Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 23, 1993 TAG: 9305230132
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Dave Braine's decision to remain as the Hokies' athletic director - and be sure he had the Iowa State job if he wanted it - isn't the reason he should be rewarded with a contract. He deserves some security because he has provided the Hokies with the same.
When Braine became Tech's athletic boss in 1988, he took a job that few with decent qualifications would have touched. Both revenue-producing programs were on NCAA probation, and Dutch Baughman had fled after only five months when he determined Tech's former administration was trying to cover its own tracks in "Hokiegate."
One of Baughman's favorite phrases was "sheep dip," and that pretty much describes what Braine stepped into when he was hired from a Marshall program that was a bit green around the edges, too.
Braine has cleaned up Tech's athletic mess and brought credibility and candor to his job. Although Tech's two prominent programs continue to struggle, Braine has gained strong alumni support. That's why President James McComas' office and other administrators in Burruss Hall and the Jamerson Athletic Center fielded more than a few phone calls in recent weeks urging a move to make sure Braine didn't pack his bags.
Surely, he hasn't made all of the right moves. Who does? However, Braine gets points for aggressiveness. If he makes an error, it's one of commission. Because he's a hands-on administrator, he's not always the easiest guy to work for, and he too often tries to make the media a scapegoat. If one reason he left the Iowa State search was media attention - as he stated - then it's hoped he had better reasons.
However, his loyalty to Tech can't be questioned. His contacts and salesmanship got an Eastern Seaboard outsider into Big East football, and the image of the Hokies' athletic program has gotten a needed financial boost under his guidance.
Braine earns $106,000, has no complaints about his salary and certainly has gotten administration support in his decisions. However, in the state's other Division I-A program, Virginia athletic director Jim Copeland has a five-year contract.
What happens if McComas retires, as expected, in the next couple of years? What if the new president checks the won-lost records as well as the SAT scores and cleans house? What's that Braine power worth then?
Maybe Iowa State didn't have his field of dreams. The next time, Braine and his wife, Carole, won't have to consider a move when their youngest daughter, Meredith, is about to become a high school senior recruited for volleyball and basketball. The next offer might be the right time, the right place for Braine, who is almost 50. The ACC? The Big Ten? Elsewhere in the Big East? Not that he necessarily wants to leave.
There's more frustration at Tech for Braine than the lack of a contract. Whether or not Braine is going somewhere, the Hokies won't be if they don't emerge from what is perceived as an ambivalence toward athletics success by the university administration.
After the previous administration spent too much time in the locker room and gave in too easily to an athletic administration that had fractured leadership, there is the feeling among not a few Hokies that the current university leaders have, at best, sent mixed signals to Tech's sports program.
Braine repeatedly has run into a limestone wall at Burruss with the administration when talk turns to academics and athletics. The suggestion is not that Tech again should become a haven for every recruitable student-athlete but that a certain realism about competing on the I-A level should be adopted.
Tech's entrance requirements for recruits are higher than a large majority of its competitors. There is no basic curriculum for a student who can't reach Tech's average norm. Although the Hokies' academic advising program is tremendously improved from the pre-Braine days, the number of full-time employees involved in the program is less than at peer institutions such as UVa.
Perhaps that's part of the reason Virginia Tech ranked third from last in Division I when its graduation rate for athletes was compared to that of its student body from 1983-85, according to the NCAA's graduation-rates report released last week.
Those numbers didn't say anything that hasn't been said before. The Hokies are at a recruiting and competitive disadvantage compared to conference opponents in the Big East and Metro. Tech can't be Notre Dame, Stanford, Duke or Vanderbilt in both athletics and academics.
Braine may want a contract, but just as much he wants a chance for his programs and coaches to succeed. He has shown Tech that athletics don't have to be an embarrassment to the university. What Braine wants most is to win.
To do that, he may have to go somewhere else.
by CNB