The virtues of leading by example may never be more obvious than when illness forces a leader to step aside and trust those who follow.

That seems especially true at Drury University and Missouri Western State College, where serious -- and ultimately fatal -- illnesses struck athletics directors and pushed reluctant but well-prepared assistant administrators into roles that proved both professionally and emotionally demanding.

Those assistants put off decisions in hopes that their bosses would return and then braced for heartbreak as those hopes dimmed. But above all, they followed their leaders' example: They worked hard and they moved forward.

Bruce Harger, who became athletics director at Drury in 1988, and Pete Chapman, who joined Missouri Western State as director in 1999, were different in several ways.

Harger was a former Air Force wing commander who not only directed Drury's sports programs but served as an academic administrator and teacher at the private liberal arts institution. Chapman was a football coach who moved into administration at his previous school, Wayne State College (Nebraska), then took on the challenge of transforming the program at Missouri Western, a still relatively young four-year public institution.

But both were highly respected by their peers, resulting in Harger's election to the NCAA Division II Management Council and Chapman's appointment to the Division II Championships Committee. And staff members at the schools say both set lofty goals for their programs, then worked hard to achieve them.

"The thing I hope I never lose, the thing that Pete's philosophy was built on, is vision," said Mark Linder, who was compliance and academics coordinator under Chapman, then became acting athletics director during his illness and became director last spring after a nationwide search for Chapman's successor. "He had tremendous vision, and he didn't let the naysayer talk him out of the vision that he had," he said.

Linder's experiences with Chapman date back to his days as a player on Chapman's football squad at Wayne State.

"He was committed to making sure that a project or event would happen, persistent in ensuring that it came to fruition and that it was completed in a timely and very efficient manner," he said.

At Drury, one of Harger's assistants remembers a "can-do" leader. "Whatever our administration decided to do, he grabbed on and decided to do it wholeheartedly, and to the best of our efforts," said Barbara Cowherd, assistant director of athletics and senior woman administrator, who coached volleyball at the school when Harger arrived and witnessed his entire tenure.

"We always thought, 'if you want to get something done, give it to a busy person,' and that's the way he was," she said. "It was very hard for us as a staff to complain about our workload when we had a director that took on as much as he did, and put in the hours that he did. He was definitely a role model in regard to what you can accomplish if you put in the time and effort. 'By example' was his means of leadership."

Stepping up

The athletics staffs at Drury and Missouri Western already had plenty of work to do. Planning was under way at Drury to add three sports. Missouri Western also contemplated sports expansion, and also bid for and won the opportunity to host the Division II Women's Basketball Championship's Elite Eight tournament beginning in 2003.

Harger and Chapman relied heavily on their assistants and involved them in many aspects of administering the schools' athletics programs.

"Pete's professional philosophy was to surround himself with very good people," Linder said. "He always said the way you build a system is, if you leave the system it continues, and no one's irreplaceable."

"One thing I think we were extremely fortunate with was that, just being a smaller campus with a smaller administrative group, we met weekly and went over different things that were going on," Cowherd said. "We were very informed, and (Harger) was that kind of administrator. I don't think there was ever a time when one of our coaches or one of our assistants didn't think they had been informed of things that were going on."

Both men, even when diagnosed with cancer, attempted to carry on as much as possible as though nothing had changed.

"Even during his illness, he was trying to put in hours -- and it wasn't just time, it was quality time," Cowherd said about Harger. "He emphasized that he wanted to come in and work efficiently, and get some things done. I think it rubbed off on us."

"There really probably was only a year (after Chapman's arrival at Missouri Western) where Pete was himself," recalls Patsy Smith, who was the women's tennis coach at the school when Chapman arrived and became director of finance and then assistant athletics director and senior woman administrator during his tenure. "With the illness, and even some time before he knew he was sick, some things were not quite right.

"As time went on, Pete was there through it all. If he wasn't in the hospital, he was here," she said.

In both cases, however, the illnesses worsened, and administrators at the schools began thinking about the unthinkable: How to deal with the extended absence, and potentially the loss, of not just key leaders, but mentors and friends. In both cases, the staffs were tested as never before as they dealt with a greatly elevated load of work, responsibility and emotion.

"We told the staff that if there was a prolonged stay in the hospital, I would be acting AD, and that we weren't going to make monumental changes but we knew the expectations," Linder said. "If something came up, I needed to be notified, and then we would make a decision based on input from the staff."

The assistants also took on additional responsibilities, such as participating in campus meetings that the directors normally would have attended. "In regard to coaches, approving travel, schedules, all those things that normally would have been done through an athletics director -- and basic things like NCAA compliance and oversight -- those are some of the things that we absorbed that (Harger) normally would do," Cowherd said. "Also, oversight of events."

"Basically, Barb and I tried to pick up as many of the balls that Dr. Harger juggled as we could, and keep as many of them from falling to the floor as possible," said Dan Cashel, senior assistant athletics director in charge of sports information and compliance at Drury, who also assumed many of those duties. "I'll be very candid; I'm sure some things fell through the cracks, but we just tried to maintain.

