The NCAA News - News & Features

Membership group to aid NCAA 2000 headquarters project

Termed the NCAA 2000 headquarters project, the review and analysis have been underway for a little more than a year. The NCAA Executive Committee authorized the effort.

The committee charged the staff with exploring the broadest possible range of options for the headquarters, including location of the national office. The Association's lease on its current headquarters site in Overland Park, Kansas, expires in 2000.

At its May meeting, the Executive Committee approved a recommendation from the NCAA Joint Policy Board to appoint the working group.

Members of the group are Charles S. Boone, athletics director at the University of Richmond and a former Executive Committee member; David G. Carter, president of Eastern Connecticut State University and Presidents Commission Division III chair; Lynn L. Dorn, athletics director at North Dakota State University and Division II vice-president; Milton A. Gordon, president of California State University, Fullerton, and a Presidents Commission member; and Robert Lawless, president of the University of Tulsa and Presidents Commission Division I chair.

There also are three ex officio members: Samuel H. Smith, president of Washington State University and Presidents Commission chair; Eugene F. Corrigan, commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference and NCAA president; and Phyllis L. Howlett, assistant commissioner of the Big Ten Conference and NCAA secretary-treasurer.

The group will work with the staff project team and with representatives of the real estate services arm of Arthur Andersen & Company, which has been retained to provide economic impact and location analyses.

"This is a significant project that will impact the Association's headquarters operation as we start a new century," NCAA Executive Director Cedric W. Dempsey said. "It is the view of the Joint Policy Board and the Executive Committee that membership -- and especially presidential -- involvement is essential."

The first meeting of the working group and the staff project team is scheduled for June 13 in Overland Park, Kansas. A decision relative to location and other considerations for the headquarters is expected sometime in the spring of 1997.

On another Joint Policy Board recommendation related to the NCAA 2000 project, the Executive Committee agreed that in the absence of a fully functioning new Executive Committee under the new governance structure, the board would become the decision-making body for this project.