Hunsinger decides not to apply for contract renewal

OC athletic director plans return to coaching

One of Oberlin's landmark figures is taking a break. Athletic Director Don Hunsinger has announced that he does not want to be considered as an applicant for his position when his four-year contract runs out on June 30th.

"I'm not leaving Oberlin College," Hunsinger said. "I just want to go back to coaching. I had a four year appointment and I want to give plenty of time just to coaching and not to administration."

It was in 1978 that Hunsinger returned to Oberlin after a one year stint as defensive coordinator for the football team in 1970. In the last 20 years he has coached or assisted football, baseball, basketball, tennis and track. After coaching both the men's and women's tennis teams in 1989 he was named the NCAC Coach of the Year for both programs, and then received similar honors for taking the women's tennis team to second place in the conference tournament last Spring. He has coached five All-Americans and has a record of 166-120-1 (.580) in 15 seasons of tennis coaching. He is currently the women's tennis coach and is assisting with women's basketball.

Hunsinger feels he has made some improvements during his term. "I wanted to stabilize the coaching staff, which is much better than it was a few years ago, and we made a lot of improvements to the facilities." He listed the new gym floors, new weight rooms both in Phillips and in Hales, and the new tennis courts as examples.

However, Hunsinger is not completely satisfied with the job he has done. "I feel bad because we haven't had the success I'd like to see in this program," he said. "I take it personally because I was hoping to provide enough positive leadership to break out of the mold we have been in. I had four years and I wasn't able to accomplish what I wanted to."

This disappointment and the desire to return to coaching are the principal reasons behind Hunsinger's decision. "It's a combination of the two," Hunsinger said. "If there were more success involved I could feel better about the whole situation, but I'm a very competitive person. Last year's women's tennis team did well, and that was much better than the normal somber attitude. I'd like to be more involved with that. This Fall was terrible. I feel bad for the players and the coaches."

Football Coach Pete Peterson thought that changes need to be made to improve varsity records. "What if you compared athletics to an academic department where all the students were failing or getting D's? Should the chairmen of the department be concerned? Either academic services are not admitting enough students or else the professors' aren't doing their jobs," he said. "Should the Athletic Director be concerned when a complete absence of winning is present? Yes. It's no fun to go into something and fail completely. We are clearly more than one standard deviation from the norm when it comes to winning and losing. We should be equally concerned if all students are getting A's though."

Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Clayton Koppes said, "I have enjoyed working with him very much. He has an utter devotion to Oberlin College and its values and I'm very glad that he is going to continue his highly effective coaching."

Hunsinger's attachment to Oberlin has been recognized by many in the athletic department. "I think he has a very long-standing tie with the people on this campus and with alumni," Cross Country Coach Tom Mulligan said. "I think it's very important to establish those relationships. The more experience you have working with people the more you can benefit the program."

Mulligan also recognized Hunsinger's ability to work well with coaches. "He's been a coach here for a long time," he said. "He understands what it's like to be a coach at Oberlin College and can relate to the different things coaches go through. I think he tried to help each coach as best he can. Each coach would like to have a little more of this and a little more of that, but he did a little bit with each program."

These attributes will hopefully be displayed by the next athletic director, which will be selected by a national search committee. "I think you have to have to hire someone for that position who is a people person," Peterson said.

"My main goal in hiring a new athletic director would be to hire the most capable person we could find," Koppes said. "They would have to show a commitment to all phases of Oberlin College athletic programs, including varsity sports, intramural sports, activities classes and overall wellness. A good athletic director needs to be effective at meeting Oberlin College's several publics, such as faculty and alumni, while also being an effective spokesperson and recruiter."

Koppes had other necessary criteria in mind for the next athletic director. "I would hope that the new athletic director would be especially sensitive of gender equity issues," he said. "Diversity is an issue. We certainly want to do everything we can to attract a pool of women and minority candidates. In fact, I have already had some conversations with people well-placed to accomplish this task. The search committee will be broadly representative of the Oberlin community and will be strongly devoted to the athletic program. The committee will be announced soon."

The position of athletic director here at Oberlin is a tough job," Mulligan said. "The nature of the program at Oberlin probably carries a few more challenges than at other institutions. I can't say what they are because I haven't been in that position."

Peterson has coached at six different schools and so has a comparative perspective. "Hunsinger has done a fairly good job of balancing the various wants and needs with finite resources," he said. "He is one of the better athletic directors that I have worked for and a lot of that is the way the job is defined here. At Washington University in St. Louis there were five to six associate deans and one would handle travel, one would handle uniforms, etc. Given the responsibilities, he's one of the better directors I have worked with."

Peterson valued the ability to pick a strong staff in an athletic director. "I think it is important to hire coaches and personnel who can teach our students something about what the world really is," he said. "We need to have a staff that is diverse in their approach to coaching. If you have 10 dictators, that's bad, but you should have some coaches like that because that's the way the world works. You should have one to two coaches with a softer touch. If you have all older, experienced coaches, that's not good, nor can you have all younger, inexperienced coaches."

Baseball Coach Todd Mooney thinks that Hunsinger is the best man for the job. "I'm saddened that he has chosen not to continue," he said. "The loss of him as athletic director will cause a severe blow to athletics at Oberlin and to Oberlin College. To lose someone in an administrative role who has given so much of his life to this college and community is extremely unfortunate. I think Don Hunsinger should remain athletic director and I think the College should do everything it can to get Don Hunsinger to remain athletic director."

"All of us have faults but Coach Hunsinger has two things that are very important," Peterson said. "The first is that he really loves Oberlin College. The second is that I think deep down in his heart, he wants this to be the best experience for every student on campus. That's worth hanging on to. His heart is in the right place and that's what's important."