When Bill Scholl took over as athletic director two weeks ago, he had no idea he'd be given a box full of r+â-¬sum+â-¬s pertaining to the women's basketball head coaching vacancy.
"As I went through it, I realized how desirable this job was," Scholl said.
As Scholl and his staff sifted through the stacks of potential heirs to Kelly Packard, who resigned in March, Brady Sallee's name continued to surface.
After narrowing the search to a handful of candidates, Scholl began comparing each and every applicant to the criteria he put together for the coaching search. Scholl's criteria consisted of three phases, most notably, the importance of believing in the true meaning of a student-athlete.
When Scholl realized Sallee satisfied every part of his three-part checklist, he knew Sallee was the right man for the job.
"A very rigorous and thorough process, and what really excites me is we had a great pool to choose from and in the end, I believe we chose the person who ticked off every one of those boxes better than anybody else in that candidate pool," Scholl said.
Sallee, who served as women's basketball coach at Eastern Illinois for the last eight seasons, hopes to bring a new type of energy to a Ball State program that's gone a combined 18-42 over the last two seasons.
Sallee said what drew him to Ball State was when he first stepped foot on campus.
"When I drove through there, I didn't say it out loud, but hook, line and sinker, I was in," Sallee said. "It quickly turned from, 'Brady, do you want this opportunity?' to 'Brady, you better get this opportunity, don't mess it up,' because it is an impressive, impressive place. This is the type of university, this is the type of athletic department that can do great things."
Sallee's first and perhaps most important point of emphasis was how this program is about the players, the university and the community. He said it's hardly about him.
"I just get to run Ball State's program," Sallee said. "It's not my program, it's Ball State's, it's the community's [and] it's the players'. I'm fortunate enough to have been given the keys to the corvette, and I'm going to have a heck of a time driving it, and I can promise you that."
Another one of Sallee's focuses is that he didn't take the job to rebuild Ball State's program. Nor did he take the job to bring in his own recruits. He accepted the position with the mindset of winning from the get-go.
Sallee doesn't intend on winning more than nine games, which would be more than what Packard accomplished in each of the last two seasons. Instead, Sallee has greater envisions, such as becoming a program that is consistently talked about across the country.
"Clearly, if I didn't think that this would be a special program and could be a special program, I wouldn't have pursued it the way it did," Sallee said. "My vision for Ball State women's basketball, we can be one of those programs that nobody wants to play. It's because of how many times we knock off those big boys. I think we've got to go play the big boys.
"We've got to put ourselves in front of people and give ourselves an opportunity to do special things. I hate the term Mid-Major, because that's not what I'm about. But we can be one of those players nationally that everybody knows our name. We can be that program. I'm really eager how quickly, not see if, but to see how quickly we can get it there."
The amount of confidence Scholl and President Jo Ann Gora have in their newest hire leaves Sallee feeling blessed with every opportunity he is given, and his goals couldn't be any higher.
"That faith in me is going to be something I wake up with every day and it's going to drive me to work so, so hard in getting us to a position where we're in here celebrating championship after championship, and like I said, being on the front cover of ESPN soon enough and quickly enough," Sallee said.
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