought our grad rate was only 60-65% now.

Without knowing a single thing about the conversations with the candidates involved, two things spring to mind:

1. If Barta doesn't seem interested, it should be noted that he runs the athletic department at a state-funded school (and basically the only school in the entire state) in a conference with bigger bowl payouts than C-USA, which means he certainly is playing with a much bigger budget than he'd have here. Laramie is an armpit, to be sure (anyone else ever been there? Talk about the middle of nowhere), but decision to stay put is not without at least SOME merit. (Personally, I think he's nuts -- I'd rather live in Dallas with a $1 budget than living in Laramie with a Notre Dame budget, but maybe that's just me.)

2. Dickson says "thanks but no thanks." As memory serves, every time Copeland was mentioned for an opening at another school, only to "withdraw his name from consideration," the anti-Cope faction said he withdrew when he realized they were going to hire someone else. Maybe that's what happened here -- Dickson realized we are going to hire someone else and "removed his name from consideration." I don't know that to be true, of course .... just food for thought.

He might have also thought it to be somewhat classless to leave Tulane in the position they are in now, plus if he can bring Tulane's programs back from Katrina, then I think he will be considered by most to be one of the better ADs out there, that in my opinion is a goal worth shooting for.

SMU Football Blog wrote:
You really should read the blog.

You post everything on here anyway.