STARKVILLE — Mississippi State University on Wednesday refuted a newspaper report that the school was ready to hire its new athletic director and admonished the reporter by name.
Michael Bonner, a sports writer with the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, reported Wednesday morning MSU baseball coach John Cohen was expected to become the director of athletics, and the university would announce the decision next week. On Wednesday afternoon, MSU President Mark Keenum issued a press release discrediting the report.
In the statement, Keenum noted the university’s Sept. 26 announcement to engage Atlanta-based Parker Executive Search Firm to guide a national search to replace Scott Stricklin, who is leaving at the end of this month to assume the athletic director’s position at the University of Florida. He said the university had neither interviewed candidates nor made any decisions regarding the hire.
“The report [Wednesday] by The Clarion-Ledger’s Mike Bonner [that] indicated that a decision has been made in that process was inaccurate,” the statement said. “I’m extremely disappointed that a reputable newspaper and reporter would make such a report without seeking basic confirmation of the facts of the story being circulated. Doing so is irresponsible and in some ways may interfere with the process. It’s unfair to the candidates seeking the position who have not yet been interviewed.
“At present, no decisions have been made, no announcements prepared, and no press conferences scheduled,” the statement continued. “Neither I nor any of the university’s senior communications staff was asked to confirm or deny Mr. Bonner’s story prior to his publication of it. Perhaps that’s most disappointing of all. We’re not going to make this personnel decision in the media. We will follow our plan, we will conduct this search in the manner we previously outlined, and we will ultimately make the best decision for Mississippi State. This will be done in an expeditious timeline, but on our timeline.”
Salter: Where’s Jimmy Hoffa?
In an interview with Head To Head, a weekday radio program on SuperTalk Mississippi, MSU Chief Communications Officer Sid Salter compared Bonner’s reporting to “rolling a live grenade” into the hiring process. He later called the Clarion-Ledger report’s assertion the candidate interviews were formalities “slinging bull on a preposterous level.”
“The suggestion that an evaluation has been made and a candidate anointed, I guess I missed that amount of psychic energy flowing on our campus,” Salter said on the radio show. “But if my friend Mike Bonner had been able to tap into that, I’d kind of like to know who killed JFK and where Jimmy Hoffa is buried.”
Bonner, for his part, has defended his reporting on the radio and social media.
Salter called the field of applicants seeking to replace Stricklin “really outstanding,” but he told The Dispatch on Wednesday that MSU would not release those candidates’ names. However, the university has released names of candidates being interviewed for other high-ranking positions, most recently provost and vice president for student affairs.
“We are working with a search firm and we are doing this search the same way we did for the search that hired Scott Stricklin [in 2010],” Salter said. “That’s the university’s decision to follow the outline we got from the search firm, and the last athletic director was hired in exactly the same manner.”
Cohen, who played at MSU from 1988-90, took over as baseball coach in 2009. He won the Southeastern Conference regular-season title this past spring. He also led the Bulldogs to a national championship series appearance in 2013. He was given a contract extension through 2020 and bestowed the title of associate athletic director.
Cohen couldn’t be reached for comment.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait on Twitter @bcwait
Ben Wait reports on Mississippi State University sports for The Dispatch.
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