Laurence Alexander should be the happiest person in the state right now.
Alexander is the chancellor of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, and as the search for a new athletic director heads home, there is a lot of interest in who will be named.
Apathy is never a good thing. Interest and caring are.
Granted, Alexander and UAPB have not put out a lot of information about the search, so it is likely more people would have been interested in a decision that affects the future of the school.
These days, for whatever reason, chancellors want to control searches in areas where they have no expertise.
Alexander is a brilliant man with a strong academic background. He has a master's degree in journalism from the University of Florida, so he should know the importance of transparency; a Ph.D. in higher education from Florida State; and a law degree -- he is a licensed attorney in Louisiana -- from Tulane.
That is a powerful academic background.
But that doesn't always translate into good athletic decision-making.
Apparently he controls the search committee with the majority of the votes, most of which are staff members, although Morril Harriman, a UA board of trustee member, is part of the committee. Harriman is an attorney with Mitchell Williams Law Firm, and is known for his abilities to see through hyperbole and understand what is best for a school.
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 people applied for the AD job. Former AD Lonza Hardy was told in February his contract would not be renewed.
The list of applicants has been narrowed to five, and on Monday phone interviews will be conducted. Then the final three will be chosen, and they will visit campus.
One of those five appears to be Quinn Grovey, a former Arkansas Razorback quarterback and a senior account executive for IMG, an international sports marketing group. He's also the top analyst for Hog football radio broadcasts, and he is why a lot of UAPB supporters are excited.
Oh, they've heard he's never been an AD. This is true, but he's worked for Home Depot and Wal-Mart, and he is on the board of the Razorback Foundation. Marketing and raising money are second nature to him, and that's mostly what ADs do now, and to be candid, UAPB could use some updates to its athletic image.
The school has become known for having its basketball team travel all over the country to play big-money games that help support the football program.
In the past five years the basketball team has gone 10-53 in nonconference play and 44-45 against SWAC opponents, which indicate those thousands upon thousands of miles flown and losses take a toll.
Granted, in 2010 the Golden Lions had a horrible nonconference record, got on a roll and won their conference tournament, beat Winthrop in the play-in game of the NCAA Tournament and then did what a lot of teams do: lost to Duke.
That was a long time ago.
Perhaps Alexander is not concerned Grovey never has been an AD. The chancellor signed off on the hiring of Cedric Thomas to replace Monte Coleman as head football coach. Thomas never had been a head coach, serving as defensive coordinator at Alcorn State prior to getting the UAPB job, where he graduated from in 2001.
With Simmons Bank donating $2.5 million to update athletic facilities recently, and Marla Mayberry having done most of the work to get a new football scoreboard, now seems the perfect time to take steps forward and look for an athletic director who knows big-time athletics and what it does for a school.
Sports on 07/24/2018