One Tactic Greg Byrne Uses When Hiring Coaches

Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne has now made five head coaching hires as Alabama's Director of Athletics: Nate Oats (men's basketball), Rob Vaughn (baseball), Kalen DeBoer (football), and Pauline Love (women's basketball). Byrne also hired former Alabama baseball coach Brad Bohannon in 2018, who was fired for a gambling scandal before the end of Alabama's 2023 baseball season.

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Under Byrne's leadership in the athletic department, Alabama has seen substantial success in men's basketball (four SEC championships, four consecutive Sweet 16 appearances, and a Final Four appearance), football (College Football Playoff appearance under Kalen DeBoer, four SEC championships, and two national championships under Nick Saban from 2017 to 2023), and now, a College World Series appearance under Rob Vaughn. Softball has also made the WCWS five times with two SEC championships under Patrick Murphy's guidance since Byrne took over the athletic department.

Maintaining a successful athletic department is already stressful enough, and doing so when there is consistent coaching turnover can make it twice as difficult. And yet, that's what Byrne has done at the University of Alabama. As previously mentioned, he's had to make five coaching hires among Alabama's major sports since his arrival nine years ago, and when you have that much practice, you develop a system for hiring coaches, which is what he shared with Ryan Fowler on Tuesday afternoon on "The Game" on Tide 100.9.

"I look at the numbers, obviously, you can look at wins and losses, you can look at all the different metrics on managing programs," Byrne told Ryan Fowler, "You look at compliance, you look at all those different things. It's really important to me to sit down with somebody and just talk to them face-to-face.

"One of the things we try to do - we don't do it every time, but we try to do it as much as we can - is we call former players of the candidate, and we don't tell them who we are or where we're from, other than I say, 'I'm Greg and I like to research coaches...' You get a lot of feedback from former players who don't have a dog in the hunt," he said.

"One of the best stories I ever got from a former player was when we were hiring Nate Oats. I had told Nate I want three names: I want someone who has played a lot, I want somebody that's played some, and I want somebody that's never got off the bench.

"One of them was one of his guys that's playing over in Greece, and I was able to reach out to him. I said, 'I'm Greg, and I like to research coaches. Tell me about Nate Oats.' And he was telling me a story that he was from Pasadena, California, he was at Northern Arizona University, and he transferred back to Compton Community College, and he was playing the five at NAU. He decided he was going to transfer, was about to sign a DII scholarship, and Bryan Hodgson found him and brought him back to Buffalo, and they turned him into a one (point player). He said, 'Nate Oats got into the gym with me, he made me learn the game in ways I had never seen before.' He said, 'I don't make a decision without talking to Nate Oats. The guy genuinely cared about who I am as a person.'

"That's the kind of person you want to have part of what you're doing there. That's one of the tricks I just kind of came up with on my own. If you find someone that's dog-cussing the candidate, well, one person, it happens. Two people, we've got some concerns, but it allows you to get feedback on the coach and who they are," Byrne said.

Wyatt Fulton is the Tide 100.9 DME and Brand Manager, primarily covering Alabama Crimson Tide football and men's basketball. For more Crimson Tide coverage, follow Wyatt on X (Formerly known as Twitter) at @FultonW_.