Southern Illinois-Edwardsville interim head coach P.J. Finigan has resigned. Finigan led the Cougars through the 2022 season compiling a 19-35 record.
The hiring of Finigan from the SIUE Baseball staff early last summer and being given the interim tag for the year, was seen at the time as a unfathomable and lazy move by SIUE Administration. At the time Director of Athletics Tim Hall said there were not enough “qualified” applicants for the position, indicating why this hire was made.
RTS learned there were numerous qualified applicants that had applied early in the summer hiring cycle. That pool was made up of former and current head coaches along with some current assistant coaches from within SIUE’s conference at the time. An open records request for the list of applicants made by RTS to SIUE was denied.
Let’s hope Mr. Hall and his administrative staff do their due-diligence this time around for their student-athletes in finding a suitable and permanent leader for their program moving forward.