Myles Brand, First College President to Lead NCAA, Dies at 67
Myles Brand, the first college president to lead the National Collegiate Athletic Association and a champion of stricter academic standards for athletes, died Wednesday after a nearly yearlong battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 67.
Mr. Brand, whose face had grown gaunt in recent months as he underwent treatment, remained active in the association's work until his death. Although unsteady on his feet and significantly thinner, he attended the men's Final Four in April. Just Tuesday, members of a committee that he started several years ago to inject a scholarly focus on intercollegiate athletics speculated on whether he would attend a meeting.
"He's left a lasting influence on not only the NCAA but intercollegiate athletics generally and higher education as a whole," said Walter Harrison, president of the University of Hartford and a former chair of the NCAA's Executive Committee, who worked closely with Mr. Brand. "He will principally be remembered as someone who brought intercollegiate athletics more squarely under the umbrella of higher education, remembering that intercollegiate athletics is part of a university experience, not separate from it."
Mr. Brand had a distinguished career in academe before joining the NCAA, in 2003. A philosophy professor by training, he was a former president of the University of Oregon and Indiana University at Bloomington, and held teaching or administrative positions at four other public universities.
A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Mr. Brand was different from many previous NCAA leaders: Tall, scholarly, and bespectacled, he had never worked in an athletics department. And though he kept fit and had an athletic build, he was no ex-jock. But what mattered was that he spoke the same language as the college presidents who composed the NCAA's top leadership committees. And he soon demonstrated that he could do the same with the people who made up the nerve center of college sports: athletics directors, coaches, and students.
In time, Mr. Brand became one of the NCAA's most recognized leaders. From his bully pulpit, he pushed for tougher academic policies for the NCAA's 400,000-plus athletes, and encouraged athletics departments to embrace healthy forms of commercial activity to finance their programs.
Read entire article at The Chronicle of Higher Education
Mr. Brand, whose face had grown gaunt in recent months as he underwent treatment, remained active in the association's work until his death. Although unsteady on his feet and significantly thinner, he attended the men's Final Four in April. Just Tuesday, members of a committee that he started several years ago to inject a scholarly focus on intercollegiate athletics speculated on whether he would attend a meeting.
"He's left a lasting influence on not only the NCAA but intercollegiate athletics generally and higher education as a whole," said Walter Harrison, president of the University of Hartford and a former chair of the NCAA's Executive Committee, who worked closely with Mr. Brand. "He will principally be remembered as someone who brought intercollegiate athletics more squarely under the umbrella of higher education, remembering that intercollegiate athletics is part of a university experience, not separate from it."
Mr. Brand had a distinguished career in academe before joining the NCAA, in 2003. A philosophy professor by training, he was a former president of the University of Oregon and Indiana University at Bloomington, and held teaching or administrative positions at four other public universities.
A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Mr. Brand was different from many previous NCAA leaders: Tall, scholarly, and bespectacled, he had never worked in an athletics department. And though he kept fit and had an athletic build, he was no ex-jock. But what mattered was that he spoke the same language as the college presidents who composed the NCAA's top leadership committees. And he soon demonstrated that he could do the same with the people who made up the nerve center of college sports: athletics directors, coaches, and students.
In time, Mr. Brand became one of the NCAA's most recognized leaders. From his bully pulpit, he pushed for tougher academic policies for the NCAA's 400,000-plus athletes, and encouraged athletics departments to embrace healthy forms of commercial activity to finance their programs.