When NCAA Executive Committee Chair Bob Lawless announced to the NCAA staff October 10 that Indiana University, Bloomington, President Myles Brand would succeed Cedric Dempsey, Dempsey was as surprised as anyone.

A search cloaked in secrecy for good reasons kept even Dempsey in the dark. But as secret as the search was, Brand was no stranger to Dempsey.

The two share Arizona roots. Brand was a dean at the University of Arizona in the mid-1980s while Dempsey headed the school's athletics department, and the two men cultivated a strong working relationship. In fact, during Brand's first address to the national office staff, Dempsey joked that he taught Brand everything he knew about athletics. Brand responded drolly, "Thanks for pointing that out, Ced."

Before he even knew that the NCAA search committee had identified three finalists, Dempsey knew what the greatest challenge for his successor would be.

"If my successor is someone who wasn't raised in the college athletics culture, I would advise him or her to work to understand that culture, and you can't do that without understanding all the constituent groups," he said.

As it turns out, Brand probably isn't as much a product of the "college athletics culture" as Dempsey was.

But Dempsey's advice may have been prophetic, because the first thing Brand promised to do upon taking office was "to be a careful listener and to understand the constituencies, especially the student-athletes."

Because the Association's CEO is a position of influence more than statutory authority, Dempsey said the CEO's success is more of a journey than destination.

"In most corporations, the bottom line is the final evaluator as to whether you're successful," he said, "but in a membership organization, the journey of bringing people along sometimes is more critical than where you end up.

"As long as the NCAA is a membership organization and as long as the office doesn't have the power to effect unilateral change," Dempsey said, "the president had better understand the constituents."

-- Gary T. Brown