Less than seven months after being removed by the Tennessee Vols, John Currie is reportedly a finalist for the next Maryland Terrapins athletic director.
He clashed with Bill Snyder and ran off Frank Martin with the Kansas State Wildcats. Then he waited too long to fire Butch Jones and sneak in Greg Schiano as head coach with the Tennessee Vols. But after failures at two stints, John Currie could get a new job.
Currie is reportedly one of three finalists for the athletic director job of the Maryland Terps. According to a tweet from Baltimore Sun reporter Don Markus, the Terps are interviewing him, Temple AD Patrick Kraft and acting Maryland AD Damon Evans for the position.
Why Maryland would want Currie is anybody’s guess. But it’s not like they’ve been a beacon of athletic competence over the years, cutting eight sports in 2011 before joining the Big Ten to bail themselves out and restore them.
And their last AD, Kevin Anderson, went out of his way to not make splash hires in the major sports. So making questionable decisions over obvious ones may make Currie a perfect fit for the Terps. It’s just amazing that he could be up for a job so soon after his unceremonious exit from the last one.
Only in America!
To be fair, Currie may have a chance to do better in College Park. His problem in Knoxville was being a puppet to failed businessman Jimmy Haslam. Out from under his incompetent watch, maybe Currie could do a good job.
But it’s still ridiculous. Everybody who watched that fiasco of an attempted football fire with the Tennessee Vols last year knows that Currie mismanages public relations badly. Let’s not forget he took to long to fire Jones to begin with, which set this all off.
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So Currie getting an interview with anybody is odd. Tennessee Vols fans saw his failures first hand. But there are reasons to believe that maybe he will be successful this time around. And that means there’s no need to criticize the hire just yet.