Bobby Petrino Turned Down A Rocket Scientist, Hired Jessica Dorrell

It was bad enough that Bobby Petrino circumvented the hiring process at Arkansas to bring on Jessica Dorrell. He made a mockery of the affirmative action process, closed the job offering early, and gave courtesy interviews to two others while hiring his mistress. No matter how you slice it, that’s bad -- most certainly a fireable offense.

↵Did we mention he turned down a rocket scientist, too?

↵↵Johnson, who played his football and received his aerospace engineering degree at Tuskegee, spent his days at NASA designing abort trajectories in case astronauts had to eject during a takeoff or landing gone bad. If Johnson did his job correctly, the vacated shuttle wouldn’t have landed on a populated area. “Thank God,” he said, “we never had to do an abort.” During his off time, Johnson volunteered as a football coach at Houston-area high schools.

↵↵Okay, so rocket scientist thing is more of an interesting anecdote in a story from Andy Staples that details the candidates who were passed over. There were candidates with loads of experience who weren’t even given a look during a process that was hastily ushered along with the end goal predetermined.