Athletics Director

Mon Dec 21, 2015 7:56 am

Just got the word that the Athletics department is "interviewing people" for the AD position today. Tanney is (from what I've heard) the only candidate, so unless something goes completely sideways, we should be able to remove the "Interim" from his name fairly soon.

Tere North · Mon Dec 21, 2015 11:11 am

And with Matt's hiring, hopefully there will be Biller's firing so we can get athletics back on the road after a serious wreck.

Mon Dec 21, 2015 11:21 am

Tere North wrote:And with Matt's hiring, hopefully there will be Biller's firing so we can get athletics back on the road after a serious wreck.

I don't know if it'll happen. All the stuff he's messed up and still not gotten let go for it....pretty sure his suits are made of teflon....stuff just slides right off him.

Tere North · Mon Dec 21, 2015 11:31 am

ST_Lawson wrote:All the stuff he's messed up and still not gotten let go for it....pretty sure his suits are made of teflon....stuff just slides right off him.

Early retirement option at 25% bonus is more than he Biller deserves, but it should be gladly paid to get rid of him.

Mon Dec 21, 2015 11:33 am

Here's the official post....looks like the "interview" is tomorrow actually: http://www.wiu.edu/news/newsrelease.php ... e_id=13196

meganeck · Mon Dec 21, 2015 11:59 am

ST_Lawson wrote:Just got the word that the Athletics department is "interviewing people" for the AD position today. Tanney is (from what I've heard) the only candidate, so unless something goes completely sideways, we should be able to remove the "Interim" from his name fairly soon.

I think he has done a good job, so interested to see what he can do when he is officially the AD

wiu712 · Mon Dec 21, 2015 12:07 pm

Tere North wrote:And with Matt's hiring, hopefully there will be Biller's firing so we can get athletics back on the road after a serious wreck.

Last year's "Western Courier" incident should have been reason enough.

Necks2003 · Mon Dec 21, 2015 10:59 pm

ST_Lawson wrote:Just got the word that the Athletics department is "interviewing people" for the AD position today. Tanney is (from what I've heard) the only candidate, so unless something goes completely sideways, we should be able to remove the "Interim" from his name fairly soon.

Hopefully he can make it back from his vacation for an interview for his new job, because he couldn't find time to make it for his old job as interim ad. I know we have limited resources in our current state and can't afford a real athletic ad, but his failure to take a leadership role in the last 2 weeks speaks volumes about his commitment overall to the university and the athletics program overall. I was fortunate enough to be a part of the athletics program in my younger days, but this not not the leadership qualities I believe anybody will see in evaluating a new athletic ad or overall leader in general.

Tere North · Tue Dec 22, 2015 12:04 am

Necks2003 wrote:his failure to take a leadership role in the last 2 weeks speaks volumes about his commitment overall to the university and the athletics program overall.

I place the blame for the press conference fiasco squarely on VP Biller's shoulders. He chose not to involve Taney in any of the discussion even though technology would have made it possible. Biller also chose to ignore the advise of folks associated with athletics and just bulled his way through the China shop and broke a lot of pieces.

Tue Dec 22, 2015 12:25 am

Necks2003 wrote:Hopefully he can make it back from his vacation for an interview for his new job, because he couldn't find time to make it for his old job as interim ad. I know we have limited resources in our current state and can't afford a real athletic ad, but his failure to take a leadership role in the last 2 weeks speaks volumes about his commitment overall to the university and the athletics program overall. I was fortunate enough to be a part of the athletics program in my younger days, but this not not the leadership qualities I believe anybody will see in evaluating a new athletic ad or overall leader in general.

Something that I found out about the other day, although I guess I forgot to mention it here, was that Tanney wasn't just out of the country, he was on a cruise with his family. So, it's not like he could just tell them to turn the boat around and take him back or something. He was pretty much stuck where he was until the cruise was done and he was able to make it back...which was probably sometime this last weekend. I don't blame him at all for what happened. He likely schedule this months in advance, most likely before he had any idea that any of this was going to happen, and then once it did, essentially had no way to get back until it was done.

I've never been on a cruise myself, so I don't know what the availability of communication equipment would be. I'm sure he could probably email back and forth, but I don't know if the internet connection that he would have had would be fast enough to support something like Skype.