"We were a ship without its captain, and the two assistant captains just tried to shoulder the brunt of the load. We told the coaching staff and everyone else at the outset, we're just going to have to try to do some things on our own; in the case of some problems you used to go to Dr. Harger for, you may have to find the resolution to those problems."

'A difficult situation'

As the assistants increasingly were called on to make decisions, they worried about overstepping their authority, or making decisions that would create problems for the directors after they returned.

"Mark and I both got thrown into a lot more decision-making on all levels -- not just financial and not just compliance," Smith said. "In the day-to-day running of the department, a decision would have to be made, and if it was a day that Pete wasn't able to do it, you just had to take care of it."

"It's difficult, because you don't want to leave them out of the decisions," Cowherd said, "and it's difficult for the assistants because those aren't necessarily decisions that you've always made.

"We got to a point finally where we had kept putting decisions off," she said. "And then we realized that he probably wasn't coming back to the office to make those decisions. So we had to step up and make the decisions to the best of our ability and -- having worked with him for 15 years -- make decisions that we think he would like to make."

Still, Harger and Chapman fought to remain involved in departmental affairs, and their assistants never forgot who held the title of director.

"I tried to keep him informed constantly," said Smith, who faced putting together the athletics budget for the first time without Chapman's active participation. "If I made a decision on something I normally would have asked him about, I told him about it the next time he was able to discuss it with me, to let him know what I had done. I think that's really important, to not let them feel as though they've been replaced, let them know that the department is continuing on the same path that they were leading it."

And at Drury, even as the illness wore him down, Harger continued to take on the toughest decisions.

"This is just the type of person he was: He came back for three weeks, and I really think the only reason was that there were some very hard decisions," Cowherd said. "He had to release a coach, and he wasn't going to put that burden on anybody else. So, he came back, I think, to do that, and to get the process started to advertise the position. There were some things that he wasn't going to put on someone else."

Chapman entered the hospital for the final time in late 2002, about the same time that Harger returned to Drury to deal with the coaching change. The Missouri Western director died January 13, while Linder and Smith were attending the NCAA Convention. Harger never again returned to work at Drury after his three-week stint, and he died May 14.

The unthinkable happened, and hearts broke.

"There were a lot of times there were tears shed, even during the work day," Smith said. "Things would happen, and you'd shut your door and get rid of it."

"It's a difficult situation," Linder said. "It's tough on the department, it's tough on the family. It's during a time of transition that I think you really find out what your staff is made of -- the integrity pops up, the character pops up.

"In athletics, sometimes you get caught up with the wins and losses. You hear all these clichés about athletics, about how it doesn't build character but reveals it. But basically, that's for the game. When you're going through losing a dear person, you really find out where the integrity is, where it lies."

Lesson for others

While it's a hard way to learn lessons, administrators at both schools say they emerged from the experience with knowledge worth passing along to others who might find themselves in a similar situation.

"I will say that one of the most difficult things that we've had to deal with -- not only during that year but with his passing -- is, being a small school, a lot of things are done just verbally," Cowherd said. "Trying to piece together some of the decisions that were made -- what the background is -- has been very difficult, because a lot of things weren't put in writing.

"Keeping documentation, paper or records, somewhere is something that I definitely encourage."

Smith advises -- difficult as it may be to do -- moving forward as though nothing is wrong.

"Don't let the outside world know that anything has changed inside," she said. "Continue everything the way it was, and out of respect for that leader, continue on the path they were taking -- and if you can make it better, make it better.

"But the key was to give the appearance that everything was business as usual, and nothing's any different."

Through their administrative style and philosophy, Drury's Harger and Missouri Western's Chapman gave their staffs the example of leadership -- and in the process provided their assistants a lifeboat to cling to in stormy seas.

Linder points to an action early during Chapman's tenure that helped tremendously in dealing with his absence.

"When he came to Western, we came up with a policies and procedures guide," he said. "Pete wanted people to know what was expected of them, and those things help. When you're without a leader, or your true leader has been taken away, you can revert to what has been put in writing, and know what that person's wishes are, and do it to the best of your ability."

"If you have a good leader," Cashel said, "and he or she pretty well has set the tone, (the program) will maintain itself with a few tweaks here and there.

"It wasn't that hard, other than the time (taking on additional responsibilities), because the system was there, and it was just a matter of trying to make sure you follow that established system."

Suggestions for contingency plans

Practices to consider when athletics directors (especially those at small programs) become incapacitated for an extended time:

Before any problems arise, athletics directors should make certain that as many work processes as possible are documented. That documentation can be a valuable tool in the event of an extended illness.

Those administering the department on an interim basis likely will continue the policies of the incapacitated leader; however, they should not be so loyal to the policies that they miss opportunities for improvement when they arise.