Late Wednesday, the news came over that Syracuse Athletics would be hiring another former colleague of athletic director Mark Coyle. John Cunningham, last seen as senior associate athletics director for external affairs at Boise State, was hired as deputy athletics director for administration. He is Coyle's third hire since arriving on campus at Syracuse. Last week, SUA hired Kimberly Keenan-Kirkpatrick and Rhonda McFarland, the latter of whom also worked with Coyle at Boise.
Prior to his most recent role at Boise State, Cunningham worked with the school's compliance program ("surprise!") for three years. He's also held similar compliance-related positions at TCU and Maryland, respectively.
The stress on compliance should not be a surprise to anyone, as one of Coyle's primary directives/missions at SU is and will be to keep the program on the straight-and-narrow in the wake of NCAA sanctions.
Said Coyle:
"John's strong background in NCAA compliance and athletics administration will enhance our department. He has a broad-based experience in rules education from three different institutions which provides valuable perspective. John is a dynamic athletics administrator who will be a great addition to our team. We are thrilled to have John, his wife, Caitlin, and their sons, Gus and Hank, become part of the Syracuse family."
***
Also included in the release from Syracuse is the fact that Cunningham will work in tandem with fellow deputy athletic directors Keenan-Kirkpatrick and... Herman Frazier. The very same Frazier who currently handles football scheduling. You could've predicted my response.
I'm only okay with this if he stops handling scheduling... https://t.co/dhWB4wd2fj
— John Cassillo (@JohnCassillo) August 13, 2015
... So for those at home wondering why we're looking into scheduling Wisconsin in football. There's why!
Of course, that bit of commentary led to a lengthy Twitter conversation in the Syracuse corners of the internet, involving everyone from myself and Brian Tahmosh from the TNIAAM side of things, to Syracuse.com's Stephen Bailey, Otto's Grove and the conversation originator, Matt Park. There was no consensus reached, but as we've seen here before, the scheduling issue is far from resolved within the fan base -- and will likely continue to be so with Frazier at the helm.
***
Back to the original topic: Glad to see Cunningham aboard at SU, and looking forward to seeing what he brings to the table from every standpoint (but especially compliance). Coyle's brought in his best from Boise so far, and all on Wednesday afternoons. I guess we already know his schedule for releases now. Be at the ready each and every Wednesday for the foreseeable future. This program, currently going untitled at SUA, will be called "Mark (Coyle) Your Calendars" around here. No, it's not necessary. Since when has that ever been a prerequisite here?