White’s knight?

Who was really pulling the strings in Pittsburgh’s athletic department the last four years? It appears that it wasn’t just Jeff Long, Arkansas’ new athletic director hired earlier this month to replace the Hogfather, Frank Broyles.

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review columnist Joe Starkey insinuates that Pitt’s chancellor and executive vice chancellor were just as responsible as Long for hiring football coach Dave Wannstedt, whose team suffered an embarrassing 34-14 loss to Connecticut this past weekend and has underperformed since he arrived there in 2005.

Here is Starkey’s take:

I actually did see a press-box wag point to the pathetic fourth-quarter scene — a near-empty stadium in the waning stages of a blowout loss to Connecticut — and say, “Jeff Long’s legacy.” He was speaking of Pitt’s erstwhile athletic director (what, you didn’t know Long was gone?), and he had a point.

But if you hold Long even partially accountable for Pitt’s precipitous drop in football, remember that chancellor Mark Nordenberg and executive vice chancellor Jerry Cochran pull the athletic department strings and had a heavy hand in hiring Wannstedt.

In the future, can we expect Chancellor John A. White exerting similar influence over Arkansas’ athletic department as Pitt’s top administrators do over theirs? This will be interesting to watch when Long takes over Jan. 1. Don’t forget that when he settles in Fayetteville next month, Long will serve as a special assistant to White. Hmmm…

Filed under: Arkansas Baseball, Arkansas Basketball, Arkansas Football by Rainer Sabin. Posted on: September 25, 2007 at 12:54 am