Ronnie Green and Dave Rimington Press Conference Quotes

Chancellor Green “Good afternoon and thank you for being here today. I want to thank you on behalf of the athletic leadership here at Nebraska, as you know I am pleased to announce earlier this morning the appointment of Dave Rimington as the interim athletic director for the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. We are very, very pleased, obviously that number 50 was willing to come back and help us in this interim time of leadership of the department. The appointment is for up to 60 days, appointment as the interim athletic director for our program.  I will give you some details of the search and where we are in the search as well today, but first I want to talk about this appointment. We were going through the decision last week, to make a change in our athletics leadership. The very first person I thought of, as a potential leader in an interim capacity for the department was Dave Rimington. It was my idea, it was the first thought that I had because not only as his great accolades as a Husker, you know those as well as I do, but because he also was an Academic All-American, and he represents our program so well. Not only as an All-American but as a hall of fame Academic All-American in 2004 as you know. I reached out to Dave, early in this process to see if he would have interest in helping us during what we hope would be a short interim period, and he was receptive and willing to think about that with us to come and help provide leadership in the interim period for the department. I could have selected anyone from the strong team of senior leaders that we have at Husker Athletics, and as I have shared with that team earlier today that would have been the easiest thing to do because we are blessed here with senior leaders in our program, they are amongst the best in the country. I felt though that would be a missed opportunity to bring in an outside person during this time to also work with us and provide some outside input for us, since we have decided to move forward. I want to speak to Dave’s history. It is all very public except that he is a graduate of our institution of business, he is one of our 200,000 living alumni around the world. He has an advanced degree in international business and as you are probably aware, has been very successful as the president of the Boomer Esiason foundation in New York now since 1995. In that capacity, it was 1993 when that foundation was being formed in the great work around cystic fibrosis. He is a proven leader in that capacity, he is a proven leader in fiscal management, a proven leader in transparency, a proven leader in a charity that is amongst the top-ranked charities in the field and that certainly was important for us when thinking about this interim appointment. Now I will let Dave talk to you here in a moment but before I do that, I want to give you an update on the search for the permanent athletic director. We have been working since middle of last week on framing the search, and I am pleased that the search is now active and we are in the market looking for the next permanent athletic director. We will be working with a highly recognized search firm in the field that is being finalized as we speak today. With that firm, I want to give you a little of the construct and the framework of the search. There will be a search committee who will work with me, that represents the interests of Husker Athletics and the institution. It will include University leadership. It will include representation of former athletes. It will include representation of athletic staff and leadership amongst that group. We also will have an advisory group that will provide input to that search committee early in the process around the criteria that we made in looking for our next athletic director. Again, demographically representing the interests of Husker Athletics and the University of Nebraska. As you are all aware of, we are in need of the absolute best leader for our program. We are committed to that. So as we conduct the search, it will be in a very confidential way as you would expect. We would expect and hope you would give us space as we do that, as we search for the next leader. So I will be giving you more information at the appropriate time around any updates in the search as it progresses. We will be aggressive in the search, in terms of getting the right leader and the resources required for that as well in time. We expect this to be a short search, we hope to do that as quickly as possible, but we will take as long as it takes to find the right leader in place. And now I am going to turn and introduce you to our Interim Athletic Director Dave Rimington.”

Dave Rimington “Thank you Chancellor Green. There are a couple people I want to thank, I don’t know if Coach Osborne is here but 38 years ago he believed in me in giving me a scholarship and allowed me to excel on the football field as well as the University of Nebraska, and I will never be able to repay that debt. I had a good friend, Boomer Esiason who was a guy that 24 years ago called me up and asked if I would help him raise money for cystic fibrosis, because his son was diagnosed. Twenty-four years later, and about 140 million dollars that had been raised, I can’t even tell now how much I appreciate him letting me come here and help out the University. I love this place. I will do anything I can to help it. I talked to the coaches today, I am here for them. I am not here to fire anybody, I am just here to calm things down. We have a great University here and I am going to do the best I can to help with whatever I can to make it better.”

Chancellor Green “We will take a few questions today, answer some things you may have on your mind. I will tell you, we have a lot to do to get Dave going. He literally just got here and we want to get him going, but we will answer questions.”  

On if Rimington is a permanent candidate for the AD job
“No I am not”

On if he would want a permanent job in the athletic department
“Well, you know two years from now I am going to retire from the Boomer Esiason Foundation when I turn 60. Come back here to Nebraska, and I think it will be great to be able to come back.”

On when Chancellor Green will be naming the search firm
“We expect that to happen today.”

On how closely Rimington has been keeping tabs on Nebraska
“Well I do a lot of traveling, so I have missed quite a few games. I was listening to them on the radio, and it was kind of like being back in the old days you know, listening to them on the radio. So I do, as much as I can. I watched last week’s game pretty good. Most of the time I usually watch football on TV, I don’t go to a lot of games."

On what Rimington envisions contributing here and what he wants to get done
“Well, the walk-on program is something that has been really important to me. The relationship with the former players is something that is really important to me. If I can do something to improve those two conditions, I think I will be satisfied with the short time I’m going to be here. I am hoping to have some influence in the selection, small probably, but some influence. If I can accomplish two of those three things I think I will be pretty happy.”

On traits to look for in a full time AD
Rimington: “No, I haven’t even thought about it to be honest. Two days ago I was working in Long Island and I got a call from Ronnie. I haven’t thought about anything but getting the next step, and the next step from getting packed, to getting to Lincoln, to coming here. I don’t even have a place to stay.”

Green: “I contacted Dave Thursday morning of last week. It was a cold call. We had not talked. He knew I was the chancellor because I had reached out to him the night before about to try and get in touch with him, and we arranged an opportunity for us to meet this weekend. We were set to meet at 8:30 in the morning and I texted Dave at 7:30 and said, it’s kind of casual here, this isn’t an interview kind of thing. He said well, I came in, and Dave had a jacket on, he was dressed nicely and said, I got your text and I have already been here 15 minutes because I was so excited about what we were going to talk about.”

Rimington:  “I’m a Nebraska kid I’m going to show up early all the time. Especially being a lineman Nebraska kid.”

Green: “I think it goes without saying. I should have said this earlier, for someone to pull off what Dave is doing tells you how important he sees this opportunity being, to help us, and you know he has four children at home in New York with his wife Lisa. So they’re really offering an opportunity to help us here at Nebraska and we really couldn’t be more thankful for that. So I just thought Dave being here, and this whole thing with us through this short interim period.”

On the last time Rimington was on campus and the nature of that visit
“Well I was getting my diploma in 1982, I’m just kidding. I’ve been to a few games, I’m not one to walk around campus and explore. I’ve seen it before when I was here and had to go to classes. I do see a lot of different changes and the facilities here are top-notch, they’ve always been great, but now they’re over the top great. This is like the Taj Mahal of college football.”

On if Rimington discussed the decision with coach Tom Osborne
“No I did not.”

On if Rimington will be the interim center this Friday against Illinois
“That would not be a pretty sight.”