Boehm answers Pederson’s, Nebraska’s call

After nearly five months as Pitt?s interim athletics director, Marc Boehm announced his… After nearly five months as Pitt?s interim athletics director, Marc Boehm announced his plans to leave Pitt for the University of Nebraska. He?ll be serving under Steve Pederson as executive associate athletic director there, effective June 1.

He was the only person being considered to replace Pederson as athletics director. As an interim, his actions included hiring new men?s and women?s basketball coaches.

He clearly displayed a passion for the job and a love of Pitt. He was clearly the right man for the job and Pitt let him slip through their fingers.

Who can blame him for leaving?

Nebraska offered him an actual job, a position created by Pederson for the sole purpose of enticing Boehm to join him.

Pitt, on the other hand, has been letting Boehm fix our coaching situations without so much as making him a formal job offer. We?ve let him labor along under the murky title of ?interim? with no end in sight, despite not interviewing or even naming any other candidates.

After being kept ?on hold? for so long, Boehm was right to hang up on us when another school came calling.

Boehm said, in a press release, that Chancellor Nordenberg asked him to reconsider his decision to withdraw his name from the running for Pitt?s athletics director. Boehm?s decision, however, was practically a non-decision. He chose to accept an actual position rather than be strung along indefinitely ? where?s the choice in that?

Both Pederson and Boehm cited their Midwestern roots as reasons for returning to Nebraska. It?s true there?s no place like home and Pederson made no bones about wanting to return. Boehm was a different story.

Sure, heading back to Nebraska, near his extended family, and working with Pederson again were nice bonuses, but so would have been a contract or a little job security here at Pitt. Perhaps, had these been options, Nebraska might not have seemed so attractive, but we?ll never know.

Kudos to Boehm for bucking Pitt?s trend of leaving positions up in the air for long periods, then simply dropping the ?interim? from the job title.

It?s too bad we had to lose such a capable, well-liked man. Maybe now Pitt will realize the athletics department needs support to survive.

And how interesting that Nordenberg, an interim chancellor for nearly a year himself before being named to the post, wanted Boehm to hang on just a little longer.