Why search firms are key to finding a coach

Bob McClellan
Rivals.com College Basketball Editor

The first rule of Parker Executive Search is that you don't talk about Parker Executive Search.

That's the way Dan Parker wants it, so that's the way it will be. One of the most powerful men in college basketball chooses to stay behind the curtain, but his handiwork is visible across the country.

Parker helped orchestrate the coaching hires this offseason at Kentucky, Arkansas, Iowa and Minnesota, among others. Last year, his firm helped put Kelvin Sampson at Indiana and Jeff Capel at Oklahoma.
While the rest of us are speculating wildly about which coaches have been contacted and who are the real candidates, Parker knows. He's in the discussions with the chancellors, athletic directors, coaches, attorneys and agents. He knows who's available and who's looking. A surprise hire is never a surprise for Parker.

Parker Executive Search helped bring Kelvin Sampson and Indiana together.
So who is Dan Parker? How does his firm operate? And why seemingly are more schools going the route of the search firm?

The man behind the curtain
Dan Parker has been in the executive search business for a long time, more than 25 years. Prior to serving as president of his Atlanta-based firm, he was a partner of Baker-Parker Global Executive Search for 10 years.
It's a business he has seen from both sides. For years he was the kind of high level executive that a search firm would try to find. He was vice president and managing director of the Atlanta office of A.T. Kearney, a global management consulting firm. He also held senior level management positions with Samsonite Corporation and Aladdin Industries.

Now he sits in an office and maintains a database of qualified candidates for senior-level jobs in all major areas for corporations and universities. He has conducted more than 200 successful searches in the higher-education field, including the positions of chancellor, president, provost, dean, athletic director and coach.

"I have known of Parker Executive Search for many years," said John White, chancellor at the University of Arkansas. "Prior to coming to the University of Arkansas in 1997, I was at Georgia Tech for 22 years. Parker Executive Search is an Atlanta-based firm, so it would be natural for me to have familiarity with Dan Parker and his team.

"Dan is the consummate professional. He never oversteps his position as advisor and counselor. His objective, reasoned, rational and informed approach served us well. Beyond Dan, his team is highly effective; they are bright, energetic, focused, responsive, knowledgeable and discrete."

That discretion leads Parker ultimately to decline an interview request. He exchanges a few good-natured e-mails, even feigning indignation when he's called just one of the most powerful men in college basketball. Lest there be any misinterpretation he adds, "Only kidding. Never about me; always about the client."

The search process
Only recently have athletic searches become a cottage industry for Parker, who has a bachelor's and master's from the University of Georgia.

"It's a high-stakes game at the top level," said Ricky Lefft of the Lefft Law Group. Lefft is an attorney who represents Tubby Smith and Rod Barnes, a pair of coaches who landed new jobs through PES. Lefft also is a faculty member at the University of South Carolina. "Athletic directors have indicated that it's not a good thing for them to be publicly turned down. They don't want to court somebody, go along with the courtship, get to the altar and be turned down. They never want to look like they had to accept their second choice."

Inside information
Basketball coaching hires this offseason that involved Parker Executive Search, an Atlanta-based search firm:

That's why Parker has become such an integral part of the dance between coaches and potential suitors. He operates in the shadows. His lips are sealed.

PES got involved in the Arkansas search for a basketball coach only after Creighton's Dana Altman had taken the job and changed his mind.

"I recommended using Parker Executive Search since they handled the search for the University of Minnesota and were handling the search for the University of Kentucky," White said. "Because they were engaged in a search for a sister institution in the Southeastern Conference, I felt that they would be quite knowledgeable of the national landscape and would be able to execute the search in a timely fashion.
"I called Dan Parker (the day after Altman went back to Creighton) and asked if he would assist us."

White and Athletic Director Frank Broyles met with Parker the following morning in Dallas since Parker already had a commitment there. They talked for four hours, and PES helped White and Broyles sift through a large pool of potential candidates.

"Based on the information they provided, we developed a list of individuals for Parker Executive Search to contact to ascertain their interest and/or availability," White said. "Based on those contacts, a short list of candidates was developed. We interviewed them in Dallas on Saturday and informed Dan that we wished to offer the job to John Pelphrey. Dan called him that evening, as did Coach Broyles. I also talked with John that evening. On Monday, John Pelphrey was introduced as our head coach."

Lefft declined to go into specific detail about how Smith wound up at Minnesota. But he talked about the process with Parker Executive Search.

"What happens is Dan will give me a call and say, 'Who's on your list? Let's go through them,' " Lefft said. "He knows I have them; I update and send to all search firms information about my clients. If he's looking for a certain caliber, certain type, certain profile, maybe I have somebody who fits.

"Dan is good about being on the phone and calling, giving you the profile of the job. Here's a profile of some of the opportunities that exist. Sometimes if you're informed you can anticipate what those might be. Then you try to match profile with profile."

Why a search firm?
Parker's firm doesn't come cheap. Arkansas paid $90,000. Kentucky paid $50,000. The fee typically includes gauging the interest of candidates, providing the school with salary requirements, performing background checks and arranging face-to-face meetings. Parker allows that his firm "generally manages expectations." He adds that "to date we have not had a public rejection without having an immediate go-to candidate for a client." He also wrote that searches typically take 7-14 days.

You could argue that PES performs a job that an AD should be able to handle. But in this day and age with ADs carrying such high profiles and there being such public scrutiny of the hiring process, it can make sense to turn to a search firm.

"According to athletic directors, it's an easy way to probe coaches and get a sense of interest, cull down the list," Lefft said. "They can begin the process before the season is over and the job is open."
Denver AD Peg Bradley-Doppes felt she needed the clout of a national search firm because of all of the coaching jobs that she believed would be coming open in the region. Indeed, Colorado's job came open a week after the Pioneers job, on March 9. Three days later jobs also came open at Colorado State and Wyoming.
"We wanted to deal with a search firm that was not already representing somebody in our back yard," Bradley-Doppes said. "We wanted somebody who could represent us and our interests that I had a high level of trust and confidence in.

"Working with a search firm was a great experience because it clarifies what you're looking for on the front end. You have to articulate what you want, what the terms are, how much you'll pay, what you're offering. Then Parker assists in a confidential, professional way. It gets the word out. For us it was critically important that the basketball community could see the University of Denver was serious about making a significant hire for the program."

Northern Illinois Athletic Director Jim Phillips quickly rattled off his reasons for hiring PES to assist in his search.

"Five things that to me were really important in this search that Dan Parker and his team were able to provide:

"That was pretty critical for us as we looked at finding a new basketball coach," Phillips said. "There's no question it was a buyer's market in that so many jobs were open; I think nearly 50 have changed over at the Division I level. It's a very competitive process and unless you have those five components it makes it extremely, extremely challenging. Dan Parker and his staff did just an absolutely incredible job for Northern Illinois University."

Firms also can cut down on the embarrassment of a search. Arkansas courted a couple of coaches even before Altman, and finally turned to PES to avoid being pilloried in the press any further.

Said White: "Coach Broyles summed up our experience well when, after meeting with Dan (for the first time), he said, 'I should have used him three weeks ago.' "

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