Ed Rush has left his post as the Coordinator of Officials with the Pac-12 Conference. It came via official release from the conference late Thursday afternoon (evening if anyone on the east coast pays attention to this stuff) and informed us that Larry Scott had accepted the controversial and rushed resignation.
And the world rejoiced.
I saw tweets of “bout time” and “good” and “HEGONE” and all sorts of celebratory remarks which I’m just not all that in to. Sure I contributed to the dialogue of his dismissal/resignation/firequitting but calling for heads has never sat well with me. As it were, we got the result we wanted.
So now what?
We don’t have much out of Walnut Creek and we likely won’t for awhile. The replacement hunt will be played close to the chest and will be a hire not made in jest.
What we do have from Scott is the release. The one in which Rush’s resignation was announced, accepted, and never really explained. That’s fine. We are owed no explanation and let’s get serious – we all know why this went down. The imperative thing here is that trust is restored. That all of this speak of “integrity” and “honor” and other things Jack Nicholson spouted off about in A Few Good Men is more than lip service and not used as a punchline.
Which brings me to the most important part of Scott’s release: The end.
Scott said a process to select a new officiating coordinator will be part of the overall program review that had already been scheduled for after the college basketball season.
I have no idea what that means. Neither do you. Hell, for all we know, neither does Scott. But he’s the one who will be hiring for this review and it’s a damn important one. Trust, as I said, will need to be reinstalled. Which is never an easy thing if you’ve ever tried getting back together with a significant other. Actually it painstakingly sucks. Work like hell is involved but it can happen. Change must happen.
But I can’t stress enough that the next move is the most important one. The conference can pull the densest PR veil they’ve got over our eyes, I still believe we’ll see right through this. Some transparency, a declaration of change, ought to be forthcoming. I expect to see a new Coordinator settle things down with a defined plan. A new plan. Because things are pretty shaken up already.
Ed T. Rush resigned amidst the swirling upset stirred by his joke and the subsequent coincidental action taken. He’s out and we got what we think we wanted.
But Rush’s departure is not the answer.
Fixing his wake is.
Has anyone ever cared about who is hired as head of officials? I’m all for transparency, but who in this world has the chops to critique the background of whoever the next official is? If there is something to critique he won’t be hired. That being the case, there will be a 1 minute blurb on SportsCenter about it for sure.
Gotta agree here, it’s not like a coaching search were you need to make a “home run” hire but rather just someone. This is a bizarre situation and difficult to compare to anything else, but unlike most people, I think that Ed Rush was going to be dropped regardless of the how the media brought this story to the public.
This was pretty much a firing without the legal shitstorm aftermath, so whoever thought Scott should have just ripped Rush a new one on air and canned him needs to realize that the same we got the same outcome pain-free.
I agree with the twos of ya.
The hire won’t be sexy or widely discussed. He/she likely won’t even have a wikipedia page. THAT’S FOR THE BEST! Officials are not meant to be seen or heard. Hire a goddamn ninja Ref Coordinator. That might be best: effective, efficient, silent. Boom.
I do think it’d be a good move – PR-wise – to demonstrate some concrete changes to the “program.”
It’s interesting that some of you think it doesn’t matter who the supervisor of officials is; however, you’ll be the first ones to criticize the officials and say how they need to be held accountable. Simply because you don’t understand the process or how it relates to the quality of officials working a league is not reason to say it’s not important who is the supervisor. A good supervisor of officials is equally as important as any other supervisor in any other job.
Al, not going to disagree with your last point. A good leader is a good leader is a good leader and is going to get the best out of their subordinates no matter the task.
Where I’m going to disagree with you is that I don’t think it doesn’t matter. I think it’s imperative that the Pac-12 hires the best possible Coordinator of Officials (or whatever the title). The point is, we won’t know a lick about the guy (or gal) and if they’ve indeed been a great ambassador to the thankless career of officiating, then we will have never ever had a reason to know them.
I found this release interesting in that the Big-12 doesn’t even name their Coordinator of Officials. They just say he checked it out.
It’s terribly important who’s hired next. It just won’t be newsworthy as we can’t quantify their resume like we can, say, Steve Alford’s win/loss record, history as a recruiter, etc.
Al I hear you and I certainly don’t know much about structure of an officiating program. But many believe that the main issue with this scandal was the change in perception of the conference’s officiating integrity.
If that’s the case, then the who the next name isn’t as important in terms of perception as the fact that there is someone new. Unless Scott hires someone with a Donaghy-type track record, I don’t see people making much of a fuss about who gets named next.
It’s not that we don’t care who the next person is, but rather Larry Scott doesn’t have to worry about “winning the press conference” with this hire the same way AD’s of significant athletic programs do.