Apr 27, 2010 7:29:32 PM

The statement of Mark A. Emmert upon the announcement of his selection Tuesday as NCAA president-elect:

First of all, it's an extraordinary honor for me to be selected as president-elect of the NCAA, and I want to thank the Executive Committee for their work with me and the confidence they've shown in me. It's a great privilege and certainly an honor to be in this position, and I greatly appreciate the tremendous vote of confidence. It's been a very professionally run search process and one that has represented the NCAA leadership extremely well.

Secondly, I would like to thank the staff, all of the professionals here at the NCAA, for running this organization during a very, very difficult transition. With Jim Isch in the leadership position following the very sad and untimely loss of Myles Brand, the Association has moved along extremely well and managed its affairs with great professionalism and finesse. It's executed a wonderful contract with CBS-Turner. It pulled off a fabulous Final Four. It's done all the work that was necessary to keep the Association moving forward, and for that, I'm extremely thankful.

Let me turn to the job at hand. The NCAA is, from my perspective, one of the most important intercollegiate associations in the United States. Intercollegiate athletics is an integral part of the educational experiences of more than 400,000 students across the country. It's incumbent upon the NCAA to make sure that those experiences are ones that serve the interests, first and foremost, of the student-athletes, and to provide them with opportunities to excel with great enthusiasm in performance in fields that they care about.

The NCAA has, for more than a century now, had the responsibility of making sure that the interest and welfare of student-athletes is its foremost priority, and it's my intention to carry on with that tradition.
When Myles Brand became president, along with the leadership of all of the presidents of the members, there was a new era that came, and that was the era of academic accountability and the promotion of academic success among our student-athletes. That has been a highly successful initial effort that's beginning to now bear important fruit. My intention is to continue that trend and to work very closely with the presidents and their colleagues to make sure that we keep our eye on that ball.

The NCAA has become an organization that is distinguished by the quality of the championships that it runs and the way that it allows students to compete at those very highest levels. We're going to keep doing that in ever-increasing quality to provide opportunities for our student-athletes to be successful in their fields of endeavor.

Finally, we want to make sure that the NCAA is a reflection of the values of the member institutions. The NCAA is in fact a collection of academic institutions. It is led by presidents of colleges and universities who care deeply and passionately about their students. Those are now my colleagues, and they soon will become my bosses. I will work for and with them on all of the issues facing the NCAA. They are people for whom I have enormous respect and appreciation, and I know their work extremely well.

This position I find myself in right now is in many ways a natural extension of what I've been doing for nearly 30 years now. As you heard from President Ray's introductory comments, I've spent not virtually but entirely my adult life in higher education, having gone from my undergraduate work to my graduate work. I then became a faculty member and administrator in various capacities. At all of those stops, I developed great understanding and affection for intercollegiate athletics. I've seen it be extraordinarily successful, and I've seen some of the challenges that it faces. For me right now, it's a great opportunity and honor to take this leadership position and see that we can extend more of the success and eliminate more of the problems.