NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Vanderbilt will eliminate itsathletic department in a major shake-up designed to curb the illsof big-time college athletics.
Vanderbilt will continue playing intercollegiate sports, butthe reorganization merges the departments that control varsity andintramural athletics, putting sports under the central universityadministration, the school said Tuesday.
''There is a wrong culture in athletics, and I'm declaringwar on it,'' Vanderbilt Chancellor Gordon Gee said at a newsconference.
No NCAA sports programs or jobs will be eliminated, but justabout everything else will change at a school that has run one ofthe country's cleanest programs in the last half-century. Thatincludes the elimination of the athletic director position, whichTodd Turner has held for seven years.
Turner has been offered a job as special assistant to thechancellor for athletic and academic reform, a position in which hewould advance ''a national agenda for the reform of intercollegiateathletics.''
''Let there be no misunderstanding of our intention:Vanderbilt is committed to competing at the highest levels in theSoutheastern Conference and the NCAA, but we intend on competingconsistent with the values of a world-class university,'' Geesaid.
Vanderbilt's sports programs have had mixed success in recentyears.
The football program has lost 18 straight SoutheasternConference games and 27 of its last 28 SEC games. The women'sbasketball team went to the NCAA regional tournament last year andlost in the second round while the men's basketball team finished11-18. The men's tennis team was second in the nation.
Vanderbilt's move comes at a time of much debate in collegesports about how schools run their programs, and follows numerousscandals across the country.
Gee said the traditional structure for collegiate athleticswas ''broken.''
''At least (Vanderbilt) has a chance for success because ithas athletes and academics in the same enterprise,'' hesaid.
Last season, Georgia and Fresno State withdrew their men'sbasketball teams from postseason play because of academic fraud,while St. Bonaventure forfeited two games when players boycottedafter a player was declared ineligible.
At Missouri, school officials have appointed an engineeringprofessor to oversee a probe into allegations that a basketballplayer received improper academic and financial help. At Baylor,former coach Dave Bliss is accused of attempting to cover up thefinances of a slain basketball player, Patrick Dennehy, byportraying him as a drug dealer.
Another high-profile basketball coach, Larry Eustachy,resigned from Iowa State earlier this year after the Des MoinesRegister published photos of him drinking and partying withstudents from another school.
At Ohio State, star running back Maurice Clarett wassuspended indefinitely and charged with lying to police about itemsstolen from his car.
The National Association of Basketball Coaches has told allDivision I basketball coaches to attend a summit next month inChicago to discuss all the problems and ways to avoid them.
Vanderbilt's sports programs have been cited for just onemajor NCAA violation since 1953, an unethical conduct chargeinvolving the women's basketball coach in 1991, and the schoolself-imposed penalties of fewer recruiting visits and the loss ofone grant.
This month's NCAA report on graduation rates had theuniversity leading the Southeastern Conference with 84 percent ofall 1996 freshmen graduating, 75 percent for athletes and 91percent for football.
Gee, who has been crusading for higher academic standardssince he came to Vanderbilt in 2000, said college athletics ''is ina defining moment in its life. Either we get control of it throughuniversity presidents, or it becomes simply a segregational,embarrassing part of institutions, and we'll just have to close itdown.''
He said leaders from other SEC schools have told him,'''Gordon, you go ahead and do it, and if you succeed we'llfollow.' There's not a great deal of courage out there.''
But Gee, a former university president at football powerhouseOhio State, acknowledges that he faces far less pressure than hispeers at schools with big-time football and basketballprograms.
''If I did this at Ohio State I'd be pumping gas,'' hesaid.
Charles Bloom, spokesman for the Southeastern Conference,based in Birmingham, Ala., said it's too early to tell whether thechanges at Vanderbilt are a trend or an anomaly.
''There's been discussion on the national level aboutbringing athletics into the academic world, and the question is, isthis a sign of things to come?'' he said.
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