Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 19, 1993 TAG: 9305190105
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ANDREW BAGNATO CHICAGO TRIBUNE
DATELINE: CHICAGO LENGTH: Long
"You don't have to be a certified pilot," said Greg O'Brien, president of the University of New Orleans.
Schultz is, and he often flew the NCAA's private plane around the country to stay in touch with the membership. But if the new executive director doesn't have to be familiar with a cockpit, he or she will have to know how to navigate through a storm.
Schultz's successor will take over at a critical time in intercollegiate athletics - a time when the membership is trying to figure out how to provide more opportunity for women athletes and cut costs at the same time. The hunt for a successor could be as contentious as any floor fight at the NCAA convention.
The NCAA's buzz phrase for equal opportunity is gender equity. This week the NCAA plans to release the findings of a task force studying the issue, which is expected to cause warfare at next January's convention.
At odds are the interests of big-time football programs, which produce much of the revenue in college sports, and women athletes, whose scholarship figures fall short of those demanded by Title IX. While few go so far as to predict the breakup of the NCAA, it isn't hard to foresee a day when football powers consider breaking away.
"I don't see the NCAA coming apart," said Jeffrey Orleans, a member of the gender equity task force. "[But] they've gotten it into their mind that gender equity and the destruction of football are synonymous. That's not true."
Added Big 10 assistant commissioner Phyllis Howlett, the task force's co-chair, "There's fear there only because it is the unknown. We're not out to put anybody out of business."
Schultz, who resigned last week after being linked to a loan scandal that took place while he was athletic director at the University of Virginia, was a keen judge of the political winds swirling within the association. In last January's State of the Association address in Dallas, Schultz made it clear he didn't want gender equity gains to come at football's expense.
"I am concerned football has become a target for some regarding gender equity," he said. "Football is important to intercollegiate athletics and the NCAA. Certainly we are smart enough, and committed enough, to achieve the goal of gender equity without damaging the quality of football and other programs."
But how? Schultz tossed out the possibility of a national football championship game, which he said could raise as much as $60 million, money that could help pay for more women's sports.
"We can talk about gender equity and all of the things it involves, but until we resolve how football fits into the equation because of its size, and how equitable participation is determined, we will be deadlocked," Schultz said.
Though the next executive director probably will be hired too late to influence the debate leading up to the convention, he or she will have to confront the fallout for years.
"I think what the new person will encounter is a new culture, that what society has done is decide that women's athletics are part of it," Howlett said.
The search for Schultz's successor, which could take more than six months, will begin as soon as the NCAA's Executive Committee appoints a search committee. The Executive Committee technically has the duty to name a replacement, but any hire must have the approval of the powerful Presidents Commission.
What's the job description? Schultz expanded it when he succeeded Walter Byers, the association's first executive director, in 1987.
Schultz often seemed to be in several places at once. "He flew more miles than his son, who's a commercial pilot," said Thomas Hearn, president of Wake Forest University. "He was everywhere - on campuses, on Capitol Hill at hearings and in committee meetings. I doubt we're going to find anybody with as much energy as Dick Schultz had."
By staying in touch, Schultz was able to keep his disparate constituents happy, or at least make them feel they had his ear.
That made him a master at building consensus in an oft-fractured organization whose tiffs make a Notre Dame-Southern Cal football game seem civilized by comparison. Schultz had friends at the biggest football powerhouses and on the smallest Division III campuses. He was respected by the presidents and chancellors as well as the faculty advisers.
Confident of a broad base of support, Schultz campaigned hard for many of the reforms that have made the past several years the most important in NCAA history, reforms aimed at giving more legitimacy to the word "student" in the phrase "student-athlete."
The presidents gave power to Schultz's reform push, and last week they vowed not to let the reform movement sputter when he leaves. At the same time, they seemed wary of hiring someone whose past would come back to haunt the way Schultz's did.
That sparked speculation the presidents will make one of their own the next executive director. Hearn's name emerged, as did that of University of Mississippi Chancellor Gerald Turner. Both men quickly said they weren't interested in the job, but that might not stop them from being approached.
"From the grapevine, I hear that the [Presidents] Commission might try to find a person who could not have violated any regulations - and I'm not saying Dick Schultz violated any - and that they might go for a non-athletic person just to make sure," Iowa women's Athletic Director Christine Grant said.
"Without a doubt, I think the position of executive director better have a mighty clean closet," said Frank Windegger, athletic director at Texas Christian and a member of the Executive Committee.
Talk like that makes athletic directors nervous. They would prefer an director who, like Schultz, has lengthy experience in athletics. Many presidents only recently have become involved.
"A lot of the presidents think they know a lot about it," one big-time athletic director said.
Said one conference commissioner, "This is still intercollegiate athletics. It takes a while to build a full catalog of knowledge."
New Orlean's O'Brien, the chairman of the Presidents Commission, said the search will consider a wide variety of candidates, men and women. He said a career in athletics would help, but that it would be more important for a candidate to be able to follow the rough pattern, if not the flight pattern, established by Schultz.
"I think the measurement will relate to integrity, and his or her ability to work with a variety of constituents," he said. "I don't think people have to duplicate Dick Schultz's schedule or be a certified pilot. But I think they have to be committed to working with a variety of people. It's an incredible job."
by CNB