Defiantly Dutch Q&A: Jack Hayes

Hofstra athletic director Jack Hayes took a few minutes tonight to discuss the hiring of Mo Cassara and one of the wildest and most unpredictable five-day spans in school history. Thanks to Jack for taking time out of a busy schedule to speak with us.

How did you decide Mo was the right candidate for the job?

Certainly the last five weeks weren’t meant to be an interview process. We never thought we’d be in this situation. But over the last five weeks, we worked closely with Mo Cassara. We both know a lot of the same people in the business, people that over the last two days turned out to be references as we started going in this direction. And we felt very comfortable with it—felt very comfortable with Mo Cassara and his relationship with the members of the team, with the coaching staff that we currently have, how he interacted with a number of people on campus, and felt that he was ready to take on this challenge. Certainly, five weeks ago, we said we were looking for a head coach. Well, the circumstances changed. So while we didn’t eliminate head coaches, the circumstances going about it were certainly much different than the circumstances five weeks ago.

When did you begin to think an internal option was the way to go?

I think that it was always something we wanted to consider. I was concerned that we might be in a position where our basketball team would have been on its third coaching staff in six weeks. That being said, I still wrestled with that versus what ultimately was in the best interests long-term of the basketball program. And in going back and weighing both of those situations, I still felt that Mo Cassara’s background and his coaching experience at a variety of levels was going to be best for us.

Were you surprised you were able to keep the entire staff together?

I think that they worked closely together for four or five weeks and certainly have come together during what’s been a challenging few days. I think that, being the case, we’ve communicated regularly throughout the last few days, talked about different options and I think they’re all excited to be here and to be part of this program moving forward.

I think they were all committed to the same thing, committed to being successful. They’re committed to the fact that they came to a program that has won a lot of games in recent years and they want to be part of it moving forward and continuing what has been over the years. I think they’re really excited.

When did your search zero in on Mo?

In the last couple days. Certainly, conversations that Mo and the president and I have had, those conversations were about what we do going forward in the event that he was the coach, how would we handle those things. The whole coaching staff had an opportunity to meet a lot of people at an event last night and I know our team, I know people in our department and people across campus felt very comfortable with the entire staff.

You mentioned the players. How important was it to give them some stability after a whirlwind few weeks?

It was very important. Like I said, you wrestle with the decision of what’s in the best long-term interests—how do you handle the current team and the feelings of all those individuals? Those things were important. And making the announcement late in the afternoon today, they were thrilled.

Were you ever worried that you would not be able to consider someone from the current staff because the University would want to completely cut ties with those connected to Tim?

Not really. We did not think that. I shouldn’t even say not really—the answer is no. We had, certainly, an unfortunate and a disappointing situation take place. It did not impact looking at any of the individuals on our staff.

There have obviously been rumors of other players departing Hofstra. Do you think this move will keep them in the fold?

Nobody has asked [for a release] of yet. These things are always challenging for student athletes, because it happens in all sports. When those things take place, you try to help them through it. You try to get a coaching staff in place as soon as you can. And this was one of those situations where you just never thought five weeks ago, obviously, that we would be going through it again. But we had the best candidate right here on our staff.

How important was it to hire someone from Welsh’s staff in order to maintain continuity during the recruiting season?

Very important. Very important. Because once the situation arose on Friday, a lot of those things came to a halt. So it is critical that we get right back to the good work that was being done throughout the month of April.

Going back to the start of this process—what did the weekend entail for you?

I did see a couple things that came out in various places [about how] no comment had been made at all. That ‘no comment’ wasn’t a sign of support or lack of support for the coach. ‘No comment’ was we didn’t have a lot of the facts. So as we tried to get the facts not just Friday but over the weekend, I certainly knew that there was a chance that we may not have a coach on Monday. So when Tim Welsh resigned on Monday, I wasn’t surprised. We were ready to move forward at the time.

The truth is we didn’t have all the information. So we tried to gather as much as we could over the weekend. But I knew right from the beginning we had a serious situation and a very disappointing one. ‘No comment’ wasn’t a sign of support for the coach. We weren’t in position at the time to do anything. That’s really want the situation was.

Did this change at all the process by which you conduct background checks for coaching candidates?

We did everything that you would expect to do [with Welsh], from the process of doing the background check. The references were very credible [from] people in the field. And in terms of moving forward, we would have done the same thing, we would have gone through the same process with an external candidate. And with Mo Cassara, he had gone through the whole process as an assistant. Unfortunately, things happen that are not within your control, and it certainly wasn’t the result of not—it wasn’t a result of a lack of taking those proper steps. Nothing ever came up.

These were fairly unchartered waters you were entering. Did you consult with athletic directors who had gone through a coaching change in late spring, such as FDU last year or New Hampshire in 2005?

