NORMAN — About 90 minutes into Roger Denny’s three-hour in-person interview for Oklahoma’s athletics director job, Randall Stephenson quietly sent a text to the other search committee members in the room in Dallas to “sit back.”
Stephenson, who was overseeing the search, wanted to see how the then-Illinois deputy athletics director interacted one-on-one with Oklahoma president Joseph Harroz Jr. Like Harroz, Denny is a lawyer by trade, so Stephenson joined his other colleagues in the room and “watched two lawyer geeks go head-to-head.”
“That was really boring, but really good,” Stephenson said. “They were energized by it. They had a really good rapport as well. And the reality was after about a three-hour meeting… I gained a lot of insight visiting with him. After that interview, it was really clear this guy was going to be a top candidate for the job.”…