Former Iowa player Bobby Hansen talks about serving on the search committee

Former Iowa player and current Iowa radio analyst Bobby Hansen served on the school's five-member search committee that brought in new coach Fran McCaffery. Although Hansen can't answer specifics about the process, he spoke briefly about his role on the committee:

Hansen's specific role:

This is Gary's hire, let's face it. When he called and asked me to serve on this committee, No. 1, I was honored. I asked him about the responsibilities and he said be a sounding board, to give me your input on what you know about coaches out there, and maybe, if you've got one identified, I want to hear about it. We had several meetings. It's good to kind of sit down with Gary and discuss things and go through the list. It's a large list of candidates, and I gave him my input on them, and we reconvened as a committee. We had finalists and there was no lobbying on any part of any of them you could clearly tell that Fran McCaffery was at the top of the list. There were all kinds of recommendations, a few calls. In the end, Gary had Fran up pretty high early.

On making a final decision:

We weren't involved in that process. We had a meeting where we all came together, and it was interesting because all scenarios were laid out. I don't know how search committees go, but I do like the way Gary handled this one. He took input from Ellie (Herman) and Betsy (Altmaier) and Fred (Mims) and myself and kind of threw all the scenarios out there that everybody's heard and all the different names that were out there and we discussed all of them. Gary took it all in and ultimately made his decision.

I said, 'Go get the one you want.' He left me a message Sunday morning.