I did not talk to ADs who had done that. I certainly talked to ADs about the situation that we were in—not necessarily ones that had gone through it, but ones that I knew very well.

At the end of the day, you want to do what’s right. I want to do what’s right for the student-athletes. I want to do what’s right for Hofstra. And we were in a situation that we certainly did not anticipate, a situation that was disappointing. And that’s the cards that we were dealt. And I felt like my responsibility was to try to get us through that and move forward. And that’s what the five days—that’s what has taken place from 9:30 Friday morning until about 4 o’clock this afternoon.

What’s your mindset now, after a whirlwind five days? Are you exhausted? Still running on adrenaline?

A search process is exhausting because it’s extensive, it’s a lot of conversations, it’s a lot of following up. You’ve got to look at every situation you could be in. I think you need to look at every situation from a variety of points of view. And you do that the whole time hoping that what you’re doing is making the right decision and making the right decision that impacts a large number of people. So it’s one of those things that is very concerning. But I understand that’s the responsibility, and while I never anticipated that following the April 1 announcement that we would be doing this again, that was the case, it was where we’ve been over the last five days. And the only option, again, is to go at it in a way that you think is in the best interests of Hofstra and of our team members.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

Tim Welsh Press Conference—Jack Hayes Q&A

You’re a Providence graduate who worked in the Big East while Tim Welsh was the head coach at Providence. So what’s your very first Tim Welsh memory?

You want this one? My very first memory—I’m assistant athletic director at Fairfield and he’s at Iona and Iona was the benchmark program in our league. So my very first interaction with Tim Welsh was in that three-year period that he referred back to 13 years ago when he was the head coach at Iona and I worked at Fairfield. Then he takes the Providence job at my alma mater, so I followed the situation. I’ve actually seen him now when we were in the same league, then when he was at my alma mater. I’ve always been very impressed.

When did you get the idea that you’d have to find a new men’s basketball coach?

Tom and I went back and forth. I worked at Fordham, I knew the place, I knew the people there. Tom and I, it was probably a little different than when you would normally be involved in a job like this. Tom and I were able to have a conversation candidly about what Fordham was like. I knew that he was very, very close to taking that job. I knew it. I knew he was because, like I said, unlike maybe some other situations, we were very close. We’re very good friends. I enjoyed working with him so much. And I knew a good amount about the place that he was considering, which probably doesn’t happen all that often.

So what it actually did was it allowed me to really start to think about when’s this going to happen and is it going to happen? You always have names in mind—you’re supposed to, that’s what somebody in this position would do—but ironically, Tim Welsh wasn’t on my mind, because I didn’t know he had an interest to come back. When Mike Tranghese mentioned that name as somebody that would be interested in coming back, he was number one on the list. And that really happened at some point over the weekend.

What do you think this hire says for athletics at Hofstra?

Hopefully it says that we’re committed to athletics, we want to win, we know the importance of having a successful basketball program. I hope that’s what it says. That’s what I think it says.

Tim will be paid more than Tom was. Does this mean there will be a commensurate increase in the rest of the basketball budget?

I think you have to do what [is right for] you. I’m sure Tom’s salary is greater than the person that he replaced at Fordham. Each school has a situation, each school has to do what’s best for them. And you’ve got to go out and find the best person. Sometimes that’s what you need to do.

Are you surprised this only took a week?

It’s felt like a lifetime, to tell you the truth. It has. But you just don’t know. You hope your first candidate shares the same interest that you do. You hope you can bring him in and meet with the president and everybody’s on the same page. You can do all those things and the candidate could say ‘You know what? I’m going to wait another year.’ And then you’ve got to move on. So you just don’t know what that time frame’s going to be. The fact that we were locked in on our first candidate and then everything went so smoothly, [it] probably went pretty quick.

It seems like it was a delicate process.

It is. It is. And I’ll tell you why: When you want to hone in on head coaches, you have to do so in a way that’s respectful of their situation and doesn’t expose them if they are not ultimately considered or ultimately chosen. And that’s a tough thing to navigate through. It all depends on what your process is. If you’re open to not necessarily just looking at head coaches, maybe you can do it a little differently. I felt that where our program was and all the things that Jay Wright and Tom Pecora had done, I felt an obligation to find somebody who had been a head coach.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch. 

Defiantly Dutch Q&A: Jack Hayes on the CBI

We spoke Monday afternoon with Hofstra athletic director Jack Hayes, who gave a glimpse at how the school decided to pursue a bid to the CBI or CIT and how it landed a CBI home game Wednesday as well as the logistics of planning such an event and trying to generate interest in it among fans. Hope you enjoy the interview and we thank Jack for taking the time to speak with us during a busy day at the school.

Describe the process by which Hofstra ended up in the CBI. Did you begin pursuing these bids when you were eliminated from the CAA Tournament?

