Can you imagine the media firestorm to come? Rutgers just, willingly mind you, hired an athletic director who was subject to a lawsuit for discriminating against pregnant women. An athletic director who, while nominally the #2 official at Louisville, did not supervise the football or men's basketball programs, which are the only revenue sports at most universities. An athletic director who comes from a department with limited academic prestige and has flirted with NCAA compliance issues.
It is difficult to imagine a worse, more divisive candidate that Rutgers could have selected than Julie Hermann. The only possible consolation in all of this is that the next year could be so fractured and painful that we could be begging Tim Pernetti to return by the time 2014 rolls around. This was a criminal abdication of responsibility by Pres. Barchi and the Board of Governors, who let an agenda-driven search committee that largely refused to consider alternative candidates.
Save us, Tim. You're our only hope.