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I wonder how often this happens, not just at Arkansas but every University? How many times have qualified candidates not gotten jobs because the coach wanted to hire a friend or in this case a mistress?
Just read how Petrino made sure his lady friend got a position that she wasn’t qualified for.
Former Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino tried to sidestep University of Arkansas guidelines to quickly hire his mistress, Jessica Dorrell, as the team’s player development coordinator, according to documents obtained by SI.com. The documents show that Petrino sought a waiver to circumvent a university affirmative action policy requiring that the job be posted for at least 30 days before interviews could commence. Dorrell’s first interview was scheduled even before the waiver was granted by the university’s Office of Equal Opportunity and Compliance.
From 159 applicants, three finalists were identified: Ben Wilkerson, Tiffany Fields and Dorrell. According to the resumes they submitted to Arkansas, Wilkerson and Fields had football backgrounds. Dorrell’s resume did not mention football.
The job description also listed “master’s degree in related field” as a preferred qualification. Again, Dorrell was the only finalist not to meet that standard.
According to his resume, Wilkerson completed a master’s degree in sports management at LSU in August 2011. He also had the most extensive football background. Wilkerson was a four-year starter at offensive line at LSU, from 2001 to ’04. He was part of the school’s 2004 national championship team and was named a first-team All-America. He went on to play for the Cincinnati Bengals in 2005 and ’06, and for the Atlanta Falcons in 2007 and ’08. Petrino was Atlanta’s head coach in ’07. At the time he applied for the Arkansas job, Wilkerson was an intern with the LSU football program.
Fields, the third finalist, has two master’s degrees from Arkansas, one in communication and one in education, and is currently a law school student at the law school. She worked as a tutor at Arkansas for student athletes, and since ’09 had been an Arkansas recruiting assistant and helped organize summer football camps — which is one of the player development coordinator’s duties — recruiting visits, and team travel. Petrino is listed among Fields’s references.
Dorrell’s resume, unlike the other two, makes no specific mention of the job requirements, but does mention other traits, like “fundraising skills” that are not part of the Arkansas job listing. At the time of her application, according to her resume, the former All-SEC volleyball player was working as the assistant director for women’s athletics at the Razorback Foundation, and before that worked as a graduate assistant in the athletic department.