NCAA interim president carrying on Brand's legacy

INDIANAPOLIS - NCAA interim president James Isch has a simple message for this year's convention attendees.

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He's sticking to Myles Brand's game plan.

Isch will emphasize academics, the importance of diversity in athletic departments and financial stability in tough economic times when he speaks to school officials this week in Atlanta.

"We were on a path while Myles was at the helm of the NCAA, and we're continuing to maintain the momentum and we're going to prepare for the next president of the NCAA," Isch told The Associated Press in an interview. "We're going to leave it in a better place."

For the NCAA, this will be a different kind of convention.

Brand, the first university president to lead college sports' largest governing body, used his annual state of the association speech to establish the agenda for the next year.

Isch's job will be to set priorities for Brand's successor.

Brand died from pancreatic cancer in September and less than a week later, the executive committee selected Isch, vice president for administration and chief financial officer, to be the interim president.

He has no desire to keep the job.

"I am not a candidate nor will I be a candidate, and I think that's one of the reasons the executive committee selected me because they knew I didn't want to be a candidate," Isch said.

Which means the hot topic this week will be the search for a new leader.

NCAA officials have already announced a search committee and hired a search firm. Oregon State president Ed Ray, the new executive committee chairman, said he hopes to have a new president in place by the start of the next academic year, July 1.

But there are plenty of other issues on the table, too.

Legislative items expected to be voted upon include new rules to clean up basketball recruiting, proposals that would end consulting fees paid by the schools and prohibit schools from hiring a recruit's high school or summer league coaches to help with summer camps or clinics. College football teams could face new limits on the number of players it can sign in a recruiting class and how players with concussions are treated.

University presidents also could approve the elimination of foreign trips in all sports.

And Isch acknowledged that the NCAA is considering opting out of its lucrative television contract with CBS to broadcast the NCAA men's basketball tournament. Isch said he is only gathering information now and that a decision isn't expected until midyear.

Still, he is prepared to make that decision before the next NCAA president takes office, if necessary.

"The executive committee has been very clear that the president's office has the ability to proceed, but we don't know where we're going to be in search process at any particular time so we're playing that by ear," he said. "But we are not waiting, we are moving forward."

Brand's imprint will be all over this week's convention, too.

The NCAA is scheduled to present Brand, posthumously, with the Gerald R. Ford Award. His widow, Peg, is to accept the award in front of the membership.

And, of course, Isch plans to push the things Brand championed during his tenure- the progress being made by student-athletes in the classroom, the recent hires of minority coaches in college football and the well-being of student-athletes.

"They (the executive committee) didn't see this job as a caretaker," Isch said. "So I'm working very, very hard with the staff to keep the momentum from Myles moving forward.