Q&A with committee chair Mike Berghoff
This week, Purdue begins its search for Morgan Burke's successor as the Boilermakers' athletic director.
Mike Berghoff, chairman of the university's Board of Trustees, will head the search committee.
Last week, GoldandBlack.com caught up with Berghoff to discuss the process.
GoldandBlack.com: Is there a loose timeline to make a hire?
Berghoff: "We are going to let the candidate quality dictate the timing. If we were to find a candidate that we are extremely enthusiastic about, and we are convinced they are the right person, we would hire them. We would hire them if it was tomorrow or August, whenever they present themselves. But we will take as long as it takes. We will let the candidate dictate the timing, and we have that luxury because of Morgan’s willingness to serve in any way we ask him to."
GoldandBlack.com: Where does the process start?
Berghoff: "It is going to start (this) week at the Board meeting (beginning Thursday), and the Board is going to weigh in on some key criteria they think is important for the next candidate, and then also shortly thereafter we are going to get our search committee together as a group and find the best approach moving forward - who is going to do what - and get a chance to review the criteria the Board sets.
"We are going to have a series of listening sessions on campus and with peers off campus about what they think is important to find in a candidate. We are going to talk to some universities who have recently gone through searches to ask what worked and what didn’t work, were there candidates they liked that said no, or just wasn’t a good fit for them, then we will start to populate the pool of nominations. Once we get those nominations set, we'll review and start working towards shortlisting those candidates and bringing them in for interviews."
GoldandBlack.com: Will Purdue do public forums with candidates?
Berghoff: "We would not be doing that. The search will be closed. We may or may not add a (search committee) member or two. It is not final, the numbers. I am going to check with the Board on our approach on that, if we want to add somebody, but it is going to be a private search."
GoldandBlack.com: Will you be using a search firm?
Berghoff: "Right now, probably not, but I am open to that changing if we find it helpful. It could be helpful if the nomination stream is less than we anticipated, or there are some folks that are concerned about confidentiality that would prefer to go through a third party. But we think it's an attractive job that will draw some really qualified candidates to us, so it'll be more of a sorting thing for us rather than a gathering thing."
GoldandBlack.com: What will you sell about Purdue to prospective candidates?
Berghoff: "A couple of things, one being that you have strong leadership at the top, leadership that is stable, that understands the relationship between the Board and the president. You have an athletic department that is financially stable and sound. It has lacked any sort of controversy related to compliance. You have a group of head coaches who get along and like each other and collaborate without rancor or controversy. It is a Big Ten university that has a good number of its non-revenue sports competing at a high level and not just the revenue-generating sports.
"You have a lot of opportunity to put your own stamp on the department because we have had stability for the past 24 years. You'll be one of a select number of Purdue ADs and it gives you an opportunity to make a difference. The pay is in line with the rest of the industry. So I think it is an attractive job."
GoldandBlack.com: Do you have a salary structure in place?
Berghoff: "It is going to depend on the candidate and what level of experience, but we have become accustomed both in and out of the department of paying levels that attract top talent."
GoldandBlack.com: What do you think Purdue needs in an athletic director?
Berghoff: "I haven’t completely sorted that out, I am going to look to our listening sessions to clarify what we want. There are some basics. The No. 1 criteria is developing a department that produces championships and at the same time develops student-athletes in a way that enhances the reputation of the university, and finding an appropriate balance for making that happen. We want both, at the highest level."
GoldandBlack.com: Football would seem like the most pressing matter. Will football background be especially important for prospective candidates.
Berghoff: "No. What is important, not football, but experience running a program that is complex like an athletic department, where you have a variety of entities all within one department that have various revenue-producing capacities and demands in the form of expenses and being able manage all that in a way to still produce championship-caliber teams across the board.
"There won't be a specific sort of criteria for football. We don’t expect football to continue as it has the last three years, we are confident that Darrell (Hazell) and his crew and new coaches will turn that around next year. So to hire an AD simply because of football experience might put at risk everything else."
Brian: What is Mitch Daniels’ role in the process?
Berghoff: "He is going to receive a recommendation from the search committee, then make a final decision, but he is also accustomed to getting good advice from others prior to making decisions and that is what he is likely to do, because this (position) reports to Mitch, and ultimately is his to decide."
GoldandBlack.com: What if he wants you to do it?
Berghoff: "The best way to answer that is I am really focused on finding someone a lot more talented than me and making it such a no-brainer that I don’t even factor into the equation."
GoldandBlack.com: What would you tell fans about the university’s commitment to getting sports to where fans want sports.
Berghoff: "I'm eager to let them know that they have a Board and a president that are committed to winning, have competitive backgrounds, and apply that competitiveness to winning in all parts of the university, academics and athletics, and we will not be happy until we are performing at the highest levels across the board in all our sports. We sometimes get criticized thinking we care more about the academic image and not the athletic image, and that is just not true. We want both of those components achieving at a really high level."
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