Willie Davis Among Six Finalists

Of the 32 candidates considered for National Football League commissioner, Willie Davis, a Los Angeles businessman, was one of the six finalists, members of the search committee said here Thursday.

Davis is a Hall of Famer who played in the first two Super Bowls as a defensive end for the Green Bay Packers. A beer distributor in Los Angeles, he also owns five radio stations around the country.

The committee said that in addition to Davis and Jim Finks, the finalists were Paul Tagliabue, NFL lawyer; Paul Kirk, former Democratic party chairman; Robert E. Mulcahy III, the director of the New Jersey Sports Authority, and a corporate executive who asked that his name be withheld.

The front-runner, Housing Secretary Jack Kemp, bowed out last month when he decided to remain in the Bush administration, the committee reported.

According to Lamar Hunt and Wellington Mara, co-chairmen of the search committee:

--All candidates suggested by two or more NFL owners were screened. Two owners had no suggestions.

--Qualifications sought were integrity, credibility, people and strategic skills, leadership, vision, energy, drive, initiative, will, the ability to delegate, to build and to run “an organization in transition,” and to build consensus solutions in “a somewhat unique organization.”

--Each candidate preferably was a proven professional in general management with complete profit-and-loss responsibility, legal training, and media experience. He was seen as a role model and either “a product of the game of football or a professional whose business skills are complemented by a genuine love of the game.”

--The NFL needs “some changes in structure” to compensate for the loss of Commissioner Pete Rozelle.

The changes are expected to take the form of deputy commissioner or commissioners.