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This week the dominos have started to fall as several coaches in both men’s and women’s basketball have been asked to step down.

Change of leadership is something we see everywhere and it could be a good thing for an organization and even for the disposed leader. This happens for several reasons including failed expectations, lack of success and personality conflicts.

We ask coaches to be good role models and good leaders for our young men and women but that’s secondary to winning and making the institution money, don’t let anyone ever fool you.

In the background making these decisions is usually a powerful alumnus, an administrator, and the athletic director. What has changed is the trend to delegate the hiring of coaches to search firms.

Using search firms allows public institutions to skirt away from access to their decision-making process which may be accessed by smart reporters through the Freedom of Information act. The search firm could work covertly to go through a list of candidates and send overtures of who the institution may be interested in without divulging any information, should the match not be made. It also saves embarrassment by coaches presently under contract at other institutions from having their names revealed having applied for said opportunity, preventing awkward conversations with current employers. An athletic director can wash their hands of what could be a future bad decision by placing blame on the search firm thus preserving their job.

What is troubling is the vertical relationships that have developed with search firms, placing athletic directors and shortly thereafter, receiving the job of finding a new coach.

Last year Quinnipiac University used the Chicago-based search firm, DHR to hire its athletic director, now the University fired its men’s basketball coach -Tom Moore. DHR receives the contract to replace him.

Back in the day, we use to call this quip pro quo… one hand washes the other…cronyism…  It smells foul to me.  DHR may be an awesome search firm, maybe the best in the business but this type vertical move is a dangerous precedent by institutions especially the ones receiving taxpayer money.

Institutions should mandate against this procedure. If a University president was placed by a search firm, that search firm should not be allowed to be hired to name the athletic director, the same process if the athletic director was hired by a search firm, it should not be given the search for the coach. This is why many publicly held corporations require multiple bids before a job is awarded, same is true by the government, multiple bids to prevent COLLUSION.  College athletics must implement these same measures. This is the only true way to hold accountability.