I thought this quote from Hunter today gave an insight into his approach to hiring coaches, but also into how bad information is spread during coaching searches.
“This is the first time collectively together that we’ve been through a search process. I don’t know how my predecessor ran his searches, but I run my searches in a very close-knit circle. There were many of my senior administrators that were not included in the search. We did not use a search firm. I feel like it’s my role as a director of athletics to be able to identify who is a great fit for our programs here at the University of Arkansas. That’s how I did that. By doing so, that led to a lot of misunderstanding of information that may have been put out there by agents or other coaches or sometimes self-serving interests along the way. I want you guys to know that, first and foremost, what I wanted to do is run a search of the utmost integrity. As Jon (Fagg) and I went through this process together, I asked him several times when we were traveling together, because it was very important to me, ‘Jon, Have I done anything to compromise my integrity during this search?’ Every time Jon answered me, it was no. That’s very important to me.”