Courtesy: NCAA News
NCAA President Myles Brand, the first university
president to serve as the Association's chief executive, has died from
pancreatic cancer. He was 67.
"Myles Brand was a dear friend and a great academic
leader. He was a tireless advocate for the student-athlete," said
Michael Adams, president of the University of Georgia and chair of the
NCAA Executive Committee. "Indeed, he worked to ensure that the student
was first in the student-athlete model. He will be greatly missed."
Brand, who began his tenure in January 2003 after
having served as president at Indiana and Oregon, died at his
Indianapolis home. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in December
2008 and announced his condition to the NCAA Executive Committee, the
national office staff and the leadership at NCAA member schools in
January, saying the long-term prognosis for his condition was "not
good."
Brand remained committed to leading the Association
even through his illness, guiding the national office staff and
communicating with presidential leadership up until the final days. He
attended the Men's Final Four in Detroit, was at the table for the
Association's spring governance meetings and worked at his office into
September.
Brand built his presidency on academic reform and
advocacy of intercollegiate athletics, accomplishing both. Under
Brand's leadership, Division I adopted an academic reform structure
anchored by the Academic Progress Rate, a team-based, term-by-term
measure of academic success that encourages improved academic
performance. Divisions II and III also made significant advances under
Brand's watch — Division II by implementing an identity campaign and a
strategic-positioning platform tied to specific divisional attributes,
and Division III by fortifying its philosophy to manage unprecedented
membership growth.
Brand also spearheaded a landmark Presidential Task
Force that in 2006 called for institutions to moderate athletics
spending and to better integrate athletics into the mission of higher
education.
"Myles Brand will be remembered not only for his
unyielding demand that intercollegiate athletics reflect the values of
higher education but also for his advocacy of the student-athlete,"
said NCAA Executive Vice President Bernard Franklin. "This was a man
who understood the importance of higher education, as well as the
benefit of athletics participation as part of the educational
experience. He did not waver from that as a tenet of NCAA operations,
and as a result, the Association will continue to benefit from his
influence for years to come."
University of Hartford President Walter Harrison, who
chaired the NCAA Executive Committee during Brand's push for reform,
said Brand "leaves a clear and strong legacy that captures all the best
things about college sports."
Harrison praised Brand for his presidential
leadership and "setting appropriate standards and the appropriate tone
on our college campuses."
"Likewise, his tenure as president of the NCAA marked
an era of significant positive change," Harrison said. "He led the
Association as it became much more responsive to its members' needs. He
furthered the movement to make university presidents and chancellors
primarily responsible for governance of the Association and oversight
of college sports. He set very high standards for maintaining what's
unique about the college sports experience in an era of growing
commercialism."
That "growing commercialism" was a concern of
Brand's, especially recently. He focused the bulk of his final State of
the Association address at the 2009 NCAA Convention on the topic,
calling for a "shared responsibility" among the NCAA national office
staff and member schools to monitor commercial trends and establish
both legislation and "good judgment" about policy that at its core does
not put student-athletes at risk in commercial activities.
"There is no question that commercial activity is
necessary for mounting intercollegiate athletics programs, certainly in
Division I, but also in Divisions II and III," Brand wrote in the
speech that NCAA Vice President Wallace Renfro delivered at the January
Convention. "But that commercial activity must be undertaken within the
context of higher education. It must be done the right way. The answer
is to use regulation where clear prohibitions are evident —
exploitation of student-athletes, for example — and apply values-driven
judgment where flexibility is required."
Brand called for the appointment of an oversight
committee of membership peers that would "review the landscape of
commercial activity in intercollegiate athletics, make binding
determinations of instances in which there is student-athlete
exploitation even if NCAA amateurism rules are not violated, and
evaluate trends in commercial activity to ensure that the values of
higher education and the best interests of the collegiate model of
athletics are not abridged."
The Division I Board of Directors approved the establishment of that group at the Board's April 2009 meeting.
Brand also was a force for diversity and inclusion,
establishing an entire department at the NCAA national office devoted
to increasing representation from all backgrounds at member schools and
within the NCAA governance structure. He was an outspoken champion of
diversifying football's head coaching ranks in particular, supporting
several NCAA programs and coaching academies devoted to increasing the
pool of qualified minority candidates and providing them with
networking opportunities for advancement.
Several recent hires in football participated in those professional-development programs.
"Diversity and inclusion were always top of mind with
Myles Brand," said Charlotte Westerhaus, NCAA vice president for
diversity and inclusion. "He understood the value of inclusion from his
dealings in higher education, and that translated to intercollegiate
athletics as well. He championed not only diversifying the
head-coaching ranks in football but also leadership positions in
athletics administration for both men and women."
Brand was named president-elect of the Association in
October 2002 after a national search to replace Cedric W. Dempsey, who
had announced he was retiring at the end of that year after having led
the Association since 1994.
Robert Lawless, who as president of Tulsa chaired the
Executive Committee at the time of Brand's hire and chaired the search
committee, called Brand a pre-eminent "educational leader."
"We selected Myles Brand for his ability to stress
the educational component of intercollegiate athletics," Lawless said
after Brand was chosen. "We want the nation to understand that the
collegiate part of intercollegiate athletics is an integrated part of
the higher education experience."
Upon being hired, Brand said, "This is a superb
challenge, an opportunity for me to work on a national level in a way
that continues my work with universities, to influence the course of
events on something that is very important to American culture and,
most importantly, to higher education as a whole."
Brand's contract originally was to run through
December 31, 2007, but the NCAA Executive Committee voted in 2005 to
extend Brand's contract by two years and then annually for the
indefinite future. The contract extension was scheduled to run through
December 31, 2009.
Before assuming the NCAA's top leadership position,
Brand was president at Indiana from 1994 through 2002, and at Oregon
from 1989 to 1994.
Born May 17, 1942, Brand earned his bachelor of
science degree in philosophy from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in
1964 and his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Rochester in
1967.
Brand's other administrative posts included provost
and vice president for academic affairs at Ohio State (1986-89),
coordinating dean at the College of Arts and Sciences at Arizona
(1985-86), dean of the faculty of social and behavioral sciences at
Arizona (1983-86), director of Arizona's Cognitive Science Program
(1982-85), head of the department of philosophy at Arizona (1981-83)
and chair of department of philosophy at Illinois-Chicago (1972-80). He
began his career in the department of philosophy at the University of
Pittsburgh in 1967.
Brand has also served on the Executive Committee of
the Board of Directors of the Association of American Universities and
as board chair (1999-2000), a member of the board of directors
(1992-97) and executive committee (1994-97) of the American Council on
Education. He was a member of the board of directors of the National
Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges (1995-98) and
served as a board member of the American Philosophical Association and
of the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development, the
umbrella organization of Internet2.
His academic research investigated the nature of
human action. His work focused on intention, desire, belief and other
cognitive states, as well as deliberation and practical reasoning,
planning and general goal-directed activity. He also wrote extensively
on various topics in higher education, such as tenure and undergraduate
education.
He is survived by his wife, Peggy, and one son, Joshua.