Why David Climer’s Column About Vanderbilt’s Need to Hire an Athletic Director is Misguided

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Before I delve into the substance of this post, let me say that I am a complete, 100%, in the tank, David Williams homer. I took a class from him, have done research for him, and had the good fortune to get to know him a little bit over the last year. He was incredibly gracious a few years ago when he sat down with VSL to discuss the state of Vanderbilt sports.

With that as context, you can imagine my initial reaction when I read David Climer’s column in today’s Tennessean about David Williams and the need for Vanderbilt to hire an Athletic Director, and essentially return to a more conventional athletic department structure. It’s not that I disagree with the notion (although I do), it’s that I find real fault in the underlying assumption: that there is something wrong with the current state of Vanderbilt athletics. There’s not. In fact, I think this is a strong case, given the overall strength of the SEC in a host of sports, that Vanderbilt athletics has never been stronger.

Climer’s evidence for the decline of Vanderbilt sports and the need to call “the grand experiment…neither [a] rousing success nor utter failure” boils down to the fact that last year’s Commodore team went 2-10. It is inarguable that Vanderbilt had a disappointing season after winning their first bowl since the 50′s, and making their first appearance since 1982. Additionally, I would note that after Vanderbilt’s last bowl appearance (a loss to Air Force in the Hall of Fame Bowl in 1982), the Commodores finished their next season with just 2 wins. I doubt Tennessean columnists were calling for a fundamental restructuring of the way athletics was run at Vanderbilt after that disappointment.

But Climer cites little else to support his point. He does go out of his way to gloss over the successes in sports Vanderbilt has achieved since the 2003 restructuring, notably that the men’s basketball team has made 4 of the last 7 NCAA tournament, while the women’s team remains a perennial tournament team. Climer fails to mention all together the baseball team, probably the strongest program the school has. I get it, never let the facts get in the way of a good argument. Climer then pulls out the trump card for those eager to mock Vanderbilt athletics: the women’s bowling team. I’m proud as hell of our women’s bowling team. Those women don’t deserve your derision, nor anyone else’s for that matter. But besides all that, how many national championships had Vanderbilt won in anything prior to the restructuring?

Climer writes: “Any upticks are due in large part to the leadership of the coaches in the respective sports, not to any fundamental changes that came due to reorganization.” Without taking anything away from the leadership of the coaches Climer is taking about, doesn’t this argument seem incredibly convenient? It also ignores the job Williams and his staff have done at keeping these coaches, no easy task given their successes. You can’t have it both ways.

Climer notes that David Williams has a plethora of responsibilities at Vanderbilt beyond athletics, including the important tasks of serving as the University’s General Counsel as well as sitting on the Board of Trust just to name a few. Is he a busy guy? No doubt about it. But given the list of accomplishments that were delineated above, it doesn’t seem like his schedule has affected his ability to oversee athletics in the slightest. Again, given the strength of the SEC in almost every sport, I would argue that Vanderbilt athletics, as a whole, is as strong now as it’s ever been.

All I can figure is sports fans and sports columnists still haven’t gotten over the restructuring because it threatens the notion that there is only one way to skin a cat (in this case, compete at the NCAA level). Vanderbilt’s restructuring was symbolic of the University’s desire to make every athlete a student. Given what’s transpired in college sports since the restructuring, that strikes me as a pretty powerful symbol. Symbols are important, they matter, but they are also just symbols. Does anyone think that Vanderbilt doesn’t have an athletic management structure that resembles that of every other school? Is it that important that this apparatus be called an “athletic department?” If the restructuring hasn’t been a huge failure, why disrupt the structure in place? While I don’t always subscribe to the notion of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” that axiom seems particularly appropriate.

Climer is right about one thing, Williams’ decision about who the next football coach will be is incredibly important. It is the “first critical hiring decision of the restructuring,” because, as mentioned above, Vanderbilt sports has been blessed since the restructuring to have had a stable of excellent, dedicated, and effective coaches guiding their respective teams? Why discard an organization before it’s been tested because you’re not sure how it will do? If the hiring of a football coach is bungled, that’s another thing. But as I read it today, it strikes me as entirely premature.