It pretty much started in the last couple weeks. We took a different approach than last year. Last year, we had six seniors on the team. We were 21-11 at this point last year, but with six seniors we just made the decision early on that if we were invited to the NCAA or the NIT we would accept the bid and be thrilled about it. And if not, that was going to be the end of our season. As you know, this time around, the makeup of our team is entirely different. Five of the top seven players, in terms of minutes, are people that would be coming back next year. When you have a team that’s going to return the Player of the Year in the conference, a member of the all-defensive team and two members of the all-rookie team, we felt like ‘Let’s continue to play as long as we can.’ And in conversations with the CBI and the CIT, we communicated to them that we would be interested in playing if we were invited.

Was there a point Sunday night where it became clear that the CBI was a more likely destination than the CIT?

I think we did get to the point, when it seemed like we would be invited to the CBI, that we let both groups know. We let both groups know where we were in this all along.

Throughout the process, were you feeling pretty good about getting an invite to one of the tournaments?

I think we did. They ask you what your availability is in terms of being able to travel, is your building available for home games, that type of thing. What happens in these tournaments—I’m sure you’ve seen it already in the Illinois-Stony Brook game—is that once you get into mid-March, a lot of schools’ facilities are being used for other things. And so you end up with schools that can be in it, schools that can be in it but can’t play at home. You have those conversations with the NIT, with the CBI, with the CIT. But we felt all along in those conversations about our team, about our ability to play home or away, we felt like there would be a likelihood that we’d get the phone call.

What made you decide to bid on a home game?

One thing was we knew that next week, our building was not available, which is in rounds two and three. So we discussed that [and how] we would be able to host in the first round, but if we were fortunate enough to advance, that we would not be able to. I don’t think that played a role in whether or not we were invited to the tournament. They probably sit there and say ‘If Hofstra were to participate and they don’t play at home in the first round, then they actually have no opportunity to play at home.’ So I think that may have factored into it, that we were able to host a first round game but not a second or third round game.

Reports the first two years had schools paying $60,000 to host a game. Can you say what the fee was for Hofstra?

They asked us not to. I’m sure they ran into problems there, maybe a year ago, with how they did that, so they asked us not to comment.

What is preparing for a tournament like this like from a logistical point of view?

You’ve got to be prepared for it already hoping that you get the bid, which you do every year if you’re in a position to participate in postseason play. By the time Sunday comes, you have to have the ticket office up to speed, you have to have the facilities schedule known, because you can imagine on Tuesday, IUPUI’s going to have to practice here. They don’t have to, but you have to give them the opportunity if they’d like to do so. Practice schedule to ticket information to information on the website [all has to be released].

The two preseason NIT games Hofstra hosted, neither of which could be listed on the schedule that was issued in October, didn’t draw very well at all. What are you planning to do to let people know about the CBI and to let them know there’s a basketball game at Hofstra Wednesday night?

There are some things in the preseason NIT that [limit] you—the prices are set at the beginning and group ticket discounts and student tickets and discounted tickets are not permitted. We’ve got a little bit more flexibility [with the CBI]. So even though we don’t have a significant amount of time in terms of from the announcement to when the game is played, some of those things we have already prepared for. We were able to put things up on the website and send information by email to season ticket holders, which does make it easier. Believe me, we have been thinking about the preseason NIT as we’ve been making some of these decisions in the last few days.

After Hofstra chose not to play in the CBI or CIT bid last year, you and Tom Pecora sent a letter to season ticket holders explaining the decision. Did the negative fan reaction play a factor in this year’s decision?

Two things: One, the most important, was the makeup of our team with six seniors. It didn’t really make sense for us to do this. The second piece was, as we started to move closer to the end of the season this year, we did get feedback from other teams that participated in these events. As you know, Northeastern participated in these types of events. Old Dominion has. So we’ve been on the phone with the schools that were in the [tournaments]. It was those two reasons, the primary one being the makeup of our team.

Hofstra fielded a good amount of criticism after the football program was terminated. President Rabinowitz said in announcing the decision that there were no plans to eliminate any other sports and that the school would continue to invest in its athletic program. With that in mind, what kind of message do you think hosting a CBI game, as well as the news last week that Hofstra will host the 2011 Division I lacrosse quarterfinals, sends to fans, alumni and athletes?

Anytime that you can bring national events to your campus, it’s a positive. Ultimately, what this is about is providing our team an opportunity to continue to play, and I don’t know why anyone would not think that’s a positive. If we can give the members of our team an opportunity to play in a tournament that has meaning, then we should consider it. So we were excited to do it. We’re certainly excited about that announcement last week and excited about this as well. The turnaround time does make it a little bit of a challenge, but it is what it is. I think there’s schools out there that would like the opportunity to be playing in a basketball game Wednesday, and so we’re grateful that we have that opportunity.

We want to be successful. We want to strive to be as strong an athletic program as we can.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.