Five days have passed since the Search Committee announced that the short list is comprised of just Leslie Law and David O’Connor. Supporters of Jimmy and Phillip have each voiced their concerns, with Phillip having the more vocal blogs of Boyd and Jennie, and his interview with the Chronicle. It is clear that the next few days are going to be some of the most important in the history of US High Performance eventing.
As we know, the Search Committee was selected by the Eligible Athletes Committee and affirmed by John Long in an extensive process that lasted over a year. The members are: Chairman Eric Straus, Amy Tryon, Kim Severson, Katie Prudent, Mike Huber, George Morris, and Kevin Freeman. I have been saying since the Search Committee was announced that I think it is a good group of people to make hard decisions. All 7 members are absolute bulldogs who are going to do what they think is best and not give a darn about what anyone else thinks. I pity the fool who tries to tell George, Katie, Amy, Mike, Kim, Kevin, and Eric what to think or do. Unfortunately, the fact that the members of the Search Committee don’t care what anyone else thinks has created this entire mess, which brings me to my second point about the Search Committee…
No one on the Search Committee has any political sense. Eric and George might have a little savvy, but Kim, Katie, Mike, Kevin, and Amy don’t have a politically inclined bone in their bodies. Those 7 members either: 1) thought that people wouldn’t get upset about naming just David and Leslie to the short list–which would be idiotic–or 2) didn’t care.
The next big public relations mistake the Search Committee made was not explaining why they made the choices they did. I understand the search process is actively ongoing, blah blah blah–but by not providing any sort of justification for selecting only Leslie and David the Search Committee is putting a huge stress on US eventing at the top and bottom. Maybe the Search Committee just wanted to select a US based, young-ish coach and they weren’t comfortable with having two people filling two roles. Or maybe the other candidates interviewed poorly. Or maybe they threw darts at a dart board, or maybe they all received purple and yellow Kobe Bryant edition Ferraris autographed by Leslie and David–we just don’t know, and that’s a problem. We need to know why Phillip/Bobby, Jimmy, Andrew, and the other candidates were left off the short list.
I could certainly buy the argument that the Search Committee was biased in their selection–this is the USEF after all. The bad news is that it’s hard to argue that any other stage of this process will be less biased. My feeling is that John Long is probably biased because David is the USEF President, so there is no way that he can do anything other than follow the recommendation of the High Performance Committee. To put it another way, if John Long disregards the High Performance Committee I’ll shave my head on EN. The Search Committee has 4 members (George, Katie, Eric, and Kevin) who are not involved in eventing day-to-day and three members who are. Both the Eligible Athletes (Phillip, Kim, Amy, Karen, Stephen, Jan, Buck, Lauren Hart-O’Brien, Becky, Marcia, and Bonnie) and the High Performance (Bobby, Jane Atkinson, Derek Di Grazia, Phillip, Roger Haller, Karen Marilyn Payne, Kim, Amy, and Jo Whitehouse) are filled with people with ties to many of the candidates.
However, the smartest thing for the Search Committee members to protect themselves and keep the peace would have been to pass the proverbial buck, put Jimmy, David, Leslie, and Phillip on the short list, and throw the hot potato to the Active Athletes, who mercilessly appointed them to such a thankless job in the first place. I can’t reiterate this enough–to handle things the way the Search Committee did and not expect there to be a huge public outcry is absolute insanity. It is, of course, still possible for the Search Committee to add Phillip/Bobby, Jimmy, or anyone else to the short list–the USEF press release was very careful in its wording to leave that option open.
One big point that has been lost in all of this is that neither the Search Committee nor the Athletes Committee have any authority whatsoever to make a hire. The Search Committee recommends a short list to the Athletes Committee which makes a recommendation to the High Performance Committee which makes a recommendation to USEF CEO John Long who hires the next coach. Theoretically, the Active Athletes don’t have to listen to the Search Committee, and that extends right up the chain of committees. The High Performance Committee could recommend Leslie to Mr. Long and he could hire Donald Duck. The point of having all the committees is to hopefully have the candidates scrutinized by the right people and then have the final hire supported by all the important components of USEF High Performance. If one committee (or John Long) disregards the recommendations of another, it is a big admission of disunity within the USEF.
Another important point is that this selection procedure has been publicly available and widely known to the public and participants for over a year. Between Boyd, Jennie, and Phillip, Boyd’s arguments from Friday made the most sense to me because Boyd was clearly objecting to the decision of the Search Committee rather than the structure of the system. Jennie’s complaint that the riders didn’t have a larger say in the process struck me as something that should have been blogged about when the selection procedures were first announced.
The big question that I keep asking is what about Jimmy? I’m concerned that Jimmy, who handled being left off the short list graciously and quietly for the good of the sport, seems to be getting lost in the concerns about Phillip and Bobby. If we the Smurfs had any say in the process, Jimmy would be the next coach tomorrow and we shouldn’t forget that.
Don’t forget about Leslie either. After talking with quite a few High Performance riders over the weekend, they all seemed to think that David had the best chance but that Leslie definitely had a chance. One rider described Leslie as “David 5 years ago.” Both are Olympic champions and both are good coaches. David has more experience and impressive results with the Canadians but he also has more enemies. In my first post after the short list announcement I basically counted Leslie out, but after speaking with the riders I definitely give him a fighting chance.
In the end, honestly, I have no idea whether Leslie, David, Phillip/Bobby, Andrew/Bettina, or Jimmy would make the best coach. Heck, we have no idea who half the candidates were. But, between the Search Committee putting just two people on the short list without any sort of justification and the Phillip/Bobby camp publicly voicing some very legitimate but divisive objections, the issue of who would be the best coach seems like a very small detail right now.
My feeling is that as long as the concern is about objecting to the process rather than discussing the merits of the candidates, US eventing will be spinning its wheels. There are a variety of ways to mollify different factions but the only certainty is that there is no way to make everyone happy. I don’t envy the people who have to make these big decisions, but I hope that they will try to have better sense about how their actions are perceived and how that influences the unity of our sport. Go eventing.
