After firing Dennis Felton, Georgia has taken the next step in the modern day coaching search. They have hired a "search consultant" to help find their next head coach. In this case, it is Dan Parker of Parker Executive Search in Atlanta for $75,000.The reality is that any search consultant is not there to help find a qualified coach. Any quality athletic director will have a basic list of potential candidates in mind. The point of a search consultant is to allow everyone to maintain their plausible deniability while the search consultant finds out which people on the list will are interested in the job.
For a program like Georgia, looking to hire a coach already with a job, the consultant is vital. The search consultant can contact associates and the agent of prospective coaching candidates. He can find out whether the potential coach is interested in the job, and roughly find out what kind of money and years it would take.
These days, no one even pretends that this is about finding candidates. Georgia athletic directer Dan Evans summed up the reason for the hire.
"They're very reputable in the business," he said. "They have a strong reputation for the amount of detail they put into the process, how they develop their searches, the people they've place, their background checks. They're able to assist institutions in making a high number of high-level contacts in a short amount of time. And the manner and discretion with which they handle the process is very important."
[Emphasis added.]
The school can maintain that they have not contacted anyone about the job, and that they are still searching. It also limits leaking the news as to who they pursuing. Most importantly a coach and his agent can issue denials that they have been contacted by Georgia or any of their representatives about the job. A search consultant is not a representative of the school in the legal sense. They are an independent contractor, not representing the school in any legal sense.
The deniability for the coach at another school is especially vital. The coach can claim he is only focused on the team "right now." The coach does not have to seek permission from their present athletic director to interview, because nothing has happened like that.
