FanPost

Interesting Candidate for Pac-10 Comissh: Sandy Alderson

Caught this in the newswire (the SF Business Times) yesterday:

Former Oakland A’s executive Sandy Alderson is a front-runner among candidates being considered to run the Pacific 10 Conference.

The Sports Business Journal reported Monday that Alderson, currently CEO of the San Diego Padres, is at the top of a list of at least three executives being vetted to replace outgoing commissioner Tom Hansen.

While no firm timetable has been established, Hansen retires July 1 and the conference could have a successor selected by the end of this month, the newspaper reported.

Other candidates under consideration were not named in the Sports Business Journal story.

The Pac-10 Conference, which includes schools like Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley, has its headquarters in Walnut Creek. The Pac-10 wants its next commissioner to “address the relative geographic isolation of the conference and work to improve the conference’s visibility through innovative thinking and new initiatives such as new media, an improved football bowl lineup and new academic programs,” according to a job description that a headhunter agency circulated to candidates, the newspaper reported.

So I immediately emailed Tyler Bleszinski, who is of course the founder of Athletics Nation (essentially the blogfather of Bruins Nation and all other SBN blogs) asked him about Alderson. To say that Blez has a deep understanding of the A's organization would be an understatement. He had the following thoughts on Alderson:

Well if the Pac-10 is looking for someone to come in and be innovative, Sandy Alderson is a perfect pick for that role.  While Billy Beane is the star player of Michael Lewis' bestselling Moneyball and gets a lot of the credit for the stats-based execution of the A's front office, much of the seeds of what Beane does was learned while he was under the tutelage of Alderson.  He built the late 80s, early 90s teams that probably should've won more than one title during that time frame.

Alderson would be a great choice for a conference that's looking to try new and innovative things.  He had the ability to look at America's pasttime in a whole new way.  I wouldn't doubt it he would do the same for college athletics and the Pac-10.

That sounds like a pretty good endorsement to me.

GO BRUINS.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.

Trending Discussions