May 3, 2010 8:40:02 AM

But for a broken car, Lydia Sanchez would never have become the longest-serving staff member in NCAA history.

Had a well-timed mechanical failure not occurred, the Association would have been deprived of the services of someone who has directly supported five NCAA presidents for more than 40 years. Her NCAA time will come to an end no later than September 15 when she retires from her position as director of executive affairs.

Sanchez's NCAA odyssey began in 1966, shortly after she earned her degree from Texas-Pan American. She briefly taught school in her native Texas and then tried life in California for about six months. Neither lifestyle stuck, so after returning to Texas, she set out for Chicago in search of new opportunities.

Except she never made it to the Windy City. Her car broke down in Kansas City, and she ended up staying there. A couple of jobs later, she found herself working for the NCAA.

The start date was September 15, 1969. Her first boss was the legendary Arthur Bergstrom, whose principal responsibility was enforcement. She still remembers the details of the first day at the Midland Building in downtown Kansas City.

"I was like a country girl in the big city," she said. "I had heard of the NCAA only insofar as what it was. I wasn't a huge sports fan, but I expected it to be a huge newspaper room like you see in the movies with people typing and noise and all that. But I walked in and there was the receptionist and two assistants by the elevator. Then you went down the long hallway, and there were about four offices to the right and on the left side of the hallway was a long, blank, high wall, which was the back of the Midland Theater screen."

At the end of that hall was the suite of offices for Bergstrom, Chuck Neinas and Executive Director Walter Byers, who ran the tightest of ships.

"Early on, one afternoon," she said, "I was done with whatever I was working on and it got to be about five minutes of five, so I went up to the front closet to get my coat. I brought it back to my desk, and the next day Mr. Bergstrom calls me into his office and he said something like, ‘Walter noticed that you were getting ready to leave early.' So, I never did that again!"

Sanchez must have done something right because Byers selected her as his assistant a couple of years later. Her responsibilities increased over the years, but from that moment forward, Sanchez's career was defined by her service to NCAA presidents.

The recollections read like an NCAA mini-history:

Byers (1951-87): "He would get the best out of you, whatever it was. You didn't even know you had it sometimes. But he challenged you and you were either up for it and accepted it as an improvement or for your professional development, but if you didn't, you were gone. He had so much integrity. Over the years, he wouldn't take a paper clip. He'd make me keep records of how many personal copies he made on the copy machine and anything else he might have used – two pencils, or whatever. He could also write circles around everybody. Over the years, there have been very few people who could write remotely as well as he did."

Dick Schultz (1987-93): "He followed Walter, and he felt his mandate was to do everything differently – to be out there in the membership, and he was gone a lot. We got our plane shortly after he came on board so he could make a lot of campus visits. I wasn't working directly for Walter when he retired; he had moved me over into meeting planning, but it wasn't very long before Dick asked me to manage his office operations since he was gone so much."

Ced Dempsey (1994-2002): "He and I shared some personal tragedies. I got to know him and June better, not only just because their personalities lent themselves to it, but because my husband died in 1995 and then a year later Ced's son died. So, we shared that bond."

Myles Brand (2003-09): "He was very intimidating the whole time, but only because he was all business and a different personality than Ced. Ced might come in and talk for 15 minutes about personal stuff, catch-up stuff. Myles didn't do that. He was always focused on his thoughts, his next steps, his vision. It wasn't like we never chit-chatted, but it was more of a personal challenge. I had thought I would leave around the time he came on board, but it just happened too fast, so I decided that I might be helpful to him. It was a challenge to me because I knew he had had all that experience from his previous job as far as negative publicity, and I wanted to make his office life, traveling and business as easy as it could be for him. No mess-ups. I wanted him to trust me. That meant everything to me."

Jim Isch (interim president, 2009-present): "He's in an awfully difficult position, maybe one that he wasn't expecting. But he has tried really hard to maintain the progress that Myles instituted and to not let that get bogged down. I think he's done a fantastic job."

Through it all, Sanchez adapted easily from one leader to another, despite their profoundly different leadership styles.

"Walter set the bar high for all the staff," she said. "So when his successor took over, I felt it was my job – to work hard for that person and be loyal to that person. And when that came to an end, you picked up the next one. It wasn't so much that I quit being loyal to their predecessors. It was like it was five different boxes. It's what I was being paid to do and what I wanted to do."

And she always did it well. Former Associate Executive Director Ted C. Tow said, "She is one of the most competent, efficient and loyal staff members the NCAA has ever had."

Not to mention durable.

"Looking back," Tow said, "she had been there two and a half years when I arrived in 1972 and somehow she stayed 16 years after I left in 1994."

Besides almost leaving between the Dempsey and Brand terms, Sanchez almost retired in 1995 to care for her terminally ill husband.

"I almost quit then, before Rod died, when he was sick, but he wouldn't let me," she said. "He thought it would be a mistake to do that. But he was convinced he was going to die; I was not. I don't know if that had something to do with how he felt about it, but that's what happened.   I went right back into work a couple of weeks after he died, and it was my salvation. People needed me and were counting on me. I was doing a lot of meeting planning at the time. I had a lot of responsibilities, so I jumped back in."

Her efforts, both at that time and throughout her career, were noted by former associate executive director Louis J. Spry, who managed the annual Convention during his tenure.

"Lydia and I managed the Convention for several years," he said. "The best part of that duty was seeing her bright smiling face every morning when I entered the Convention office.  Lydia is smart, efficient, tactful, gracious, and − most important − loyal.  She was equally comfortable and effective dealing with the membership, the reservations personnel or the set-up crews at the hotel."

The decision to return was good for Sanchez and good for the Association. Since then, the NCAA has experienced some of the biggest changes in its 104-year history, and Sanchez – who has been present for one-third of that history – has helped make the process work effectively and efficiently.

"This is a bittersweet moment for all of us," Isch said April 21, in announcing her retirement. "Lydia has served the Association and the national office for more than four decades. We are happy for Lydia and her family but will miss her tremendously. She is excited about the next chapter of her life and we wish her well."