Odd hire.

As I mentioned earlier in the week, Chad Hawley, an assistant commissioner for compliance for the Big Ten, changed his mind about becoming IU's assistant AD for compliance and decided to stay at the Big Ten office. Hawley, who has a law degree, was to make just over $100,000 per year. IU now has elevated Ian Rickerby, who had held the title of "director of compliance" since March 2007 (I think I have been using that term sloppily--the position being filled is assistant athletic director for compliance). I can't find the article that included his salary, but it is somewhat lower than what IU was going to pay Hawley. The good news, of course, is that Rickerby wasn't with the compliance department when the worst of the worst was occurring. He joined the department on March 1, 2007, just a few weeks before the sanctions on the basketball staff were to end. Of course, that also means that IU's new assistant athletic director for compliance has just over a year of experience in the field. He previously had been an assistant soccer coach at IU, Iowa, Evansville, and Purdue. As Chris at the Hoosier Scoop notes in comments, it's fair to assume that this probably isn't a long-term hire and was a move made by necessity given the current upheaval in the athletic department. Still, while I mean no offense to Rickerby, the idea of hiring an outsider with conference-level experience to oversee what certainly will be a period of probation was much more appealing than promotion of a relatively inexperienced insider.

Also, the British Empire's takeover of IU continues. President Michael McRobbie is an Australian, and Rickerby is from England. And whatever the merits of the hire, "Ian Rickerby" is fun to say in a fake British accent.

In other news:

• Today is the first of two Big Ten media days. Hopefully there will be much to say tomorrow and Saturday.
• ESPN has introduced a Big Ten blog (terrorist fist bump: Black Shoe Diaries). The blog is authored by Adam Rittenberg, formerly of the Arlington Heights Daily Herald, a suburban Chicago paper long known for its excellent sports writing (Bruce Miles, the DH's Cubs beat writer, runs circles around his competitors at the Tribune and Sun-Times). I haven't read much yet, but he seems to be posting a wealth of information daily and doing some original reporting and interviewing as well. I don't expect that he will cover any individual team as well as those on the right sidebar do, but it seems like a nice quick way to catch up on the entire conference.