I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving season.
I've received some feedback and
questions over the last week from many of you, the public, and the media
regarding our search process to find the next leader for the UMass
Football Program. I wanted to share my thought process with you
regarding this very important search.
Prior to my arrival at UMass, the
department often employed head coach search committees to assist in the
head coach selection process. In my four years in Amherst, we have had a
number of coaching searches that have followed this model which
included broad participation from campus and community members.
Specifically, our men's cross country, field hockey, women's soccer,
women's tennis and baseball searches involved interview sessions and
ultimately input from a number of constituent groups prior to making a
hire. Conversely, when we conducted searches that yielded Greg Carvel
(ice hockey), Tory Verdi (women's basketball) and Matt McCall (men's
basketball) we limited the people associated with the search to maintain
confidentiality and work efficiently through our recruiting efforts,
interviews, candidate selection and contract negotiations in a quiet and
effective manner.
Based on our success in those searches
and some additional reasons listed below, I've chosen to conduct the
search process on my own with a small group of people consulting me, all
who shall remain anonymous. Ultimately, I will select the next leader
for UMass Football and will ask our Chancellor to accept my
recommendation when the process nears completion.
Please understand that I value the
input I receive daily from people who care about UMass Athletics. I also
see value in including people in our selection process for our next
head coach but it is not always in the best interest of the process. At
our level of Division I athletics, it is taxing to have a well-run
confidential search that ensures the right hire and keeps all of our
constituents happy. That said, I am pleased that in the last 10 days I
have secured feedback from many of you regarding the attributes you
desire in our next head coach. This feedback has been crucial as I form
the profile for our next head coach. I can't thank those individuals
enough for offering their insights and positive encouragement during
this process.
I decided to run the basketball, hockey
and now football searches with a small group for a number of reasons.
First, the confidentiality of the search is vitally important, and the
conversations that I have with potential coaches must remain private.
For example, I would not have been able to secure Greg Carvel from St.
Lawrence without a high-degree of confidentiality during that process.
It was important to Greg that his name not become public, and he only
had meetings with myself and Chancellor Subbaswamy during his offline
visits to Amherst. As a sitting head coach, I wanted to protect him so
that if we did not come to terms of employment at UMass, it did not
jeopardize Greg at St. Lawrence.
In addition, I need to be extremely
nimble during this search process. I've been on/off airplanes a great
deal this last week, and will continue to do-so throughout this weekend
and possibly in to next week. Because of this, it would be hard to
mobilize a multi-person committee to fly across the country recruiting
candidates and holding interviews on such short notice. Most of my time
meeting with candidates will be outside Western Massachusetts. This is
standard practice for a job with this profile and intensified timeline.
Also, with the increase in activity on
social media and all the "unnamed" sources willing to share information,
whether accurate or not, I felt it would be best taking the sole lead
on this search, and not share any details until an agreement is
finalized.
I can't give you a specific timeline at
this point for when we'll make the hire, just know that I'm working as
hard as I can to find the best leader for the UMass Football Program. I
want to make all of you that have invested in this program proud of the
man we bring to Amherst.
Thank you for your understanding during this pursuit. I look forward to introducing the next coach to you very soon!
Please feel free to share any additional thoughts or feedback with me directly at
rbamford@umass.edu."
Thank you, and Go UMass!
Ryan Bamford
