James Castañeda, faculty athletics representative at Rice and former chair of the NCAA Division I Academics/Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet, died Sunday in Houston.

Castañeda led the Division I AEC beginning in September 2001.

Before that, he chaired the NCAA Division I Initial Eligibility Issues Committee and served on the regional NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship Committee, on the Western Athletic Conference Executive Council and as faculty liaison to the WAC Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. He also chaired the NCAA Committee on Committees from 1979-82.

In all, Castañeda served as faculty athletics representative at Rice for the Southwest Conference, the Western Athletic Conference and the NCAA for 35 years, a role he said he cherished and enjoyed. Being involved in an organization that oversees athletes and coaches on an academic basis is important, he said in a 2001 Rice news release announcing his selection as AEC chair.

“Athletics and academics should be mutually compatible and supportive, but only when you maintain high standards in both,” he said. “To me, athletics participation always has represented an important component in the worthwhile aspiration of developing and maintaining a sound mind in a healthy body.”

Castañeda was a Spanish professor at Rice for 47 years, teaching Golden Age Spanish literature. He also assisted in coaching the Rice baseball team for 22 seasons before becoming head golf coach from 1983 until 1998. He received a bachelor of arts summa cum laude in 1954 from Drew and a master’s in 1955 and a doctorate in 1958 in Romance languages from Yale.

Castañeda also played minor-league baseball for one season while pursuing graduate studies at Yale University.