NACDA names McLendon postgraduate award winners

The National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) recently announced the winners of the John McLendon Memorial Minority Postgraduate Scholarship Awards.

The five recipients will be given a $10,000 grant to be used toward postgraduate studies in athletics administration.

The winners are Uwadiae Airhiavbere, Brown University football; Kendra Bracken, Purdue University athletics promotion; Christopher Hope, Florida State University football; Burt Iwata, University of Northern Colorado athletics marketing intern; and Derrick Rackard, University of South Florida football.

The winners will be recognized at NACDA's 37th annual convention June 16-19 in Dallas.

Ethnic minority students who intend to pursue a postgraduate degree in athletics administration are eligible for the scholarships.

California legislature defeats mascot bill

The California Assembly has defeated a bill that would have made California the first state to ban American Indian tribal names for public school mascots and athletics teams.

The proposal was defeated, 35-29, in a May 28 vote. Several leading civil rights groups, including the NAACP, supported the bill, but many Republicans and Democratic lawmakers said the measure would inappropriately remove local school boards' authority to select a mascot.

Jackie Goldberg, sponsor of the proposal, said she would bring the measure back before the Assembly.

Berkey to receive Honda merit award

Ruth Berkey, the NCAA's first director of women's championships, has been named the winner of the Honda Award of Merit for her "significant and enduring contribution to women's college sports."

Berkey worked at the NCAA from 1980 to 1988. During her first year on the job, Berkey oversaw and developed the NCAA's first championships for women.

After serving as director of women's championships, Berkey was promoted to NCAA assistant executive director. In that capacity, she served as director of the National Youth Sports Program (NYSP) and developed the Youth Education through Sports (YES) program.

At the time, the NYSP was a federally funded program administered by the NCAA to enhance and develop opportunities for economically disadvantaged young people.

YES clinics, a program that continues to operate under the auspices of the NCAA today, provides sport-specific skills training for young people at many sites where NCAA championships are held.

Berkey also was responsible for organizing the first NCAA student-athlete drug-testing program and serving as the first NCAA staff liaison to what was then called the NCAA Drug-Testing Committee.

Berkey will receive the Honda Award of Merit at the 26th annual Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year banquet, which will be held June 17 at the NACDA convention in Dallas.

NASO elects new board members

Jim Host, chief executive officer of Host Communications, is among the new members of the board of directors for the National Association of Sports Officials (NASO). Host will serve a two-year term.

Also elected were Marc Ratner, executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission and a Division I football official, and Esse Baharmast, an investment banker and director of advanced and international referee development for the United States Soccer Federation.

-- Compiled by Kay Hawes

Number crunching

Looking back

10 years ago

A look back at the June 10, 1992, issue of The NCAA News:

* A federal judge rules that a Nevada law directed at the NCAA enforcement process restricts the Association's ability to apply its rules consistently in all 50 states and prevents Nevada member institutions from fulfilling their contractual responsibilities with the NCAA. The ruling restores the Association's ability to proceed with a pending infractions case involving the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

* The NCAA Presidents Commission prepares to sponsor legislation that will establish a mandatory athletics certification program in Division I. A group of NCAA presidents also will meet with members of the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics to solicit their support for the certification program.

* The 20th anniversary of Title IX legislation is recognized. In 1992, the Office for Civil Rights measured compliance by assessing whether institutions (1) provide participation opportunities to male and female students in numbers substantially proportionate to their respective enrollments, or (2) can show a history of program expansion that is responsive to the under-represented sex, or (3) can demonstrate that the athletics interests and abilities of its students of that sex have been equivalently, fully and effectively accommodated.

* Jim Haney, commissioner of the Big West Conference, is tabbed as the executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches. Haney, who succeeds Joe Vancisin, will coordinate the organization's move from Branford, Connecticut, to Overland Park, Kansas.

* The U.S. Senate adopts the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, which prohibits the creation of any new state-authorized or state-sponsored gambling schemes based on the outcome of professional or amateur sports events.