fallout begins...everybody thank mr warren

[nu2u]

playing devils' advocate here... but do you think the other finalists for the position only had wal-mart greeter as their previous experience? no? would it be fair to say that they also had a laundry list of accolades and high profile job titles to bolster their high level educational accomplishments?

if that is in fact the case, and the other applicants had similar to if not identically sufficient experience to mr. warren's, what happens when we introduce and take into account the reach of affirmative action? is it really a stretch of anyone's imagination that he was indeed hired based on the color of his skin? maybe not.

to say he was not qualified? wrong. to say that the color of his skin had absolutely nothing to do with the hire? not so clear cut.

that's the problem with affirmative action, even with the best, most virtuous hires, there is always that little bit of doubt.

I have no idea whether or not Warren gained additional consideration or favor based on race during the hiring process. That is a separate and debatable issue, if true (haven't seen that reported anywhere).

I was responding to @kcgolfer and his unsupportable claim that race was Warren's only qualification for the position - a statement only a ignorant racist would make. "He only got the job because he was black" is his claim.. No need for that kind of crap on the Iowa FB board.

Deserved or not, Iowa football has had more than enough negative publicity around race relations the past couple of months. Coach Ferentz is implementing a plan to address that issue. We don't need Iowa fans spouting racist public statements ..... nor can we afford to let them go unchallenged.

 

[CUHawkeye91]

We don't agree on much NU, but Warren was qualified as you point out. He was in the front office of the Vikings, had worked for other NFL teams, had a master's degree and the law degree. He was eminently qualified. Whether he is good/bad at his current job we are about to find out.

I had some concern when he started when he stated his first priority was voter registration. It's good to get athletes informed in the process, but there are zillions of organizations that focus on voter registration for college students. The primary mission of the Big 10 is not voter registration for the athletes. What exactly have they been doing the last 6 months during the pandemic? Plenty of time where if you make the decision to cancel fall sports that you have an immediate plan to share for how it would work in the spring. If you have information and a plan, your constituents (the players) have confidence that you are doing your job. But there was no plan, there was no explanation of the process, nothing.

We will find out over the next few months if he was just doing the bidding of the feckless presidents or if he was leading the effort to cancel. Neither one of those options puts him in a great light. To be effective at his job, he has to convince the presidents to do what's in the best interest of the conference.

I would say that Warren has a pretty impressive resume in and of itself, but I would not say that his experience makes him a great fit to run a major college athletic conference. All his experience is with professional teams and he hasn't worked for a university athletic department. He also has no experience working with or for a college athletic conference of any size. These are major deficiencies in my mind.

Being a COO in a top down organization is not at all like running a major athletic conference where the commissioner not only has to identify the right things to do to manage/grow the conference, but also convince University Presidents/Chancellors to follow his lead especially when they might not be inclined to do so.

 

[JRHawk2003]

The Big 10 Presidents did this. People are scapegoating Warren.

They should be burning Delaney's image for letting in Rutgers

 

[hawkeyemark56]

playing devils' advocate here... but do you think the other finalists for the position only had wal-mart greeter as their previous experience? no? would it be fair to say that they also had a laundry list of accolades and high profile job titles to bolster their high level educational accomplishments?

if that is in fact the case, and the other applicants had similar to if not identically sufficient experience to mr. warren's, what happens when we introduce and take into account the reach of affirmative action? is it really a stretch of anyone's imagination that he was indeed hired based on the color of his skin? maybe not.

to say he was not qualified? wrong. to say that the color of his skin had absolutely nothing to do with the hire? not so clear cut.

that's the problem with affirmative action, even with the best, most virtuous hires, there is always that little bit of doubt.

I have a brilliant niece who graduated from Iowa with honors at or near the top of her class and went on to get get her Phd. She now teaches at the university level and has become well regarded in her field. She recently got turned down for a dream position at the University of Wisconsin because they didn't have enough blacks in her department. My niece has sympathy for social justice issues but would have taken the rejection better if they had simply told her they felt the selectee had slightly better qualifications.

It doesn't seem far fetched at all to think that Warren may have ended up with the position due to race especially in the ultra politically correct college world. In my view it simply doesn't matter one way or the other. We simply have to deal with where we sit. And the Big Ten may have a come to Jesus moment at some point and have to deal with the question of whether or not they went down the right road with this hire.