UNLV AD: resumes in, candidates secret

Steve Guiremand

Wednesday, July 2, 2003 | 8:42 a.m.

The deadline for applying for the vacant UNLV athletic directors job came and went on Tuesday. That much is known.

What isn't known quite yet is how many candidates submitted resumes from across the country. Or who those candidates are.

"We probably will get some of that information next week," said Andy Fry, the chair of the school's athletic director recruitment and screening committee. "I don't really know more than that now."

The 16-person screening committee, made up of UNLV athletic department personnel, students, faculty, community members, men's basketball coach Charlie Spoonhour and women's basketball coach Regina Miller, will next meet in a closed session on Thursday, July 10, at the Richard Tam Alumni Center to go over the job applicants.

At that time, Michael Glazier and Max Urick of the Overland Park, Kan., law firm of Bond, Schoeneck & King, which is being paid $30,000 by UNLV to coordinate and do background checks on potential AD candidates, will present Fry and his committee with the results of their search.

"They'll report to us with their recommendations of the top 15 to 20 candidates they feel are the most qualified for the job," Fry said. "They will also have all the job applications there for us to page through. If one stands out or there are some others that people on the committee want to evaluate, we'll do that, too."

Fry, who recently earned a distinguished professor position at UNLV for his work in the school's history department, said he does not know the names of any candidates who have applied.

"I instructed (BS&K) not to tell me any names," he said. "I don't want to threaten the integrity of the search or be put in the kind of position where I can't be entirely truthful with the media.

"For example, I got a call from a reporter in the Midwest recently who said he had heard a person had applied for the job. I could say in good conscience to him that I didn't know if that person did apply. I truly don't know who has applied. On the 10th, I'll be as surprised as anybody when we see the list of names."

After the committee is presented with the list of 15-20 candidates, a process will begin to narrow the field to 3-5 finalists who will be invited for on-campus interviews. The screening committee will meet again the week of July 21 to determine who those finalists will be.

"After that we hope to start bringing them in as soon as we can schedule them to come in and meet everybody," Fry said. "I think we're looking at the end of July at the earliest."

UNLV President Dr. Carol Harter will make the final selection. She has said she'd like to have a new athletic director on board by the football team's season opener Aug. 30 against Toledo.

One person rumored to be interested in the position, respected East Carolina athletic director Mike Hamrick, told the Sun on Tuesday that he had not applied for the UNLV opening.

Hamrick, who started his professional career at UNLV in the athletic promotions area from 1981-82, was athletic director at Arkansas-Little Rock from 1991-95 before leaving for East Carolina where he has been credited with helping build the school into one of the key members of Conference USA.

"I haven't talked with anybody at UNLV," Hamrick said. "I haven't talked with Michael Glazier. I didn't even know they had an opening for an athletic directors job. You can scratch me off that list."

Another former UNLV athletic administrator, Keith Tribble, is the CEO of the Orange Bowl and was a recent finalist for the AD job at Pitt. Tribble is among those believed to be actively pursuing the job.

"I've seen the names of two or three people in the press," Fry said. "I really don't know if those people have applied or not."

That will all change after next week's meeting.