Decision on AD may come soon UM president has final say

The University of Maine is expected to have a new director of athletics in the near future, possibly later this week.

UMaine President Peter Hoff met Tuesday with the 11-member search committee charged with finding a permanent success for Dr. Suzanne Tyler, who stepped down last June. The committee met for two hours to discuss the three remaining finalists and talk about them with Hoff.

“We had a meeting [Tuesday] with President Hoff and the search committee had a good discussion with him,” said UMaine spokesman Joe Carr, who is a member of the committee. “Now the decision is in [Hoff’s] hands.”

The finalists for the UMaine job are Patrick Nero, the senior associate director of athletics at the University of Miami; Jody Mooradian, the senior associate AD and senior woman administrator at Northeastern University in Boston; and Robert Corran, the director of athletics at the University of Minnesota-Duluth since 1997.

Carr explained the search committee, which is chaired by Diana Lawson, the associate dean in UMaine’s college of business, public policy and heath, did not narrow the list any further.

“It’s safe to say the committee felt that we have three very good candidates and we shared that with President Hoff,” Carr said. “And then we had a more detailed discussion about the attributes of each candidate.”

Administrators, coaches, faculty and staff – many of whom met with each of the candidates – were encouraged to provide the committee chair with written feedback about their impressions of the candidates to help the committee provide Hoff with as much input as possible.

“It was a very thorough process,” Carr said.

Talk among some UMaine coaches and staff members would seem to indicate Nero is the frontrunner for the position, but their preference will be weighed against the input of several other UMaine constituency groups when Hoff makes the final determination.