The Citadel begins its search for a new AD

Posted on May 21, 2014 by Sandlapper Spike

On Tuesday, Larry Leckonby resigned as director of athletics at The Citadel to take a similar job at Catawba College, a Division II school in North Carolina.

In doing so, he became the first “modern” AD at The Citadel to take another full-time position. The previous three directors of athletics at the school (Eddie Teague, Walt Nadzak, and Les Robinson) all retired after their respective tenures at the military college.

The move was not unexpected. Indeed, last month a Clemson-oriented website breathlessly reported that “Clemson Associate Athletic Director Bill D’Andrea is the leading candidate to become the new athletic director at The Citadel”, which was news to just about everyone, since at the time the position was occupied (more on that later in this post).

At the time, Leckonby told The Post and Courier‘s Jeff Hartsell “Not that I know of,” in response to a question as to whether or not he was leaving. However, rumors persisted through the end of April and into May.

There is a whiff of “jump or be pushed” in assessing the reasons for Leckonby’s departure.

In six years, he developed a reputation as being good at balancing a budget. Some observers occasionally maligned him as a “bean counter”, which was probably unfair.

For one thing, bean counters are necessary. Leckonby had work to do on that front when he first arrived in Charleston. From all accounts, he handled it well.

However, Leckonby’s time at the school was marked by generally unsuccessful performances by The Citadel’s varsity teams. While he was AD, the department only won one SoCon team title (2010 baseball).

The rifle team did capture the SEARC championship in 2011 (the SoCon doesn’t sponsor rifle). It is also only fair to note that the wrestling team had some truly outstanding individual accomplishments in the last few years.

The Citadel’s highest-profile sports, though, were a sore spot. In the last four decades, the military college has only had five school years during which the football, basketball, and baseball teams all had losing records. However, three of those years have come in the last four campaigns.

Leckonby’s hiring of Chuck Driesell as head basketball coach has yet to produce on-court success, to say the least. The football program has continued a 15-year rut (and counting) of mostly sub-.500 seasons, and even the Diamond Dogs have scuffled as of late.

All of The Citadel’s varsity sports are important to the college, but the “big three” have a special place in the hearts of the school’s alums/supporters. It hurts the department as a whole when none of them are doing well.

Leckonby was perceived in some quarters as being largely indifferent to a variety of issues of varying importance. Just to name a few: the corps of cadets’ seating during football games; the overall ambiance at Johnson Hagood Stadium; the disposition of the cheerleading squad; the mascot program; and the much-criticized video streaming service.

I’m not going to throw him under the bus for all of that, largely because it’s hard for me to determine how much of that was him being difficult (or shortsighted) and how much was Leckonby simply following orders. You can’t blame him for everything.

In accepting the position at Catawba, Leckonby stated that he wanted to focus on “one-on-one engagement with Catawba’s coaching staff, its student-athletes and with all of those who support the athletics program.” That’s an admirable desire. I wish him well at Catawba. I’m sure everyone else who supports The Citadel does, too. 

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I think the newly open position will be an attractive one. It isn’t an easy job by any means (and may get more difficult as the years go by).

However, there is a lot to be said for running the department of athletics at an outstanding school, located in Charleston, with a loyal fan base, and that has a history of being patient with administrators and coaches (the person hired for the job will become only the fifth AD at The Citadel since 1957). It’s a good gig.

Already, a number of people have been mentioned as candidates. The first name that popped up, as mentioned above, was Bill D’Andrea, a longtime Clemson administrator who is retiring from that school. D’Andrea has not been particularly shy about his interest (confirming as much late Tuesday morning in an email to WCSC-TV sportscaster Kevin Bilodeau).

I am more than a little dubious about the “sources” referenced by Clemson Insider‘s William Qualkinbush, who suggested in April that D’Andrea was “the leading candidate” for the position. His article also initially stated that The Citadel was a private institution; if a media member doesn’t know enough about the school to know that it is public, then I’m not really confident in any tips he is getting about the inner workings of the Board of Visitors.

Clemson Insider remains confident in its reporting. Fair enough.

D’Andrea has a fine reputation and is very popular in key Clemson circles. However, he is just one of many qualified people who will be in the mix. Other names that will be (or have been) mentioned for the job: Jerry Baker, John Hartwell, Fred Jordan, Geoff Von Dollen, Robby Robinson, Harvey Schiller, and Kelly Simpson. Some of them may not actually be interested. Many will be.

