Duke Director of Athletics Joe Alleva has called on one of college football's most influential individuals to help him a replacement for former head coach Ted Roof.
The Chronicle has learned from a senior Duke official and numerous industry sources that the University has hired renowned football consultant Chuck Neinas to help it in its head coaching search,
A former commissioner of the Big Eight conference and executive with the College Football Association, the super-connected Neinas has been involved in the hiring process of nearly 40 NCAA Division-1 coaches since 1997, when he opened his Boulder, Colo. consultancy, Neinas Sports Services.
The decision to hire Neinas constitutes a change of course for Alleva, who seemed to indicate during a Nov. 26 press conference that he planned on conducting the search process in-house. When a reporter asked Alleva specifically whether he would hire Neinas or a similar consultant, the AD responded, "We'll probably do it ourselves."
Furthermore, when asked in an interview with The Chronicle last Friday if he had retained Neinas' services, Alleva simply replied, "I know of a man named Chuck Neinas."
"At this point, I'm just doing most of the work on my own," Alleva said in the interview.
But if there is one marquee name in the field of college sports headhunters, Neinas is it. He is widely respected among coaches and athletic directors, and he has a successful track record that includes the hires of Mack Brown at Texas, Mark Richt at Georgia and Bob Stoops at Oklahoma. Neinas is also no stranger to the Triangle, as he was involved in the 2006 head coaching searches at North Carolina and N.C. State.
According to an executive of a leading search firm who wished to remain anonymous, consultants like Neinas can play a variety of roles in a school's search process. Their services range from providing informal advice to presenting detailed reports to athletic directors and search committees, complete with an extensive list of "best-fit candidates."
To begin a search, Neinas typically requests that clients fill out a nine-part questionnaire in order to familiarize himself with his clients' search parameters.
Neinas' next step is to hit the phones. Due to NCAA anti-tampering rules, athletic directors and other university officials are prevented from speaking to candidates without permission from their current employers. Consultants like Neinas, however, are not bound by these regulations and can easily contact top coaching candidates to quickly gauge their availability or interest in particular jobs.
"Search firms can work as intermediaries," the executive said. "They like to keep it under wraps because there are a lot of openings but a limited number of coaches. And they want to be able to contact these coaches before their names start surfacing because other universities might move in quickly."
As a result of this, Neinas is legendary for his intense secrecy. He rarely speaks to the media, and he was unavailable for comment on this article despite repeated attempts to reach him.
His desire for confidentiality, however, leads to even more extreme preventative measures. Neinas rarely corresponds by mail or e-mail, has no voice mail recording other than a default "beep" and almost exclusively handles his business with coaches and clients in one-on-one phone conversations or in-person meetings. When Neinas is prepared to present his findings to an athletic director or search committee, he only provides a verbal report, due to the risk of a written submittal eventually turning up in a public-records request.
Such public-records disclosures have shed some light on Neinas' fees, which are far from cheap. His average charge is $35-40,000 for assistance with a coaching or athletic director search, according to numerous published reports. For example, a 2006 report in the San Diego Union-Tribune indicated that the University of Colorado was billed $39,051 by Neinas for his role in the hiring of Athletic Director Mike Bohn. In a more local example, an article in the Durham Herald-Sun detailing the hiring of current N.C. State head coach Tom O'Brien stated that Neinas charged the University $35,000 for his assistance in the Wolfpack's coaching search.
But for a football program that has struggled to compete since Steve Spurrier left for Florida in 1989, Alleva may feel that no cost is too steep if a consultant like Neinas can help him and his six-member search committee find a coach that can return Duke football to relevance.
"Nobody has a crystal ball when it comes to picking coaches," Alleva said. "There are a lot of resources out there, and I'll use all of them."
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