FAU should pass on Ed Stewart as next AD
By Marcus Nelson
I just posted who I believe FAU should be talking to as finalists for the AD position and you may have noticed one name not mentioned from the list of who has applied that has actually been in for an interview.
Associate Big 12 Commissioner Ed Stewart was one of the first candidates to be interviewed, but I would have passed on bringing him to Boca Raton for a visit.
I wonder if anyone on the advisory committee did their due diligence or remembers the scandal involving Stewart when he was at Mizzou.
If not here’s a reminder. According to media reports, in 2003 Stewart’s wife was taped having jailhouse conversations with basketball player Ricky Clemons, while Ed Stewart was a senior administrator at Missouri.
Amy Stewart told Clemons (still in jail at the time mind you) that he held the key to bringing down several important people in the Missouri athletic department and seemed to think this was a good thing. Some sentences are bolded by me for emphasis.
"Ed come home, every time he come home, he be like, ‘Them crackers shaking. They going crazy. They don’t know what to do. They shaking. They can’t talk to Ricky. They’re like some crackheads running around there,’ ” Amy Stewart said, according to media reports.
For more context click here and here.
As you can imagine, this one of the more embarrassing episodes in recent years at Missouri, but that didn’t stop FAU from making Stewart, who left Missouri in 2006 to work for the Big 12, one of the first candidates interviewed. It’s believed that Stewart, a former All-American linebacker at Nebraska, was not asked about this controversy while interviewing with members of the advisory committee meaning that FAU either didn’t know about one of the biggest scandals in Mizzou history or didn’t care.
The way I see it, this was a few years ago and perhaps this gaffe is not reflective of Stewart today. However, after perusing the list of applicants there just seems to be so many candidates who weren’t involved in a high-profile controversey at their former school. FAU should thank Stewart for his time - and keep looking at candidates after doing a bit of research.