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Lapchick weighs in on new NCAA president

By Erin Buzuvis, Sudha Setty, and Kristine Newhall

In a recent issue of Sport Business Journal (which, unfortunately, is only available to subscribers), Dr. Richard Lapchick, who is notable for his many reports on gender and racial diversity in sport and the experiences of collegiate student athletes, has an editorial about the passing of NCAA president Myles Brand and who should take the reins.
Lapchick calls for what he believed Brand would seek in a pool of candidates for his replacement: diversity. Because the essay is not widely available, I am going to excerpt pieces of it here.

This is not to say that I hope that the NCAA will choose an African-American, Hispanic, Asian or American Indian president, or a female one, but I hope it will include the best pool of candidates, including people of color and women.
This would be a tribute to Myles Brand and an important statement to our student athletes on campus, and especially to the student athletes of color in revenue-producing sports.
[...]
The racial composition of conference and athletic department leaders does not reflect the diversity of our student athletes. In addition to having this process be inclusive from start to finish, we also encourage those on college campuses to hold open hiring practices for coaches, athletic directors and other important positions in college sport. The current racial makeup of those positions of leadership tells a one-sided story (see chart). Thus, a diverse pool of candidates for the new NCAA president would be extremely important.

Lapchick also endorses someone for the position, though. He believes Bernard Franklin, currently the executive vice-president of the NCAA is an excellent candidate to take over and continue Myles Brand's vision. Franklin is notable for being the go-to person in the organization on the NCAA's Native American mascot policies.
Other than Lapchick's endorsement of Franklin, I myself have not heard many other rumblings about potential or desirable candidates.

[many thanks for JB for sending me the editorial]

Full post as published by Title IX Blog on November 10, 2009 (boomark / email).