More Than a Head in the Clouds : NCAA: Schultz travels the nation to give the organization much-needed accessibility. Even LSU’s Brown is happy.

When Dick Schultz, executive director of the NCAA, goes on the road, he goes in style--a Lear jet 35A that can carry six passengers plus crew, can easily handle short runways and can cruise at an average speed of 550 m.p.h. With more than 20 years’ experience as a pilot, Schultz takes the controls himself.

The plane was bought by the NCAA at Schultz’s request in 1988, eight months after he had started the job, and it may rightfully be considered the biggest vehicle for change, both literally and figuratively, within the organization in the last four years.

Spending nearly 200 days a year crisscrossing the country, Schultz and his jet have given the NCAA something no piece of legislation could provide: a new image.

“The NCAA has changed, and I think the catalyst has been Dick Schultz,” said LSU basketball Coach Dale Brown, once one of the NCAA’s harshest critics. “Dick Schultz has been, in my eyes, a breath of fresh air.

“He has a sensitivity that has never existed in the office (of executive director). He’s strong. He’s reasonable. He doesn’t have the Sieg Heil! mentality.”

Sensitivity is important to the NCAA because Schultz’s predecessor, Walter Byers, showed very little of it.

As the NCAA’s executive director from 1951 until his retirement in 1987, Byers brought the organization from infancy to maturity, but did so largely working behind the scenes.

An intensely private person, Byers for the most part avoided the media, holding few news conferences and rarely granting interviews.

As a result, the NCAA was viewed by many, both inside and outside the organization, as a cold and faceless entity. That perception created the notion, never proved but widely held, that the NCAA maintained a “hit list” of schools to be investigated for rules violations at Byers’ whim.

So it was that, in looking for Byers’ replacement, NCAA leaders sought someone with a good feel for public relations as well as a distinguished background in college athletics.

Schultz, a former basketball coach at Iowa who was serving as athletic director at the University of Virginia at the time, seemed to have the right mix.

“He was low key, but a very effective communicator, with a good background in intercollegiate athletics and very good management skills,” said Wilford Bailey, the Auburn professor and former NCAA president who chaired the committee that selected Schultz. “He was actually doing some consulting work for commercial companies at that time, which is unusual for someone in his position.

“Those of us on the committee felt that one of the more important needs of the association was to improve its image--not just with the membership, but with the media as well. We felt like Dick had the ability to do that. He came on board with the understanding he would be out front more (than Byers had been).”

Schultz hit the ground running. Finding that commercial flights were too costly and time-consuming for his travel needs, he persuaded the NCAA’s Executive Committee to authorize the purchase of the jet.

“With our own plane, we are fully capable of using any airport in the country,” said John Lamb, who serves as Schultz’s co-pilot, maintains the plane and holds one of the more unusual titles among NCAA staffers--director of aviation. “The beauty is we can use satellite airports. We don’t have to contend with the delays you encounter in and out of larger airports. Since we’ve had the airplane, I think we’ve had only two actual delays.”

For Schultz, the road has led almost anywhere there’s a college campus: Clemson, S.C.; Peoria, Ill.; Baton Rouge, La.; Worcester, Mass. He has touched down in those places, and hundreds more, sometimes hitting as many as four in one day.

If there is a luncheon in need of a speaker, he will speak. If there is a lawmaker in need of lobbying, he will lobby. If there is a reporter seeking a story, he will make himself available.

Often during his trips, Schultz will seek out columnists and reporters to put the NCAA’s spin on issues.

Wrote Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe after an interview with Schultz: “At least now the organization has a public conscience named Dick Schultz, and if he’s not paying you a visit today, he’ll surely be here tomorrow.”

Another airport, another small victory for the NCAA.

“A lot of the NCAA’s problems are due to the fact that we have been viewed as a secret organization,” Schultz said. “If you are not open with people, that’s going to be the viewpoint. So I’ve tried to be very open and accessible to the media. I want the media to learn as much about us as they possibly can, so they can see the whole picture, not just one side of it.”

Equally significant have been Schultz’s efforts to make himself available to all segments of the NCAA membership--big, small, friendly, hostile.

When John Thompson, Georgetown’s basketball coach, skipped two games three years ago to protest legislation denying all financial aid for freshmen failing to qualify under new academic standards, Schultz and other NCAA leaders quickly agreed to meet with Thompson and Georgetown administrators. The legislation that drew Thompson’s wrath was eventually softened to allow non-athletic, need-based aid for such “partial qualifiers.”

When Jerry Tarkanian, Nevada Las Vegas’ basketball coach, who has long complained that he has been treated unfairly by the NCAA’s enforcement staff and Committee on Infractions, sought out Schultz at last year’s Final Four to discuss the current infractions case involving UNLV, Schultz agreed to meet with him.

Of his meeting with Tarkanian, which took place in May in Dallas, Schultz said: “That’s what I’m here for. Someone who’s accused of something is still part of the NCAA. If they want to talk to me, want me to hear their story, I will be glad to meet with them and listen to them and give whatever advice I can.”

According to Schultz, Tarkanian mainly asked that he be treated fairly.

As for his advice to Tarkanian, Schultz said: “I told him, ‘I can’t influence the (process), but I can guarantee you that it will be fair. And if you don’t think it’s fair, if you think our staff has done something wrong, then I want to know about it, because I do have some control over that.’ ”

Schultz has worked to see that other NCAA staff members adopt a similar willingness to listen.

