NCAA New president plans changes

Myles Brand, Indiana University president, will take over the association on Jan. 1.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Myles Brand expects the NCAA to govern and listen. He wants athletics and academics to go hand-in-hand, and he insists not everything can be mandated by college sports' largest governing body.
If it doesn't sound like the inflexible NCAA of the past, that's because Brand doesn't want it to be. When he takes over as president Jan. 1, Brand intends to bring a more unifying message and a more inclusive environment to the organization.
He wants to see more dialogue among athletic directors, coaches and university presidents. "I think it will be necessary to make sure that everyone with information is involved as much as possible in the decision-making process," he said.
But his resume is not long on athletics. He has never been a coach or served as an athletic director. His playing days ended more than 40 years ago at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.
His gray hair, glasses and dark suit seem tailored more to a college administrator rather than someone running the NCAA, but that's just what the NCAA's Executive Committee wanted -- to send a message with a different kind of leader.
The committee sought someone who would emphasize reforms and academics, which meant looking outside the sports world.
First president chosen
Brand fit the model. He has been Indiana University's president since 1994, the first university president chosen to lead the NCAA, and his colleagues have big expectations.
"I'm hoping he really takes the initiatives that we've begun on academic reform, where academics are really meaningful, and moves it forward," said Tulsa president Bob Lawless, chairman of the NCAA committee that chose the new president.
Brand understands. He would like to increase the required number of high-school core courses from 14 to 16 and devise a semester-by-semester measure of academic progress for college athletes.
He also believes his background as a president will help forge consensus on a variety of difficult topics such as Title IX and additional academic reforms.
It won't be easy.
"The plus is that he's part of the presidential fraternity," said Cedric Dempsey, the outgoing president. "The weakness is the learning curve of background and experience."
While presidents talk about academics first, those in athletic departments are pushing for changes in other areas, such as the definition of amateurism.
Brand agrees changes are needed, but he's not willing to support a "pay-for-play" proposal that would allow athletes to compete professionally for one year and then return to college with eligibility.
Dempsey believes the biggest problem with today's rules are that international athletes begin playing club sports, where they are paid, when they are teenagers. He believes Americans should not be held to a different standard, so if presidents support international recruiting, Dempsey said, the rules will have to be changed.
"I think that's going to come back because the world is changing," Dempsey said. "We're recruiting more international students and at some point, you have to adjust our rules to be more current."
Saint Louis University athletic director Doug Woolard, who helped draft last year's amateurism package, hopes the issue will be revisited. The NCAA approved some of the changes, but rejected the most controversial proposals, such as "pay-for-play" and allowing top student-athletes in some sports to take out loans of up to $20,000.
The difference of opinion illustrates just how tenuous running the NCAA can be, and there may not be any honeymoon once Brand takes office.
Dempsey fears Brand's early days in office could be tested quickly if there is a lack of minority hiring. The main issue is football, where only three black coaches finished the 2002 season in Division I-A.
Karl Dorrell, a former Bruins player and Denver Broncos assistant coach, was hired Wednesday by UCLA. He is the first black coach hired since the end of the college season.
Brand said the Black Coaches Association's proposed goal of increasing minority football hires to 20 percent of all openings is reasonable.
But if no progress is made in the next month, which is the key hiring time for NCAA football, Brand could find himself in the middle of another battle with the BCA.
The BCA has said it would wait until 2005 before taking action but expects to see progress. By August, it intends to have a report card on minority hiring, and executive director Floyd Keith has not minced words.
"The rhetoric I hear doesn't impress me," Keith said. "What I want to see are results."
Brand's critics question his commitment to athletics, citing a speech he gave at the National Press Club in Washington in January 2001.
During the address, Brand denounced the seven-figure salaries of some coaches, warned against celebrity coaches and urged caution in what he described as college athletics' "arms race." He also suggested conferences take more control over lucrative TV deals by dictating times and dates of games.
Brand claims his speech has sometimes been misinterpreted, and those who have worked closely with him at Indiana dispel the notion Brand does not care about having programs compete at a high level.
"Just because he wants to raise the standards for academics and cut the pay scales of coaches, does that mean he's not committed to athletics?" Indiana basketball coach Mike Davis said. "I don't think so."
Brand is convinced he understands the nuances of college sports after being in charge of two major universities, Indiana and Oregon, since 1989. And his record indicates, he will fight for his beliefs.
Fired Bobby Knight
It was Brand who fired Bob Knight on Sept. 10, 2000, after he determined Knight had violated the university's zero-tolerance policy. Students hanged him in effigy in front of the president's house on the Bloomington campus.
Two days later, he gambled again by hiring one of Knight's assistants, the little-known Davis, as interim coach. In March 2001, when some fans urged Brand to seek a higher-profile coach, Brand again ignored the critics and kept Davis.
Davis rewarded him last year by taking the Hoosiers to their first Final Four since 1992 and their first national championship game since 1987. Knight is now the coach at Texas Tech.
Brand's approach, though, will be to focus on the future.
He wants universities to reclaim their primary mission -- developing better students, not necessarily millionaire athletes. He believes academics and athletic success can coexist, and in the next seven years, he intends to prove it.