A FRONT ROW VIEW: Why was there a delay?

The decision to hire or fire a coach is never easy. Each choice must be given a great deal of thought and consideration. However, in the search to find a permanent replacement to men's soccer coach Steve Baumann, who resigned August 18, there should not have been much difficulty. Unfortunately for the Athletic Department, it took an extended period to decide who should be at the helm for the Quakers in the years to come. So in the meantime, George O'Neill was hired as an interim replacement for Baumann prior to this past season. The day O'Neill was hired as the interim coach, specific goals should have been verbalized. The Athletic Department should have made it clear exactly what it expected from O'Neill with regards to success on the field and in the classroom. Then, when the final game of last season ended, O'Neill should have been hired or released on the spot that very day. O'Neill and the 90 other applicants should not have been left in limbo for an unnecessary amount of time. However, this goal was far from reached. During that period of uncertainty, the search committee proceeded as if each member wore a blindfold throughout the process. The original deadline for choosing the new coach was December 1, but the Athletic Department claimed it needed even more time because of the size of the applicant pool, even though the team signed a petition showing its unanimous support of O'Neill. This delay was the first of many to come. But if Baumann resigned in mid-August, why wasn't the search committee able to find a permanent replacement until more than five months later? (Actually, the Athletic Department still has yet to sign O'Neill to a contract, even though both have acknowledged negotiations are ongoing.) But my greatest complaint about the process is the Athletic Department has been entirely unfair to the players to whom the department should owe its allegiance. The search committee mortgaged the collegiate soccer career of everyone who is in the soccer program just to come to the conclusion it ought to have made months ago -- O'Neill is the right man for the job. As the search committee let self-imposed deadlines pass, it handicapped Penn's hopes to lure any of the nation's prize recruits. Now the Quakers are forced to face the fact next year's team will most likely be weaker than this year's. Penn will lose its seniors as they graduate this May, but will have little to replace them in the freshman class. The sophomores and juniors will most likely never get the opportunity to play on a team better than last season's -- next year's squad should be worse, and the following season's will be without current juniors and seniors, with just one freshman class to replace both. This fact is even more disturbing when you realize the Quakers were just starting to shine. Oh sure, it may not have shown in the win column, but the team did play with more intensity and desire. These attributes can be directly related to O'Neill's presence on the sideline. And it is for this reason he should have been immediately hired in a permanent capacity after his interim campaign. As bad as this situation seems, at least the Athletic Department did finally come to the right decision by hiring O'Neill. So in the long run, the men's soccer program will benefit tremendously by this decision, albeit months overdue. Josh Friedman is a College junior from Beverly Hills, Calif., and Sports Editor-elect of The Daily Pennsylvanian.