NCAA President Myles Brand has announced the promotion of three national office staff members:
• Bernard Franklin, from senior vice president to executive vice president of governance and membership
• Dennie Poppe, from managing director to vice president of baseball and football
• Wallace Renfro, from senior advisor to vice president/senior advisor to the president
The trio of national office leaders has combined for almost 75 years of service to the Association.

Renfro spent three decades in publishing, communications and media relations at the national office before being hired as the senior advisor to the president in 2003. He graduated from Missouri State University and worked in university relations before joining the NCAA in 1972. The College Sports Information Directors of America honored Renfro with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002.

Poppe, longtime lead administrator of the Men’s College World Series and the Division I Football Championship, has been with the national office staff since 1974 after having been a football student-athlete at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and then having worked as a graduate assistant football coach and as a sports information assistant there for a short time.

Franklin began his national office tenure in 2003 after serving as president of Virginia Union University. He also has been president at Saint Augustine’s College, Livingstone College and Hood Theological Seminary in Salisbury, North Carolina. Franklin is a former vice chair of the NCAA Division II Presidents Council and served as a member of the NCAA Executive Committee, a group for which he now serves as the national office staff’s primary liaison.