3/23/2016 football Edit

Purdue president Mitch Daniels on athletic director search

Brian Neubert • BoilerUpload

GoldandBlack.com staff

Purdue president Mitch Daniels joined WBAA Wednesday afternoon for his regular Monthly Conversation segment with host Stan Jastrzebski.

During the monthly segment, Jastrzebski asked Daniels for some thoughts on Purdue's search for its next athletic director, a search being led by Trustees chairman Mike Berghoff and an appointed search committee, which includes several prominent former Purdue athletes.

The university is looking for a successor to Morgan Burke, who'll retire no later than 2017.

Here's some of what Daniels told WBAA.

"One thing I can say for sure is we'll certainly be looking for someone who maintains the integrity of the program, which Purdue should never take for granted how high that's been and how rare have been the stumbles and behavior problems and so forth.

"(And someone) who'll absolutely maintain the academic integrity of the program and who will continue to, as Morgan has, operate a financially sound program so we don't have to tax either the students or taxpayers of Indiana to support our sports programs.

"Now, as I've always said, those are pre-requisites. After that, I really want to win. I'm as big a sports fan as there's ever been in this job, probably, along with Fred Hovde. I live and die by our sports teams and I obviously want to see some improvement.

"We have 18 sports and most of them are in very good shape. Football is in a down period and we're all eager to see us return to competitiveness. That's clearly going to be one job for whoever the next person is, to have a good, hard look at the marquee sports. We also need to not lose ground in terms of the standards that apply across all 18 sports."

Daniels was then asked if it's important for prospective A.D. candidates to have connections to the university.

"Another great question and it can be argued either way. In fact I read a recent article about the pluses and minuses of coaches or athletic directors being alums," Daniels said. "It usually helps at the front end because people know that the loyalty and passion are there. On the other hand it can lead to expectations that are hard for that person to (meet) and as soon as things go wrong, sometimes there's a little extra disappointment. I personally can see some advantages, all else equal.

"There are so many things that go into that job now. That's why we needed a great search committee. I'm not going to try to pre-judge either the criteria or the finalists they come up with."