The search for a new AD should be a wide-ranging one that leaves no stone unturned. Gene Sapakoff of The Post and Courier wrote in his Wednesday column that there is “no need to search from sea to shining sea and bring in 11 candidates for first-round interviews.” I completely disagree.

I have no idea where he came up with the number eleven, but if it is in the school’s best interests to bring in that specific number of people for initial interviews, then the search committee should do so. And yes, I think a “search from sea to shining sea” is more than appropriate. It’s necessary.

This is an important hire. It has be made with due process and careful consideration.

Obviously, the new AD has to be able to grasp what The Citadel is all about sooner rather than later. That is just one of many attributes the new director of athletics must have. Two others are perhaps of the utmost importance.

1) He or she must be a great fundraiser. Not a good fundraiser, but a great one — both from a personal perspective, and in terms of organizational ability.

If a candidate tells the search committee, “I can raise $20 million per year,” the first question a committee member asks should be, “What about $40 million?”

2) The new AD has to have a long-term vision for varsity athletics, one that matches the needs of the institution.

There are some supporters of The Citadel (including me) who believe the school should have a more expansive sports portfolio. Not everyone is on board with that line of thinking, of course. However, I think most alums/supporters would agree with the idea that an educational institution should be treated as an investment, rather than a series of journal entries in a general accounting ledger.

I want the next director of athletics to be an imaginative thinker and a creative force of nature. I want him or her to have big plans, and possess the wherewithal to make those plans come to life.

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The next few weeks are going to be fascinating. I hope they will also be productive.

I’ll be watching, and listening, and maybe pontificating from time to time.

Won’t we all…

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Will baseball return to the Olympics in 2016?

Posted on November 21, 2008 by Sandlapper Spike

Last week a delegation from the International Baseball Federation arrived in Lausanne, Switzerland, to present its case for returning the sport of baseball to the Olympic program.  Members of the delegation included IBAF president and longtime sports executive Harvey Schiller and current Detroit Tiger Curtis Granderson.

(Brief digression:  I am duty-bound to note that Harvey Schiller is a 1960 graduate of The Citadel.)

For those unaware, the Beijing games marked the end of baseball and softball as Olympic sports, due to a vote held by the International Olympic Committee in 2005.  They became the first two sports tossed out of the Olympics since 1936, when polo was eliminated.  As to why they were given the heave-ho, there wasn’t really an official reason (at least, not a legitimate one), but the actual reasons were:

1)  For baseball, the IOC was annoyed that MLB wouldn’t stop its season and let its best players compete in the Games.  The honchos that run the Olympics are big on the Games being the #1 goal/event for all sports (with the notable exception of soccer).  That clearly wasn’t the case for baseball (and that is still the case, obviously).

2)  There was also some grumbling about drugs, but that was probably a side issue.  Dick Pound would claim otherwise, but then, he probably thinks baseball is played by savages.

3)  Softball’s problem was that it was perceived as being dominated by Americans, and why give the U.S. an easy gold medal?  “Gimme” golds are reserved for select Euro countries and China.  (There was talk that the modern pentathlon might go, too, but since U.S. athletes have generally not fared well in that event, it was probably never in serious danger of being excised from the Games.)  Of course, the gold medal in softball in Beijing was actually won by the Japanese, which I guess qualifies as irony.

There are two slots open for the 2016 Games, and baseball and softball are competing with several other sports, including rugby, golf, squash, and roller sports (which apparently would not include roller hockey or skateboarding; not including roller hockey would be a dealbreaker for me if I had a vote).

I don’t think baseball is getting back in the Olympics until MLB suspends its season to let its stars participate, and that’s never going to happen.  What is particularly irksome is that soccer, another sport that doesn’t send most of its best players to the Olympics, is allowed to remain in the Games, as essentially an under-23 tournament (with three spots reserved for “overage” players).  I think baseball would be best served by a similar policy.  However, the IOC isn’t going to go for that.  I’m not sure the IBAF is interested in that idea, either.

It’s too bad, really.  I do think softball has a chance to be reinstated, now that the IOC has seen that the U.S. isn’t a mortal lock for the gold every time out.

I’ll close by noting that another sport is trying to bust into the Olympics in 2012.  It may not have a shot to make it to the London games, but perhaps 2016 isn’t out of reach.  I’m talking, of course, about Pole Dancing.

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