UNLV field cut to five

Steve Guiremand

Thursday, July 24, 2003 | 9:13 a.m.

Shortly after 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Zack Smith, a member of the president's office at UNLV, got off an elevator at the Tam Alumni Center and began carting away large boxes of folders and resumes.

Also getting off the elevator was Andy Fry, the chairman of UNLV's athletic director search and selection committee, and Michael Glazier and Max Urick of the the Overland Park, Kan., law firm of Bond, Schoeneck & King, which has aided in the school's search for its ninth athletic director. As the group left the Tam Center, they took the names of the five finalists for the UNLV athletic director's job with them.

Who are they? Fry wasn't ready to reveal those names quite yet.

"We had a strong consensus on a list of what we thought were acceptable candidates for the job," Fry said of his 16-person selection committee. "We will now check with each of them to be sure that they will remain interested in us. Then we'll forward those to the president (Dr. Carol Harter) and then she'll decide among them who will be invited to campus for interviews."

Harter, whom Fry said is out of town this week, did not attend Wednesday's key committee meeting which lasted a little more than three hours.

Just exactly when the top secret names will be revealed is anybody's guess.

"That's not up to me," Fry said. "Ultimately that's up to (Harter). That hasn't exactly been worked out yet."

Nor is it set in stone that Harter will bring all five to town for campus visits.

"She asked us for three to five names," said Fry, a distinguished history professor at UNLV. "We're sending her five names. But we are doing that with the understanding she may not decide to interview all five of them. And the committee is quite comfortable with that."

All five finalists are expected to be either current or former athletic directors. According to a source familiar to with the search, Harter told the selection committee she wanted someone with previous athletic director experience.

That all but eliminated some highly touted assistant and associate athletic directors from major Division I programs that were interested in the position, as well as Orange Bowl executive director and former UNLV assistant athletic director Keith Tribble, one of the key forces behind the formation of the Bowl Championship Series.

"I'm not going to comment on that," Fry said. "They've all, in our opinion, demonstrated the ability to run the athletic department here. It becomes a matter of trying to figure out which one is the best fit. ... We feel comfortable with their abilities and their records."

Fry said his screening committee will meet with the candidates when they began making their visits, expected to last a minimum of two days. But his group's most important work -- narrowing a list of more than 70 protential candidates to five -- is done.

The final choice is up to Carol Harter.