In the hopes of naming a new men’s basketball coach by May 22, the NIU Athletic Department is implementing a national search to fill the position.

Associate Athletic Director Cary Groth said Monday a 12-member search committee is in the process of being selected and approved. The committee, which will first meet on April 14, will be responsible for narrowing the pool of applicants, choosing the finalists and conducting interviews with the finalists. The committee also will recommend a candidate to Athletic Director Gerald O’Dell, who will make the final decision.

The coaching position was left vacant on March 8 when O’Dell informed three-year Huskie coach Jim Rosborough that his contract would not be renewed in 1989-90. Rosborough’s assistant, Robert Collins, will be the interim coach until the position is filled.

Associate Athletic Director Clarence Hudson will be the chairman of the search committee. Groth, who is also on the committee, said she did not want to release the names of committee members until all the members were approved and notified.

However, Groth did release the specific format of the group. She said in addition to Hudson and herself, the committee will consist of one representative from each of the following groups:

Student Association

NIU Faculty

NIU Athletic Association (booster group)

NIU alumni

The DeKalb County business community

NIU Athletic Board

NIU Travel Coordinator

Women’s basketball program

NIU’s Level I sports programs (representative to be chosen from football and volleyball programs because men’s and women’s basketball will be represented already).

The committee also will include minority representation.

Hudson, Groth and O’Dell consulted with NIU President John LaTourette and Eddie Williams, vice president for finance and planning, before formulating the committee. The committee format must be approved by the Affirmative Action office before the committee begins its work.

Although the athletic department has yet to advertise the position opening, Groth said about 15 applications have been received already. On March 17, O’Dell released a timetable for the search, which gave an application deadline of April 21. Groth expects to receive more than 100 applications by that time.

The position will be advertised in the March 22 and March 29 issues of the NCAA News and in the March 27 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. Interviews of finalists are scheduled for May 1-8.

Each committee member will be given a job description and a set of criteria for which to narrow the field of candidates, Groth said.

“We’re going to be very aggressive in our search, nationally,” O’Dell said. “There are some people that we have strong interest in at this point. And we’re going to encourage people to apply—we’re going to be proactive.”

One name that had surfaced in the media as the favorite for the job was Ray Jones, an assistant coach at the University of Wyoming. O’Dell, however, denied that Jones was being considered. Jones was an assistant at Minnesota when O’Dell was that school’s promotions director.