The NCAA News - News and Features

May 18, 1998

SWAC commissioner Frank named Corbett Award winner

James Frank, commissioner of the Southwestern Athletic Conference, has been chosen by the Honors and Awards Committee of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) to be the recipient of the 32nd James J. Corbett Memorial Award.

The award is presented annually to the athletics administrator who "through the years has most typified Corbett's devotion to intercollegiate athletics and has worked unceasingly for its betterment."

Corbett, former athletics director at Louisiana State University, was NACDA's first president in 1965. The award is considered the highest honor one can achieve for collegiate athletics administration.

In addition, Frank will receive an

honorary degree from the Sports Management Institute (SMI), an educational institute sponsored by the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill;

the University of Notre Dame; the University of South Carolina, Columbia; the University of Southern California; and NACDA.

Frank was named the second full-time commissioner of the SWAC in August 1983. During his tenure, the conference evolved to rank among the elite in the nation in terms of alumni playing on professional sports teams. It is the top draw in football at the Division I-AA level, leading the nation in average home attendance in 18 of Division I-AA's 19 years.

Frank is one of a few individuals who has risen through the collegiate ranks as a student-athlete, coach, college president and conference commissioner. He made history in 1981 when he became the first college president elected to serve as president of the NCAA.

Frank received his undergraduate degree from Lincoln University (Missouri), where he lettered in basketball, baseball, and track and field. His professional career in college athletics began in 1956 when he was named the assistant basketball and assistant baseball coach at his alma mater. Two years later, he was appointed as the head basketball coach, a post he held until 1962, advancing to four NCAA regionals along the way.

He also held coaching positions at Springfield College and Hunter College.

In the fall of 1970, Frank was selected as the dean of students at Medgar Evers College and established the physical education and athletics programs. He also served as vice-president from 1971-73. He then returned to his alma mater as its 19th president and remained there until 1982.

Frank served as president of the NCAA from 1981-82 and as its secretary-treasurer in 1979-80. Two significant events occurred during his presidency that would impact college athletics. Frank presided over the 1983 NCAA Convention when Proposition 48 was introduced. The following year, the University of Georgia and the University of Oklahoma contested the NCAA Football Television Plan with litigation that reached the United States Supreme Court.

Frank also was vice-president of District V from 1976-79 and served on several NCAA committees including the Long-Range Planning Committee (1974-78), the Division II Steering Committee (1976-79), the Nominating Committee (1976-79), the Theodore Roosevelt Award Jury (1974-present) and the Governance, Organization and Service Committee (1979-82). He also has served as a member of NACDA's Executive Committee (1995-98).