UC Irvine Gives Caine New Job, Will Search for Athletic Director

UC Irvine Athletic Director John Caine was appointed Tuesday as Chancellor Jack Peltason’s special assistant for athletic policy and planning.

Peltason said a nationwide search for a new athletic director will begin in “five to six days,” after the formation of a search committee. The chancellor said he hoped to have a replacement by “the spring.”

In the interim, Horace Mitchell, vice chancellor for student affairs, will be acting athletic director.

Irvine officials insisted that Caine, who will soon turn 65, was not being kicked upstairs. The move seems to come at an inopportune time, however, considering that two other top athletic department administrators--associate athletic directors Rob Halvaks (who was responsible for business management) and Craig Fertig (the athletic fund-raiser)--had resigned in the past three months.

“The timing seems pretty bad to me,” said one Irvine athletic administrator who requested anonymity.

When asked if he had a choice in the decision, Caine replied that he was taking on the new position “as a result of the chancellor’s invitation.”

“I thought it would be timely for me to move on to this new responsibility,” he said.

Peltason stressed the importance of Caine’s new job and downplayed the recent upheaval in the athletic department’s top-level management, saying it does not represent a “crisis.”

“Due to the recent Regental approval of the UCI Long Range Development Plan, which shows UCI to have an enrollment of 26,000 by the year 2005, we need an experienced person to plan the strategy for the growth of the intercollegiate and recreational programs over the next 15 years,” Peltason said. “I’m very happy to have John coming to work with me.”

Asked if there had been any thought to keeping Caine in place until a successor had been named, Mitchell said that planning for the future was more important than the immediate need for direction in the athletic department.

“It’s a matter of priorities,” he said, “and the greatest priority is on the future. We can manage on an interim basis.”

Peltason admitted that “we do lack strength (in athletic administration)” and said he planned to move as promptly as feasible in the search for Caine’s successor. The two vacant associate athletic director spots will be filled soon thereafter, he said.

“It seems to me that it would make sense to have the new AD in place before we moved to fill those other two positions,” he said.

Tim Tift, a former men’s basketball coach and longtime faculty member, will serve as acting chair of the physical education department, a job which had been part of the athletic director’s duties. And Peltason said that the athletic department would not lose Caine’s knowledge or experience.

“He’ll still be here,” he said, “but I didn’t want to double-team him with the day-to-day responsibilities of running the department. John will be dealing with major decisions that will have consequences on the university over 100 years.”

Caine came to Irvine in 1983 and has been director of athletics at the University of Oregon (1976-81), San Jose State (1972-76) and Cal State Fullerton (1968-72).

While Caine is pondering the future, the incoming athletic director will be faced with a budget deficit that has continued to increase over the past decade. The school is finally moving to solve that problem, however.

“(The school administration’s) recognition (of the athletic department’s monetary problems) is the most important thing that has happened here in the last 12 months,” Caine said.

Mitchell, who has been Caine’s immediate supervisor and says he is up to date on the issues and challenges facing the athletic department, said the university already has taken steps to rectify the budget problems.

“We realize that when we moved to Division I, we did not commit the necessary funds to compete in that arena. But we have put together a five-year plan to retire the deficit from other campus sources and we intend to add new revenue on a yearly basis,” he said.

Peltason: “We are committed to having a Division-I program that is comprehensive and competitive . . . but to this point, it hasn’t been adequately funded.”

Part of Caine’s job will be to research the feasibility of adding a football program at Irvine, as well as planning for new facilities, such as a campus recreation building and an Olympic-quality pool.

“A lot of people want (football) and a lot of people are apprehensive about it,” Peltason said. “It’s an issue that won’t go away. I’m not plotting or planning, but I think it needs to be openly addressed.

“I don’t know if the time is here, we just need to think about it. But until we get existing programs adequately funded, it doesn’t make sense to add another.”