Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
President hopes to have new candidate in August-September range.
PORTALES — Greg Waggoner is moving on.
Waggoner on Monday officially resigned as Eastern New Mexico University athletic director, submitting his letter of resignation to university president Jeff Elwell, though Elwell stated on Tuesday afternoon that there were face-to-face discussions leading up to it.
Elwell answered simply, “no,” to the question of whether Waggoner was asked to resign, before adding, “we met regularly for the two years that I’ve been here and like any people working together, we didn’t always agree on things. But Greg did a really good job and now we’re just sort of moving forward.”
Calls to Waggoner had not been returned as of press time late Tuesday afternoon.
The ‘moving forward’ process Elwell referred to will be one that likely lasts most of the summer and has a new athletic director in place, he hopes some time in August.
“If this was D-1 we might (have a replacement sooner),” Elwell said. “I met with the athletic department staff yesterday morning and talked about forming a search committee and solicited some members. Some indicated they were interested, so we’ll be putting together a search committee pretty soon.”
During the search process, Vice President of Student Affairs Jeff Long will serve as the interim athletic director.
“One reason I asked Dr. Long,” Elwell said, “in previous stops athletic staff has reported to him, so he is well-versed in the type of things that they do and what they’ll be looking for. ... He has a much higher signature of authority to sign off on things and I think it will be pretty clear to anyone looking at the ad (to fill the position) that he is not going to be a candidate. Sometimes if you have an internal candidate, (prospective outside candidates) will be like, ‘Oh, they’re just going to hire so-and-so.’”
That stated, internal candidates other than Long may apply for the position, according to Elwell. The ad, he says, will go on the NCAA job market and Eastern New Mexico University websites, he hopes sometime this weekend.
“It’s a wide-open search, it’ll be a very inclusive search,” Elwell said. “The search committee will be very diverse and I hope the pool will be as well.”
Speaking more specifically about the search committee, which will include coaching staff members and community members, Elwell said it would be, “diverse gender-wise, it’ll be diverse racially, it’ll be diverse in terms of their roles. I always think that’s the best way, quite honestly, because you don’t have just one perspective.”
Once the ad is posted, there will be a screening process that will likely last through much of July, a process that could include telephone interviews and Skyping.
“I’ve probably hired over 400 people in my career,” Elwell said. “You have an idea going into it. As soon as you meet people and see how they interact and answer questions, it usually narrows down fairly quickly.”
Elwell hopes to have finalists on campus for interviews by early August. That could be a process, too, depending on if candidates are driving in, or if they need to be flown in, needing hotel accommodations once they arrive.
As for the number of finalists?
“I’m hoping five,” Elwell said, “but it could be four. And if the committee wants to bring six ... that would be great. We won’t bring 20 people to campus. The best thing is to get the right person, the right fit, somebody who will come in and have the support of the department and the administration. If that means they don’t arrive (to start work) until Sept. 15, we’ll make that happen. And if they can arrive Aug. 15, that would be great.”
Elwell is hopeful that the new athletic director will be in place before the ENMU football team’s season opener against Missouri S&T on Sept. 7 at Greyhound Stadium.
“And I think that’s very doable,” he said.
Whomever is hired, Elwell is expecting to get the best of a good field of candidates.
“This is a very attractive job for people who either head other people at D2 or 3,” he said, “or assistants at either bigger D2 or Division I who want the opportunity to lead and have amassed the experience and skill to do that.”