PCAA Commissioner Post Has Many Applicants

More than 35 candidates have applied for the vacant Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. commissioner position, according to Ed Carroll, the Cal State Fullerton athletic director, who was in charge of accepting applications.

Carroll is a member of a 12-person committee that will interview candidates and recommend a successor to Louis Cryer, who resigned last December after 10 years, to the full PCAA Council. The recommended candidate is virtually assured of being accepted.

On the committee are three school presidents or chancellors, three faculty representatives, three athletic directors and three primary women’s administrators.

“We’ve got about 30 quality candidates,” said John Caine, UC Irvine’s athletic director, who also is a committee member. “We haven’t met yet to determine who we will interview and set a target date for naming a new commissioner, but we should be meeting soon.”

The deadline for applications was Feb. 1. Originally, conference officials said they hoped to name a successor during the PCAA basketball tournament, March 9-12.

Neither Carroll nor Caine would confirm any names of applicants.

However, some of the candidates who are considered by conference sources to be the most likely finalists are:

John Kasser, the executive director of the College Football Assn. and a former athletic director at Cal State Long Beach; Dennis Farrell, a former PCAA assistant commissioner and now acting commissioner; James Delaney, commissioner of the Ohio Valley Conference, and Jim Haney, commissioner of the Missouri Valley Conference.