Congrats to Geno Ford and some contradictory words on the hiring...

Congrats to Geno Ford - new head coach at Bradley!!

But some of the wording in Dr. Cross' comments is intriguing...
and there are those who claim that since he said it -- then it must be 100% undebatably true that he offered the job only to Geno Ford.

Well, I guess if every single thing Dr. Cross says is always 100% certifiably precise and accurate...then you'd have a very hard time with this one.........so take it and run with it --
but prefer to use common sense...I have no problem with what Dr. Cross is saying -- after all half his job is PR and "damage control"...

but if you are going to be a stickler and swear everything he says is guaranteed true and accurate, then you have blown your own credibility...

Note that on 3/16 Dr. Cross said this in the PJ Star...
" Bradley athletics director Michael Cross,
through sports information director Bobby Parker,
would not confirm whether anyone had yet
interviewed for the position that opened March 6
with the firing of Jim Les.
“Dr. Cross won’t have any comment on the search
process until a coach has been hired,” Parker said."

and then...

on March 24 -- well before a coach had been hired...and to defry angst about several candidates turning Bradley down...
Dr. Cross had a WHOLE BUNCH to say "on the search process".........and said this...

"There is nothing abnormal about our coaching
search timeline,” Cross said. “Twenty-six Division I
schools are currently searching for a new men’s
basketball coach and I am sure we are all operating
under different parameters.”

Cross said the search has gone as he thought it
might so far.

“My focus is to find the best basketball coach for
Bradley University and there have been no surprises
thus far in that quest,” he said. “There are a lot of
people with a tremendous amount of interest in being
the head coach at Bradley.

“The challenge is to find the right fit to lead our
program where we all want it to go. I have every
confidence we will find a great coach to lead the
Bradley basketball program.”

Cross said he felt no more urgency now than he did
when the search started 19 days ago.

“As I said from the beginning, we will be quick, but
we will not hurry,” he said. “In that regard, the
search has not changed for me. We will find a great
coach for Bradley basketball in the very near future.”

Is he concerned about not having a coach in place
by Final Four weekend (March 31-April 4) because of
how that event can effect the coaching marketplace?

“There are a lot of factors that affect the SEARCH PROCESS
and many attractive candidates are involved
with programs that play deep into March,” he said.
“That often makes the ability to talk to certain
coaches difficult, but it is not unexpected."

http://is.gd/xZfgcV


So, anyone blindly swearing allegiance to every word being said is going to have a hard time with this one and will have to concede -- it's all just PR...
the words have to be looked at in the context of what they're trying to achieve.
Even the mention on Ford being "the only one" was a little odd...as he didn't need to mention it...everyone is already on board and supporting Ford..
but it's obviously a stab at the press and reports he thinks were inaccurate...
recall numerous reports that have since been disproven and discredited and some even retracted (see 3/26 blog entry in this blog)!


Hopefully everyone will support Geno Ford and give him his due -- even if he fails to win an NCAA game in his first couple seasons...Bradley fans are not always so generous and some quite illogical.