Daryl Gross drew a grid on a whiteboard in his office, finding a sliver of space between Carrier Dome plans and a fiscal breakdown. The grid was used to explain how he identifies what coach to hire, a practice that from the outside looks like a version of pin the tail on the donkey, but the Syracuse athletic director tries to make a quantifiable science. It’s a process in which Gross is all too familiar.

Since Gross took over as SU’s director of athletics in December 2004, he’s hired six coaches – five externally and one promoted from within. His first and most defining hire was football coach Greg Robinson, followed chronologically by track and field coach Chris Fox, softball coach Leigh Ross, tennis coach Luke Jensen, women’s basketball coach Quentin Hillsman, who was promoted from assistant coach, and finally, field hockey coach Ange Bradley.

Gross has made these decisions, and though there hasn’t been a national championship since Gross took over (there were three national championships in the three years prior to his arrival), Gross sticks to the grid on the whiteboard.

The grid worked to hire Pete Carroll, Southern California’s football coach, arguably the best coach in college football and perhaps the defining college coaching hire of the last decade. It worked when Gross was a senior associate athletic director at USC, helping to hire coaches who produced six national championships in Gross’ last two years with the Trojans. It worked to lure Jensen, a tennis great and ESPN commentator, to coach Syracuse’s afterthought tennis program. To hear Gross explain it, the method will work at Syracuse. Because for Gross, the grid isn’t subjective.

Along the grid’s baseline is a list of attributes he’s looking for in a coach – as many as 20 to 25, Gross said. These include everything from X’s-and-O’s, to recruiting, to dealing with the media, to speaking well at alumni banquets. Along the sidelines are the list of coaches he’s considering for a job, a list formulated after speaking with various ‘experts’ around the country – other coaches and players.

The attributes are each assigned different weights. If recruiting is emphasized for one particular job, then recruiting will be given more weight. If there are other considerations – like finding a defensive coach when hiring Carroll – that factor will receive more weight. Ultimately, a number is given to each candidate and a ‘score’ is formulated. The score determines whom Gross goes after.

He then interviews the final candidates. Gross characterized the interviewing as the subjective element in the process. After the interview, he goes back to the grid, makes any necessary adjustments and determines the final choice.

‘There’s a real science to this, no matter what you do,’ Gross said. ‘You just do your homework and you end up coming with all these critical variables that are important to building a championship team. The whole science in it is to figure out all the critical variables in that sport to win and create the program you want.’

Gross said this method was warmly received by USC athletic director Mike Garrett and inspired by Gross’ scouting days with the New York Jets. When Gross scouted with the Jets from 1989-1991, he answered to then-general manager Dick Steinberg. Steinberg wanted players to be broken up by different attributes, whether it was toughness, agility, specifics of the position arm, etc. Each was assigned a grade from one through nine. A grade of one meant the attribute was rare. A grade of nine meant the attribute was poor. The attributes together would be used to determine the prospects’ overall grade.

‘Basically what you’re doing is quantifying,’ Gross said. ‘So what I like to do when hiring coaches is the same thing. It’s to come up with this quantification mechanic to make the most high percentage choice you could possibly make.’

Gross translated this formula and implements it into any hire he makes – whether it’s the head football coach or his secretary. He started out with 10 secretarial candidates, evaluated the candidates in all kinds of categories – one was how quickly they can ‘Blackberry’ – and then had his staff interview the final choice. Gross returned to the formula and made the final decision.

Gross is an example of the evolution of the athletic director. The position is seldom a retirement job for the old football coach like it used to be, but instead one that requires significant administrative and executive capabilities. The price and attention paid to coaches only increases, and mistakes are costly.

Because of the gravity of coaching decisions – especially for football and men’s basketball – more athletic directors are turning to third-party search agencies used to make executive hires at various levels at both the university level and corporate level. Among the top agencies is Parker Executive Search, an Atlanta-based agency that reportedly was the catalyst in Minnesota hiring Tubby Smith as its men’s basketball coach away from Kentucky in March.

Parker Executive Search president Dan Parker would not go on record about specific hires out of respect for the coaches and athletic directors. He said his job is to ‘recruit, advise and facilitate.’

There’s a school of thought that utilizing a search agency is almost redundant because it’s the athletic director’s job to identify and recruit coaches. Gross said he is ‘not an advocate’ of using these consultants.

They do present advantages, though. The traditional practice when hiring a coach from another school is for one athletic director to call the other school’s athletic director for permission to speak to that coach. This is the start of what often turns out to become a very public process, which many coaching candidates can ill afford from both a recruiting and public relations perspective. A third-party agency can help provide confidentially, gauge interest and even start to negotiate a contract outside of public attention.

Parker’s agency also has an extensive database of coaches on both the college and pro level, which could present the athletic director with different names than a traditional search.

‘We’re providing more diverse pools,’ Parker said. ‘We know 95 percent of candidates. No athletic director can know that many candidates.’

Parker emphasized that his agency will never contact an athletic director about starting a search, instead allowing the athletic director to decide on utilizing the third party. Parker said his agency does not make decisions on whom to hire, instead just aiding with the identification of candidates, the confidentiality of interviews and the negotiations, among other landmarks along the coach hiring timeline.

‘We don’t have a vote. We don’t select a coach. That’s the athletics director decision,’ Parker said. ‘But often we’re the only one the athletic director can turn to to identify candidates, recruit candidates and negotiate with the agent while the athletic director is conducting the search.’

There’s not one way to hire a coach. Both ways have examples that worked, and both have examples that haven’t worked. But however a coach is identified and subsequently hired, obstacles can always arise. One is when the choice doesn’t want to come. Another is when the choice ends up failing. Gross has had experience with both.

