Searching for an Answer

Fear not, beleaguered Penn State fans.  Help is on the way.  Penn State has organized a search party committee to find us a new head coach.

Yaaaaaaay!  Are you tingling like I am?

From the Penn State release:

Penn State President Rodney Erickson appointed Joyner to head the search committee, which is comprised of:

- Linda Caldwell, Penn State Faculty Athletics Representative;
- Charmelle Green, Penn State Associate Athletic Director and Senior Woman Administrator;
- Ira Lubert, Chairman and co-founder, Independence Capital Partners and Lubert Adler Partners;
- John Nichols, Emeritus Professor, Penn State College of Communications and Chair, Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics;
- Russ Rose, Head Coach, Penn State Women's Volleyball Team

Joyner said the search committee will meet this week.

Let's analyze this line by line, just for $hits and giggles.

The committee is appointed by the cyborg Erickson--the stiff doing the commercials now for Penn State during the football games.  He's also president, so he's got that going for him.  Why are we still playing that?  Is it because all our other commericials are forever tainted with  JoePa or Spanier stink?  Could we pay LSU Freek to paste Erickson's head over top of Spanier and Tom Bradley over Joe in the old commercials???

Ok.  So then we have the list of party committee members, starting with Joyner at the top.  At least he comes with football experience, and is the ONLY committee member with any football experience.

Here is his bio:

Dr. David Joyner received his B.S. in Science from Penn State in 1972 and his M.D. from Penn State's College of Medicine in 1976. Following residencies in general and orthopedic surgery at The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and a brief stint in the World Football League, Dr. Joyner began a medical career with a sports medicine emphasis.

Dr. Joyner is a health care and business consultant as well as an orthopedic physician.

As a physician, I suppose I should be happy with a colleague in control, and a brief stint in the World Football League looks great on any resumé, I'm just not really sold that Dr. Joyner has found what makes him happy in life yet. 

Dr. Caldwell was appointed by the devil GRAHAM SPANIER.

Penn State President Graham Spanier has appointed Dr. Linda Caldwell, professor of recreation, park, and tourism management, to serve as Penn State's faculty athletics representative to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).

A 1976 graduate of Penn State, Caldwell earned a master’s degree in recreation resources administration in 1982 from North Carolina State University. She earned a Ph. D. in recreation in 1986 from the University of Maryland.

She will bring a lot of recreational influence to this committee.

Charmelle Green was hired by Beelzebub Tim Curley, to "bring a broad combination of professional experience from Notre Dame."  And we all know how successful the Irish are at hiring coaches!

Most recently the head of the Office of Student-Athlete Welfare & Development and the sport administrator for women's swimming & diving, Green has spent the past six years in Notre Dame's athletic administration. During that time, she oversaw the student development program, with the mission of providing a balanced Notre Dame experience for student-athletes by focusing on five key areas: academic excellence, athletic success, career preparation, community involvement and personal development.
 
Prior to joining athletic administration at Notre Dame, Green was an assistant softball coach from 2001-05. During her tenure on the coaching staff, the Fighting Irish were selected for the NCAA Tournament four times and won four Big East Conference regular season championships.
 
An All-American softball player at the University of Utah, Green spent time in Salt Lake City after graduation working as a recreation program coordinator from 1995-98. Among her notable achievements was raising more than $700,000 in annual revenue. She was also an integral part of developing an advisory board for the development of an inner-city school for the arts.

Hopefully she can improve on that fund raising ability to put the down payment on a coach for Penn State.  Don't look too hard, but you won't see the word football in any of these other bios.
 
Ira Lubert sounds like he should have been a linebacker.  Lubert Trophy winner? 

Mr. Lubert has thirty years experience in the real estate investment sector. . . Mr. Lubert holds a B.S. in human development from Pennsylvania State University and currently serves on the board of directors for Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, The Franklin Institute, and PREIT (NYSE: PEI).

Mr. Lubert also serves on community boards, and is currently on the Board of Trustees of Pennsylvania State University.

I wonder how he got this gig?  What more could you want from someone trying to pick a football coach?  He probably drew the short straw, or he was absent from the last meeting whereupon they nominated him as punishment.
 
John Nichols completed all his education in Minnesota, and by virtue of that fact, is a football connoisseur.

John S. Nichols, a member of the Penn State faculty since 1977, is a professor of communications and a specialist in international communications, comparative media systems and telecommunications policy.

He is the co-author of "Clandestine Radio Broadcasting," selected as a Choice "Outstanding Academic Book," and a contributing author to 18 other books in the fields of international communications and foreign affairs, two of which also won Choice awards. Books to which he contributed include: "Telecommunications in Latin America" (Noam), "Nicaragua in Revolution" (Walker), "U.S.-Latin America Policymaking" (Dent), "International Communication" (Anokwa, Lin and Salwen) and "Communications in Latin America" (Cole).

He reportedly watched a football game one time, and has stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.  How is a background in telecommunications in Latin America going to help us find a head coach?  Is our next coach even going to speak English?

Russ Rose.  At last!  A head coach!  Not in football, but at least we're getting warm here.

Record-breaking. History-making. Unprecedented. All of those words can be used to describe the tenure of Penn State women's volleyball head coach Russ Rose's career in Happy Valley. After 32 seasons leading the Nittany Lions, his name has become synonymous with the pride and tradition of the program. At the helm of arguably the most successful program in the country, Russ Rose continues to pass along the confidence and character he has gained during his career.

In 32 seasons at Penn State, Rose has collected wins at a staggering pace. Never having posted fewer than 22 wins in a season, he enters the 2011 season as the NCAA leader in career winning percentage, having won more than 86 percent of the matches he has coached at Penn State. He is just the third active Division I head coach to reach 1,000 career wins, having reached the milestone with an NCAA National Semifinal victory against Hawaii in 2009. A victory which earned the Nittany Lions a spot in the NCAA Championship match.

I like Russ.  I'm glad he's on this committee, even if he doesn't have any direct football ties.  He is a successful head coach himself, and of all the people on this list, he probably has the biggest vested interest in the next head coach at Penn State.  Why?  Because the football program underwrites all the other sports (with the possible exception of men's basketball, and let's face it . . . this program wouldn't be playing in the Bryce Jordan Center if Beaver Stadium wasn't next door.)  In other words, his salary depends on football and the success of that program.  Volleyball probably wouldn't be the first to go if cuts have to be made, but how far down on the list will the pain go if football falls apart???

Joyner said the committee will meet this week--over coffee and donuts.  Maybe they'll meet at the Tavern and see which big time football coaches are hanging out there!

Maybe they should have organized a committee to select the committee to search for the next head coach? 

I guess I'm just pissed they didn't ask me!