ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, June 22, 1996 TAG: 9606240121
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
THE ATHLETIC DIRECTOR at Hollins College has a voice that reaches all members of NCAA Division III athletics.
School's out. The College World Series finished two weeks ago. Living is easy in college sports until football practice heats up in August, right?
Then why does the Hollins athletic director have a 5-inch stack of multicolored papers on her desk?
``It's just a little reading I have to do,'' Lynda Calkins said.
No summer novels at the beach for Calkins. As a member of the NCAA Division III Eligibility Committee, the Hollins AD has plenty of material to go through on that desk. Asked by a visitor, ``What do you do during the summer?'' Calkins never really answered. Maybe because she wouldn't have time.
The athletic program at the private women's college in Roanoke County still may be a well-kept secret, but the college athletics hierarchy knows Calkins. She is the most influential college athletic administrator in Southwest Virginia. Next to Virginia athletic director Terry Holland, who is the chair of the powerful and big-bucks wielding NCAA Basketball Committee, Calkins probably is the college athletic administrator with the most NCAA clout in the state.
A full plate
Calkins is a member of the prestigious 44-member NCAA Council. She is part of the NCAA Division III Task Force on Restructuring, the group that is charged with formulating a new model of competition for the largest and most diverse classification in NCAA sports. She also is on the aforementioned eligibility committee.
Calkins also is the president of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference, and she is chairing the ODAC's study committee on replacing the only commissioner in league history, Dan Wooldridge, when he retires at the end of the 1996-97 school year. She's on the board of Virginia Amateur Sports, which stages the Commonwealth Games, and the board for the local chapter of the American Red Cross.
At Hollins, besides being the AD for the school's nine-sport intercollegiate program, Calkins also is chairman of the physical education department. She also coaches swimming, and last season coached field hockey.
``Not this year,'' she said, finding time to take a deep breath.
Calkins has been the school's athletic director and swimming coach since 1985. Her program and department boasts some excellent facilities and has a sports hall of fame of recent establishment. Most Hollins visitors probably would be stunned to see the quality of the places teams use to play and practice on the leafy campus, much less the size of the weight room.
Still - and until Calkins got involved with NCAA governance it was the program's point of notoriety - Hollins has no athletic nickname.
``We looked into that and we got lots of suggestions,'' Calkins said. ``I won't tell you what some of them were, but after we looked at it and talked about it, we decided we didn't need it.''
There is a logo. It looks like a florescent yellow tennis ball with a green ``H.'' While it's not what you would call busy at all, Calkins is.
``There are some times I wonder how I balance it all,'' said Calkins, 46. ``Before being involved to such an extent with the NCAA, I talked with [administrators at] the college about the time commitment. Hollins, obviously remains where the thrust of my energy is devoted. I do think serving on NCAA committees enhances the institution as well. It helps get the Hollins name across the nation.''
Calkins didn't just get the prestigious NCAA Council post because someone from a women's college was needed. She was nominated. A fellow ODAC administrator calls Calkins ``an impressive person, very sharp. She has good ideas and is a good listener.''
Small-college commitment
Calkins also has the kind of varied background, in coaching and business, from the Ivy League to a small school in a big city, that often works best in college athletics. A native of Fairborn, Ohio, near Dayton, Calkins is an alumna of Adrian College in Michigan, where she swam and played field hockey, and received her master's at Massachusetts.
She first worked at Brown as a swimming coach and physical education instructor. Deciding to take a year off from teaching college, Calkins bought a yacht-charter business in Michigan. ``I learned I belonged back in college,'' she said.
She went to Barnard College in New York City as swimming coach and acting athletic director. In 1985, she moved to Hollins, and a year later restarted the dormant swimming program. Last season, she coached Kat Horton, an NCAA Division III champion in two butterfly events.
Calkins also teaches 10 to 12 hours per semester. She also can be found fishing, or driving around town in her white Nissan Altima with the ``HC AD'' vanity plates with the college's columned logo - when she's in town. She also has taken up golf. Asked her handicap, Calkins responded, ``As many shots as you'll give me.''
Now, she's keen on promoting Hollins - the school and the athletic program - in the Roanoke Valley and beyond.
``Women's sports is not your typical sell,'' Calkins said. ``For years, women's sports took a back seat to men's. Title IX happened 26 years ago, but at a women's institution, it's different. I don't feel women's institutions have been very involved with what's going on at coed institutions.
``Sometimes, I think Hollins is the best-kept secret of Roanoke, and the fact that more people don't know what's here doesn't surprise me, it dismays me. I think we have a fine program, with great facilities. It's definitely a growing program, an improving program, and athletics are a viable part of this institution.''
Calkins said that of the 880 full-time Hollins undergraduate students, about 43 percent are involved in some sort of athletic or physical education activity. About 19 percent participate in intercollegiate athletics in one of nine programs - basketball, equestrian, fencing, field hockey, lacrosse, soccer, swimming, tennis and volleyball. There are club teams in golf and softball.
But no nickname?
``It has worked to our advantage, I think,'' Calkins said. ``Five or six years ago, when it was a big issue and we discussed it, we got on National Public Radio. People came up with some wonderful names, some not so wonderful. What we did, or didn't do, is probably a good choice for us. People say, `What do you yell?' Why, `Go, Hollins!' of course.''
It's the only NCAA institution without a nickname, but in the organization's office in Overland Park, Kan., Calkins has made sure the bigwigs of college sports know what Hollins is.
Mapping the future
``We have a great opportunity to determine the future course, not only in the NCAA, but in the ODAC,'' Calkins said. ``Dan Wooldridge has been very organized and has done a great job selling our conference. It's never had another commissioner.
``It started out as a league with all-male programs, then the women were added. Now, it's a league with schools that are very diverse in some ways, but very much alike in other ways. Now, we have to decide how we want to proceed, and we're in a situation where we can make it dovetail with the changes nationally in Division III.
``With the NCAA, in restructuring, we're grappling with how big is too big; part of it is private vs. public. Do we subdivide? Do we use one of the four different models we're studying? I personally don't think we should move too quickly. There's going to be an influx of new members in Division III, too. That has to be part of our decision.''
Calkins said she has been ``very pleased with our association with the ODAC,'' and says the conference's co-hosting of several Division III national championships with the City of Salem has enhanced the national reputation of the league and its members.
``Hollins is where I want to be,'' Calkins said. ``I wouldn't be here if I didn't think it could grow. It's an exciting time to be here. Good things are happening here. We have some of the finest Division III facilities, and most of them have come about in the last 10 years. We have to continue on the same path, and we want more people to know about it.''
LENGTH: Long : 147 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: DON PETERSEN/Staff. Lynda Calkins, shown here at theby CNBHollins College indoor pool, is athletic director, coach, teacher
and - if that weren't enough - an influential member of the NCAA.
color. KEYWORDS: PROFILE