Chancellor Cantor's Comments on the Hiring of New SU Athletics Director Daryl Gross
Syracuse University Chancellor and President Nancy Cantor Introduces New Director of Athletics Daryl Gross on December 17, 2004
Cantor’s opening remarks:
“This is a great day. I want to thank you for joining us. We are really pleased to announce the outcome of our athletic director search. It is a tremendous outcome. I want to take this opportunity to say how we got to this great outcome. We got to it in large part because we had an extraordinary committee, chaired by associate dean of Maxwell Michael Wasylenko. Thank you, Mike, and the whole committee, along with Jed Hughes from Spencer Stuart. Thank you, Jed. They worked night and day for one very long month and we can’t really quite believe it’s been a month. Jed and I were just talking about November 17th we had the press conference about Jake stepping down in June and then, December 17th, here we are with the end of our athletic director search.
It was an extraordinary pool of applicants that Jed and his colleagues got together and an amazing set of people that went through and we got the best of the bunch. That’s always nice when you get the best of the bunch. One of the reasons we could get the best of the bunch is that SU Athletics has been tutored, and grown, and cherished and nurtured by Jake for 27 years. Under his watch, the BIG EAST Conference really took shape, he built the Dome, we’re now the anchor of the BIG EAST and that’s a big mantle to take forward and I know that Daryl will take that forward. As you know, Jake will be here to help in the transition and he’s always a phone call away.
Daryl was just in with all the athletic department staff and everybody, led by Daryl, gave Jake an extraordinary round of applause, a well-deserved round of applause. He’s done an incredible job. Also, at his side was senior vice president Lou Marcoccia, whom everybody knows his financial wisdom and administrative guidance has helped this department grow in incredible ways. So, there are a lot of people who brought SU Athletics to where it is today. And we have a new athletics director who is coming in to take this place and just fly with it. He is the full picture and that’s what I’m so excited about - Dr. Daryl Gross, senior associate athletic director at USC. You know, that’s a place where they don’t do much (sarcasm), not many championships, not many sports, they haven’t been too good with the Sears Cup. Well, he’s been there in the middle of that action the entire time. He’s done numerous coaching searches. He has done marketing and corporate sponsorship, fundraising and media, so you guys will all have your hands full here. And he’s done incredible things for student-athletes. I had a wonderful, long conversation with my old friend, Steve Sample, who’s the president of USC and he sung his praises because he has the sensibilities that you want in somebody in an academic institution of high stature. Daryl is a winner in everything – with student-athletes, as an academic and athletic leader on campus. He’ll be a big part of my cabinet and leadership team and with winning teams on the field, both Olympic and revenue sports. So, we’ve got the whole picture here.
Now, there’s one thing missing in Daryl. You know, you can’t ever have the whole picture, right? Well, the one thing missing is that he didn’t quite have the right colors. He didn’t quite have the right mascot, so we’re going to trade in that Cardinal and Gold for a new color scheme. We like this color scheme a whole lot better. (Presents Gross with an SU baseball cap and a “Otto the Orange” bobblehead). I think a Trojan Horse is good for some things, but I think Otto is a lot better … Dr. Daryl Gross.
Chancellor and President Cantor on the small number of African-American athletic directors at NCAA Division I schools and her commitment to diversity:
“The amazing thing about Daryl is that he truly was the full picture. He has a PhD. How many athletic directors in the country do you know that have a PhD and it’s not just the degree that’s important, but it’s the understanding and sensibility that that brings with it. So, I know he’s going to be able to be a true leader in my cabinet. He has coached and as he said, he has conducted coaching searches. He’s very committed to both men’s and women’s sports, so we talked a lot of Title IX and he’s very committed. He’s committed to revenue and Olympic sports. So, it’s that full picture. He’s going to engage the Syracuse community. You can see how charming he is. He’s a guy with a real sense of people which is why I think he’s a great educator. He’s a great coach selector because he has a sense of people. And he wants to win. He’s got a real competitive spirit. The fact that he’s African-American, in my view, is just fabulous, an additional plus factor of really showing how Syracuse can lead the nation in a major athletic forum, with an AD and a leader and a university leader because he’ll be a member of my cabinet. He really shows how that opportunity is being realized.”
Cantor on whether or not she knew Daryl Gross before the search began:
“I knew of Mike Garrett’s program and I knew that Mike had a second who had been very instrumental in working with him. But, I didn’t know Daryl at all. As it turns out, now that we’ve made this appointment, I’ve been getting a flood of calls from people whom I know well who know him well and it’s really lovely. I said to him today, ‘I can’t believe we didn’t know each other.’ So, we have a lot of overlapping friends.”
Cantor on whether she and Gross hit it off right away:
“We really did. It was just amazing. We joked with each other that we’re both huggers. We both love being with people and hugging and we spent a full day together and had a wonderful time, talking about a whole range of things. I mean, here, the attention today was often on football, but you know, his knowledge on a range of sports is incredible and that’s really important. I talked a lot with him about my community agenda and he really cares about that. USC is a real leader, as an institution, in community engagement and he’s been a big part of that.”
Cantor on how close she anticipates she and Gross will work:
“The senior leadership of the institution meets every Monday for at least two and a half hours. Plus, I’ll meet with Daryl every week privately. We’ll really have constant contact. I told him the one thing I am is a high information person. I don’t want to hear something from someone else. I want to know it directly and he wants a partner. He’s used to having partners. It’s very good when you hire someone who has, as a second in command, has worked in a very close partnership with their boss. That’s a real indication of how he’s going to like to work with me and I really want a partner and I think the rest of the cabinet wants a partner.”
Cantor on what the deciding factor was in hiring Gross:
“It was an absolute, unanimous, clear-cut, choice. I think it’s the well-roundedness of the package. It wasn’t just that this was a football person, or it wasn’t just that this was somebody who knew how to do coaching, or it wasn’t just somebody who had a commitment to student-athletes, or somebody who could be good with the media or with the community. I mean, it was the whole package. I was totally amazed. This is one of the best hires I think this institution will make in a long time.”
Cantor on whether there was ever a chance SU would hire someone without a football background:
“Oh yeah. Absolutely, there were candidates without football backgrounds that we looked at very seriously. But, his background is very broad and that’s really important to me. So, if you talk to the water polo coach out at USC or the volleyball coach or you talk to a variety of coaches out there, they’ll tell you that he’s in there. He’s coming to sports he doesn’t even supervise, like baseball, for example. They talk about how he shows up at the games. But, it’s great he’s so knowledgeable in football. Of course, it’s important to us. Football is very important to us.”
Cantor on whether Jake’s evaluation of the SU football program will stick or if Gross will be able to make his own evaluation:
“As you know, what I said in the press conference with Paul (Pasqualoni) was that the new AD has to be fully empowered to make his own evaluations. That was Jake’s watch. This is now Daryl’s watch. He has every right to make his own evaluation, absolutely.”
Cantor on the exact date when it will be just Daryl Gross overseeing the SU athletic department:
“I think the date when it will be just Daryl will be when he can be here consistently, day in and day out, when he moves here.”
Cantor on how big the search pool was:
“Jed Hughes from Spencer Stuart looked at more than 100 possible candidates. The search committee looked at the materials on more than 40 candidates. About eight people, I think it was, were interviewed. Then the trustees and I narrowed it down to Daryl.”
