George Ferguson Column: MSU-N should be commended for the process

The searching, the reading resumes’, the phone interviews, the meetings, the hand-shaking, the long plane rides and drives, that part of the process that will eventually lead to Montana State University-Northern hiring a new head football coach is now over.

Now, the people in charge, Interim Chancellor Greg Kegel and Athletic Director Christian Oberquell, have a tough decision to make. The decision about who is the best fit, the best candidate, and the best coach to lead the Lights into the future is all that’s left.

And having sat through all four candidates’ public forums last week, I can tell you, the decision won’t be an easy one. And that’s why Oberquell and the MSU-N search committee, and everyone else involved with the process, should be commended.

I think Northern did an outstanding job with this process, which wasn’t an easy one. There are a lot of emotions involved in this situation, going back to August. There are a lot of really good people who have strong feelings about the coaching situation at Northern, and a lot of people who will have those strong feelings regarding what has happened to the Northern football program the last five months, my own personal feelings included, for years to come.

But no matter how any of us feel, the program must move forward, the process had to take place, and, especially for the current Northern players and coaching staff, the process needed to be expeditious.

Northern has done an outstanding job of that.

I think Northern did an excellent job of identifying candidates, but that was only part of the process. To put things in a different perspective, the University of Montana just finished its own search for a head coach, and it was a completely different process all together.

In Missoula, everything was done behind closed doors and in-house. There was no official search committee, and UM Athletic Director Kent Haslam did not, at any point in the process, discuss potential candidates. In the meantime, rumors, from high-level boosters, down to internet posters, swirled for weeks about who was going to be the next Grizzly head coach. There was little word from inside the athletic offices in Missoula about the process, candidates or a timetable.

Now, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with what Haslam and UM chose to do, though I’ll admit, the suspense killed me for weeks on end, and as a journalist, it was a lot more difficult to cover. And there’s no doubt, Haslam’s method certainly seems to have paid off because it looks and sounds like new Grizzly head coach Bob Stitt is certainly the right man for the job. I mean, how can we go wrong with a guy who has his own T-shirt and his own #Stitthappens Twitter handle?

Only time will tell if Haslam hit a home run with Stitt, but as a journalist, and alumnus, as a member of the Northern community and of Griz Nation, I much prefer Northern’s method of hiring its next football coach.

All four candidates spent at least a full day in Havre and on campus. There was a panel of current players each candidate met with, there was the search committee, tours, meetings and of course, the public forum where each candidate was asked to speak about himself and answer questions from not only us in the media, but anyone in the community who wanted to know something about the potential next head coach.

I thought it was the perfect way to conduct a search for one of the most important positions on Northern’s campus.

And make no mistake, this is an important decision. Whoever is hired, whether it’s Ryan Gatch, Kelly Bills, Aaron Christensen or Kyle Kramer, it’s a huge step for Northern football and Northern athletics. In some ways, compared to other members of the Frontier Conference, Northern football is only in its adolescent stages. But in other ways, Northern football has become not only an integral part of the Frontier, and the NAIA, but also a way of life on MSU-N’s campus.

That’s what makes this upcoming decision a difficult one, because this is a critical time for the program. It’s about moving forward, about moving up and about stability, and the next man to lead the program must, above all else, be the right man.

And while we don’t know yet who that man is — that decision and announcement could come any day now — we do know that Northern did itself proud with the process. Northern conducted its search the right way, involving everybody who cares about the program, the school, and the community. Northern was extremely transparent with the process, and it’s my belief, that transparency at a tax-payer funded institution is paramount.

So kudos to MSU-N for making the process a success. Like with Stitt, only time will tell if the same can be said for the next head coach at Northern, but MSU-N certainly did the search the right way, and something tells me, doing it the way Northern did, will definitely pay off in the long run.