When USC was hiring its football coach in 2000, media reports indicated the first choice was Dennis Erickson, currently Arizona State’s head coach but was then the Oregon State head coach. Where Carroll was on the list varies depending upon whose side you listen to. But Gross encountered a second-choice hire first hand during his last days at USC.

One of Gross’ final duties with the Trojans was hiring a men’s basketball coach. He hired Rick Majerus, the former Utah head coach. Three days later, Majerus resigned from the job, citing health reasons. Now any hire Gross made – and the eventual hire was Tim Floyd – was clearly not the first choice.

‘It comes down to the coach; do you want the opportunity or not?’ Gross said. ‘I always presented it as we have a great pool of people. You’re one of them in the mix. We just have to figure out if you’re the one we’re going to choose.’

That’s where the recruiting part comes in. Whether the coach is the first choice or fifth choice, there is always a degree of recruiting. Sometimes, it’s more than others.

When Gross hired Ross to take over SU’s softball program in August, Ross was concerned about moving her two children and starting in Syracuse. She had established a reputable midmajor program at Bowling Green, and her children were comfortable. Gross did the calculus and came to the decision. But Ross pulled out of the running.

‘I called back and said, ‘I’m sorry, there’s no way I can do this,” Ross said. ‘(Senior associate athletic director Barbara Henderson) said, ‘Don’t be surprised if you get a call from Daryl.”

Gross was in Dallas at his fianc’s house when Henderson called him and said hiring Ross didn’t look favorable. Fifteen minutes later, Ross’ phone rang.

‘He said ‘Before you say no, let me give you an idea what to expect,” Ross said.

Gross heard Ross’ concerns and then gave her his pitch about how Ross had to make the decision for her and do something selfish.

‘At the end of it, she said, ‘You’re right, I should come check it out,” Gross said. ‘As soon as she said that, I knew I had her.’

Sometimes, the hiring is easy. When Ange Bradley left Richmond for Syracuse, there was little convincing needed. Bradley had built an Atlantic 10 power with the Spiders, but the move to the Big East would be a major upgrade. She applied for the opening, received the interview and earned the job.

‘It speaks for itself,’ Bradley said. ‘Coming up here, I worked at University of Maryland and Richmond. It had the private school education of a Richmond and the big-time athletic feel like a Maryland. For me, it’s the best of both worlds.’

She credited Gross and the athletic director’s personality and energy, but indicated there weren’t any major concerns with the ascension. And that’s what Gross wants.

‘You really gotta believe in your product,’ Gross said. ‘I don’t know if it’s recruiting or just telling them how I feel about it, that you’re crazy if you don’t take this job. You’re passing up the lotto is the way I make you feel.’

There’s a joint relationship. The athletic director wants the coach, and the coach wants the athletic director and the school. The problem arises if a few years down the line, the formula was miscalculated, frustration mounts and the decision looks like a poor one. Then an athletic director faces a dilemma, because he gambled with the hire and now must throw the chips back at the dealer and cut the losses.

Gross experienced this dilemma at USC when he had to fire women’s basketball coach Chris Gobrecht at the end of the 2003-04 season. Gobrecht was a two-time Pacific-10 coach of the year at Washington and reached four Sweet 16s before spending a season at Florida State only to end up at her alma mater – USC – in what Gross thought was a slam-dunk hire.

After seven seasons, USC hadn’t made the NCAA Tournament and Gross needed to pull the plug.

‘We had to make a change and that was my hire,’ Gross said. ‘But you got to be objective in this. This is about Syracuse. This isn’t about, ‘Hey, you’re my buddy. I hired you and I want to have a 100 percent hire rate.’ If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.’

Finishing his second full year at Syracuse, it’s too premature for that situation to happen with any of the coaches Gross has brought it. But Gross isn’t immune to criticism. When Gross hired Carroll, a Los Angeles Times columnist wrote there would be another press conference in four years for another hire. An Orange County Register columnist specifically identified Gross, writing Gross was the real decision maker on the hire and how Carroll turned out will ultimately dictate his legacy.

There was so much scrutiny for that hire because USC had just been through a slew of failed coaches. Gross remembers sitting next to Garrett in the office of USC president Dr. Steven Sample, and Sample looked at the athletic director and associate athlete director sternly before exhaling, ‘Well gentlemen, this one better work.’

After three national championships, it worked. And it helped Gross earn a sterling reputation for identifying and recruiting coaches in result. So it wasn’t a surprise when less than a month on the job at Syracuse, Gross fired football coach Paul Pasqualoni and later hired Greg Robinson, a Carroll disciple expected to bring the same type of energy and defense. Despite all the work Gross has done at SU, to many fans, his legacy will be connected to Robinson the way it was with Carroll at USC.

Syracuse is just 5-18 since Robinson took over. But Gross is absolutely undeterred. He has a plan, like he did with Carroll: Identify a charismatic defensive coach; build the defense, then the offense will come along; compete for a league championship, and by virtue of the league championship, the team is competing for a Bowl Championship Series game. By consistently competing for a BCS game, the team is in the running for the BCS Championship game.

That’s the way Gross sees it. That’s the way it worked at USC. Though Syracuse isn’t Southern California, the plan is the same. So is the grid.

‘You have all these pressures working, but you got to stick to your guns and stick to your numbers,’ Gross said. ‘That’s your mechanics. That’s your 95 mph fastball, your Mariano Rivera. That’s what’s going to get you your success.’

Published on May 6, 2007 at 12:00 pm