QUICK PROCESS: Three sources told The Post the two finalists for the Rutgers athletic director job went through a rushed 45-minute interview process before the university hired Julie Hermann, a former executive senior associate athletic director at Louisville. (Getty Images)
The two finalists for the Rutgers athletic directors job went through a rushed and superficial process by the university’s search committee that had little to do with being an athletic director, three sources told The Post.
Julie Hermann, a former executive senior associate athletic director at Louisville who got the job, and Sean Frazier, the deputy athletic director at Wisconsin, went before the 27-person search committee that split into two groups of 10 to 11 (some members might have joined via conference call) over two days, said the three sources.
Each candidate individually went before a group of 10 to 11 for 45 minutes on May 13 and another group on May 14. The 10 to 11 committee members had approximately 45 minutes to ask questions, less than four minutes per committee member, said the sources.
And the focus of the questions had nothing to do with the role of the athletic director at Rutgers, said one source.
There were virtually no queries about how to usher Rutgers into the Big Ten, the single greatest step in the university’s athletic history. There were almost no questions on the university’s athletic facilities or teams.
The questions were social-issue oriented, said the source.
The pace and focus of the search committee was so hurried and superficial, several committee members were frustrated and disheartened.
“Anyone on the committee who says they really got a sense of the candidates would not be being forthcoming,’’ said one of the sources. “Each candidate needed about two hours, maybe a break, and then additional questioning.’’
“Forty-five minutes? How do you get to know anyone in 45 minutes, no less a potential athletic director? It’s like the dating service, ‘Let’s Do Lunch.’ ’’
Two sources said the candidates did not meet with the head coaches of any of the Olympic sports. They did meet with men’s basketball coach Eddie Jordan, women’s basketball coach Vivian Stringer and football coach Kyle Flood.
A call and text message to Hermann’s cell phone was not immediately returned. Frazier was traveling yesterday and did not respond to an email.
The decision to recommend the two finalists to university president Dr. Robert Barchi was left to the six members of the Rutgers executive search committee, said two separate sources. That occurred Tuesday night, May 13.
Hermann was introduced at a news conference on May 15, which, instead of being a new, fresh beginning for Rutgers athletics, instead became the lighting of a fuse that has turned into a bomb blowing up in the university’s face.
A Star-Ledger article on May 26 reported Hermann had called her players on the Tennessee women’s volleyball team “whores, alcoholics and learning disabled.’’
Hermann has denied uttering such words and said she has no recollection of a meeting with the team at the end of 1997 season.
Other media outlets subsequently reported Hermann was involved in two lawsuits, one at Tennessee in which the plaintiff, Ginger Hameline, a former assistant volleyball coach, was awarded $150,000 in a pregnancy discrimination case.
The other suit, which is set to go before the Kentucky Supreme Court, does not name Hermann as a plaintiff but details her role in a gender harassment suit filed by a former assistant track and field coach at Louisville, her former employer.
As reported exclusively in Sunday’s Post, one committee member, Dr. Jeffrey Longhofer, peppered Frazier with questions about the NCAA’s new Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender-Q guide.
The questioning, described by a separate source as argumentative in nature, took about 20-30 minutes, meaning the other 12 committee members had about 15-25 minutes to ask their questions. Longhofer wrote a letter of apology to Frazier.