The NCAA News - News and Features

The NCAA News -- October 12, 1998

Thompson, former NCAA president, dies at 85

J. Neils Thompson, who served as NCAA president during a critical period for the Association, died September 25 in Austin, Texas, at age 85.

Besides his service to the NCAA, Thompson also was the long-time faculty athletics representative for the University of Texas at Austin.

Thompson chaired the 1978 NCAA Convention when Division I voted to realign its football-playing membership into Division I-A and Division I-AA. He also chaired the 1979 Convention when Division I defeated the forerunner of current initial-eligibility standards by voting down a "triple-option" initial-eligibility plan that would have based initial eligibility on high-school grade-point average and the prospect's ACT or SAT score. The initial-eligibility standard at the time was the 2.000 rule.

Although the Thompson era was active legislatively, it also was notable for other reasons.

Title IX evolved as an athletics issue, especially when the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare provided its Title IX policy interpretation in 1978. Also, it was a challenging period for the NCAA enforcement program, which was the focus of a Congressional investigation that unsuccessfully sought to portray the NCAA enforcement process as unfair and biased toward certain institutions and individuals. At the 1979 Convention, a 28 1/2-page proposal to revamp the Association's enforcement program -- at the time the largest legislative proposal ever -- was overwhelmingly defeated.

In addition to serving as NCAA president, Thompson also served on many NCAA committees, including the NCAA Council; the Special Committee on Enforcement Planning; the Special Committee on NCAA Governance, Organization and Services; and the Special Committee on Economics in Intercollegiate Athletics.

He served on the athletics council at Texas for 24 years in the 1960s and 1970s.

"The NCAA went to him for a lot of opinions," former Texas sports information director Jones Ramsey told the Austin American-Statesman. "He was highly respected by the NCAA, even though he did not work for them. He never used his power to promote Texas. He used his power to promote the NCAA."

Although he devoted major time to the NCAA, to the Southwest Conference and to the Texas athletics program, Thompson's primary role was that of civil engineering professor. He was the first director of the Balcones Research Center and wrote more than 200 technical books.

A Texas graduate, he competed on the 1934 football team.