“When I took this job, I felt there wasn’t much trust in the national office, that it was really an us-against-them mentality, and I’ve tried to break that down,” he said.

“The feedback I’m getting now is that the relationship between the membership and the national office is the best it has ever been. I hear more (coaches and administrators from member schools) saying, ‘We’re the NCAA. We can do this.’ And that’s just what I wanted.”

LSU’s Brown calls an NCAA investigation of his program in the mid-’80s “a four-year witch hunt to shut me up.” But there he was last April, taking part in a forum for coaches on recruiting rules at the NCAA office in Overland Park, Kan.

“This is the first time I have ever felt I could work inside the organization,” he said. “Before, I felt like I had no voice at all. That’s why I went to the media.

“I see a change in people (working at the NCAA office). You call up there now, ask for an interpretation of a rule, and they’ll say, ‘Well, let me look. . . . Oh, I think we can help you on that, coach.’ Before, I guess I should have clicked my heels and saluted when I called.

“It’s different now. You just feel it.”

At the same time, Schultz has challenged the NCAA membership to deal with the problems of college athletics.

After he negotiated the $1-billion, seven-year deal that gave CBS the television rights to the NCAA basketball tournament, Schultz, hoping to eliminate what he has called “the $300,000 free throw,” sought a more equitable plan for distributing the money. Such a plan was developed.

In his annual state-of-the-association address at the 1990 NCAA convention in Dallas, Schultz called for a “new model” for college athletics.

Schultz’s vision included severely reduced off-campus recruiting, limited practice time for athletes, no athletic dormitories and, to reduce the pressure to win, a tenure program for coaches. The tenure idea involved initial coaching contracts of five years that could not be broken except for rules violations or other ethical or moral reasons.

He also advocated allowing athletes in all sports to determine their professional value by going through pro drafts and evaluating financial offers without losing their eligibility.

Some of Schultz’s ideas have taken shape as part of the NCAA Presidents Commission’s reform agenda. But most remain on the drawing board, underscoring, for some, the limits to Schultz’s power in a system in which legislation is formulated and adopted by the NCAA’s member schools.

“He has an ability to venture out in public on issues and keep his head,” said Duke law professor John Weistart, an expert on sports law. “He raises good questions. He just doesn’t have any authority to do much about them.”

Weistart has advocated that the NCAA be headed by a commissioner with authority similar to that of the commissioners of pro sports leagues.

Schultz appears content with his role, however. The speech with which he will open the NCAA’s 86th annual convention today in Anaheim will not be as feisty as the one he gave in Dallas two years ago, he said.

“The ‘new model’ speech was a high-impact thing, and you need to give that some time,” he said. “You can have overkill. To really be effective, you have to pick your time and place (to urge radical changes), and then you have to work like the devil to make those things happen. When you see those things about ready to peak, you take another step forward.”

How effective Schultz will be in the future might depend on a part of his past.

For the last seven months, the University of Virginia has been conducting an investigation into 36 loans that were made to athletes and others by an athletic fund-raising organization, the Virginia Student Aid Foundation, between 1982 and 1990. The loans, reportedly ranging from $40 to $1,700, might have been in violation of NCAA rules that prohibit extra benefits for athletes.

Schultz, who served as Virginia’s athletic director from 1981 to 1987, has acknowledged receiving a mortgage loan from the foundation as part of his compensation package, a legitimate arrangement under NCAA rules. He has denied, however, having any knowledge of the loans to athletes.

Asked how he fits into the Virginia matter, Schultz said: “I don’t really think I fit into it. I wasn’t aware of any loans to the athletes at all. And when you really stop and look at it, the loans to the athletes really weren’t a big deal because (the loans) weren’t recruiting benefits. . . .

“If you would have known about the loans at the time (the athletes in question were at Virginia), it would have been a very simple process. You declare (an athlete) ineligible. He repays, because they were small loans. Then you appeal for reinstatement. That’s it. A very secondary violation. But when (the practice) goes on over 10 or 12 years, why then, you know, it could be something more serious.”

The NCAA enforcement staff is waiting until Virginia completes its investigation before considering the matter. But the thought of investigating the executive director’s activities has already produced some dark humor among NCAA enforcement representatives. One enforcement official, encountering Schultz on an elevator one day, jokingly told him, “Don’t leave town.”

Schultz was concerned enough about the Virginia case to bring it up at a meeting of the Presidents Commission and offer to take questions. But NCAA leaders have not made an issue of it.

Of greater concern to them, it seems, is the amount of time Schultz, 62, is spending on the road. Citing stress on Schultz and the need for more hands-on management of the NCAA office, members of the Executive Committee have suggested to Schultz that he cut back on his travel.

“It may be to Dick’s advantage, in terms of stress on him and advantages to the association, for him to decline some (travel) requests, because the organization is growing, getting more complex,” Auburn’s Bailey said. “It’s an area he and the leadership of the association should evaluate.”

Schultz is inclined to agree. But with state and federal lawmakers increasingly getting involved in issues relating to college athletics, he finds himself logging more time in the air, not less.

“My first three years (on the job), I averaged about 180 days on the road,” he said. “In 1991, (the total) was about 215, and the increase was pretty much due to state and federal politics.

“I’ve been trying to cut back, but the political situation has made it difficult. Had I not cut back on some of my travel to campuses, I don’t know what the number of days I would have spent on the road (in ‘91) would have been. But I would hope that 1992 is not a 200-day road trip.”

This year, a mere 150 days might suffice.