Austin American-Statesman sports editor John Bridges muses on the process that made Mike Sherman (above) the second highest paid employee of the State of Texas:
Usually, state jobs in Texas must be posted for 10 days. A&M Athletic Director Bill Byrne was able to get a special exception by deeming his opening an emergency. The emergency? Recruiting.
Never mind that Sherman is going to spend the next five weeks coaching for the Texans.
Here’s a suggestion to end all the doubletalk: Establish a National Firing Day, similar to National Signing Day.
At the stroke of noon on this magical day every December, coaches can be fired and hired. Sell the broadcast rights to ESPN. Available candidates could be seated in a soundproof room, squirming like Brady Quinn on draft day. There might even be room to let in a couple of black coaching candidates.
It’s really no more ludicrous than the current process ” a process that rightly has the Black Coaches Association and state Sen. Royce West raising questions about minority hiring practices.
They would like for colleges to follow the NFL’s lead and at least include minority candidates in the conversation.
Shoot, at this point, it’ll be progress if there is more than one candidate of any color in the conversation.
Byrne said that Sherman was the only coach interviewed for the A&M job; Ole Miss probably just left Nutt an offer on his voice mail. (“This is Houston. I’m probably on the other line with another school. If you’re an AD, just leave your best offer at the tone.”)
But we can cut Byrne some slack on the minority-hiring thing. He said that he had never met Sherman until he walked into a Houston hotel room Friday night.
Given how much time he’d spent on the matter, perhaps he was surprised to see that Sherman was a white man.