It took just four days for Iowa State to name a new men’s basketball coach following the termination of Wayne Morgan, raising questions as to the fairness and transparency of the search.

Greg McDermott was named coach of the men’s basketball team Tuesday.

He replaced Wayne Morgan, who, along with his staff, was dismissed March 17.

In hiring McDermott, ISU Athletic Director Jamie Pollard was given authority to circumvent the university’s normal hiring practices.

Administrators said the search was fair.

“There is one policy for the entire university, and within that policy there is a provision allowing a waiver of normal procedures when there are special situations,” said ISU President Gregory Geoffroy, who gave Pollard the OK to hire McDermott.

“The search was consistent with university policy.”

According to the ISU Open Search Policy, searches to replace vacancies must “be as broad as possible.”

The policy continues, stating that exceptions to the policy may be granted by the university president and reviewed by the director of affirmative action.

Only McDermott and Rob Jeter, men’s basketball coach at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, were interviewed by Pollard, according to Daily staff reports.

The vacancy was filled in four days, and Geoffroy said that he signed off on waiving the open search policy.

“With coaches’ searches in athletics, you have to move very, very quickly,” he said. “For one, you have a number of student athletes who are waiting in the wind and have had their athletic and academic lives disturbed. There’s a need to find a coach quickly to try to hang on to recruits and to provide incentive, guidance and direction for your current players to stay on.”

Coaching vacancies at competing institutions – including Kansas State University and the University of Missouri – contributed to waiving the policy, Geoffroy said.

“There’s a lot of vacant coaching positions this year and the pool of available outstanding candidates is very limited,” he said. “We try not to waive it very often.”

Associate Vice President for Human Resources Carla Espinoza, who reviewed the athletic department’s request for a waiver prior to gaining Geoffroy’s signature, said waiving the Open Search Policy is fairly common.

“Of the 800 hires last year, I saw about two requests for a waiver a week, or roughly 100 total,” she said. “It’s not unusual. It depends on the circumstances.”

According to the ISU Affirmative Action Policy, “it is incumbent upon the university to demonstrate that positive steps have been taken to recruit and employ members of [minority] groups protected by federal regulations who are not currently adequately represented in our work force and that our selection procedures have not had an indefensible disparate effect on any particular class of individuals.”

Because Jeter – who is an African-American – was interviewed, Espinoza said she was not concerned that the affirmative action policy was violated.

“Athletics is driven by recruiting seasons, which we are heavily into right now, and sometime when we have to act quickly to compete with other institutions, the president needs the authority to forgo normal hiring practices to get the most qualified person for the position at that time,” she said.

Occasionally, waivers are issued for candidates already employed by the university or spousal accommodations who are qualified to fill vacancies, Espinoza said.

“Why wait for an open search process when you have a qualified person who’s right here?” she said.

– Daily Staff Writer Tom Barton contributed to this article.