With the announcement of Ced Dempsey's retirement, effective at the end of this year, came a new process for the NCAA in finding a replacement.

When Ced was hired in 1994, his position was that of executive director, the principal staff person for an Association that was very different in governance structure from the organization today. With the restructuring of the NCAA five years ago to a representative form of governance, the title of "executive director" was changed to "president" and reflected the modified expectations of the individual in this position to assume the leadership normally required of an organization's chief executive officer.

Since restructuring, it has become the responsibility of the Executive Committee to approve the budget, oversee Association-wide issues and be accountable for the president. Thus, when a vacancy occurs, it falls to the Executive Committee to engage a new president for the Association. The Executive Committee is composed of 16 voting and three nonvoting members. The nonvoting members are the chairs of the Management Councils in Divisions I, II and III. Clearly, this group would be too large to serve as a search committee, but it is the body that is responsible for the final selection of the next president.

In the process just completed, a search committee was formed, consisting of the chairs of each division's presidential bodies and the chair of the Executive Committee. This was a natural grouping in that each was elected by their representative body to lead their respective board, council or committee. The original group consisted of Brit Kirwan (Division I), Patricia Cormier (Division II), Bette Landman (Division III) and myself (Executive Committee chair). This committee satisfied the need for gender diversity, with two males and two females but did not have any ethnic representation. As such, Milton Gordon, member of the Executive Committee and Division I Board of Directors, was added to complete the group. The original composition changed early in the process when President Kirwan moved from Ohio State to the Maryland System, and Bob Hemenway, chancellor at the University of Kansas, was elected as chair of the Division I Board of Directors. Thus, the search committee that functioned for the remainder of the time, May through October 2002, was composed of CEOs Hemenway, Gordon, Cormier, Landman and Lawless.

Given that the members of the search committee were not located at a single place and desired to cast the widest possible net in attracting exceptional individuals, it was determined that an executive search firm be engaged to assist in this endeavor. Twenty-six firms responded to the request for proposal, six were interviewed, and Baker-Parker of Atlanta was selected to carry out the search. The Executive Committee developed a position specification to provide guidance to the search firm. Specifically, it provided that the president-elect must:

Baker-Parker solicited recommendations, advice and nominations from a variety of sources, including all of the NCAA membership, all elements of the governance structure, representatives from the national office, coaching associations, executives of Fortune 200 companies, members of Fortune magazine's "Most Powerful Black Executives," and several national women's associations, along with other organizations.

As a result of this process, Baker-Parker identified 118 candidates and nominations, 15 of which were female and 103 of which were male. The candidates came from intercollegiate athletics, higher education, government and the corporate world.

In August, after the Executive Committee meeting, the search committee met with the search firm and selected what it believed to be the 12 best qualified candidates to be interviewed in person. Those candidates represented the sectors identified above.

During September, the search committee interviewed 11 of the 12 (one withdrew) and narrowed the field to three finalists who were invited to interview with the Executive Committee on October 10, 2002, in Indianapolis.

It should be noted that in every interview, each candidate asked the search committee to disclose that for which the NCAA was searching. Chancellor Hemenway wonderfully articulated the leadership objectives of having the NCAA become known as "the leader in providing moral and ethical leadership to the nation."

As stated previously, it was the responsibility of the search committee to identify the top candidates, but the responsibility of hiring the new president resides with the entire Executive Committee. At the end of the interviews in Indianapolis, the Executive Committee was pleased that the search had provided three excellent candidates, any one of whom would have been a great leader for the NCAA.

In the final analysis, the Executive Committee found an individual in Myles Brand who has all the requisite skills and background to lead the Association into the future in keeping with its goal of producing educational excellence through opportunities provided by intercollegiate athletics.

We are confident we have found that which we sought and look forward to the NCAA being known as "the leader in providing moral and ethical leadership to the nation."

Bob Lawless is the president of the University of Tulsa and chair of the NCAA Executive Committee. Lawless chaired the NCAA presidential search committee.