The NCAA News - News and Features

January 19, 1998

Former NCAA president, Tennessee faculty member dies

Earl M. Ramer, who served as NCAA president in 1971 and 1972, died January 4 in Nashville, Tennessee. He was 84.

Ramer was a member of the faculty at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, for 34 years.

He served as faculty athletics representative for Tennessee from 1958 until his retirement from the university in 1978. He was head of the department of continuing education when he retired.

In addition to his service as NCAA president, Ramer also served on the NCAA Council (1964-70) and the NCAA Executive Committee (1973-78).

Major issues during Ramer's presidency were legislative reorganization, freshman eligibility, need-based financial aid and academic standards for prospective student-athletes.

He also was active in Southeastern Conference affairs, serving on that conference's executive committee. He also was president of the University of Tennessee faculty association in 1948-49.

The Knoxville News-Sentinel noted that Ramer's first alliance was with education, citing comments he made upon his retirement.

"I have always regarded myself as an academic officer rather than an athletics officer," he said. "The people I have been most closely associated with in the NCAA have been English professors, law school professors, mathematics teachers, history professors. They're pretty much covered the gamut of academic pursuits."

However, longtime News-Sentinel reporter Tom Siler wrote at the time that Ramer was respected within the Tennessee athletics community, as well.

"Earl Ramer wore many hats," Siler wrote, "but nothing was more important than trying to help UT coaches keep abreast of the rules, the tangle of barbed wire that is the NCAA. No faculty rep can ever be quite sure what the coach, in any sport, is up to. In his time, Earl advised and counseled five head coaches in football alone -- Bowden Wyatt, Jim McDonald, Doug Dickey, Bill Battle and Johnny Majors."

Ramer's undergraduate degree was from George Peabody College, where he also earned his master's. He was awarded a doctorate from Columbia University in 1943. He came to Tennessee from Western Maryland College.

Funeral services were conducted January 6 in Knoxville.

Memorials may be made to the Middle Tennessee Chapter of the Alzheimers Association, 1915 Glen Echo Road, Nashville, Tennessee.