WAC Commissioner to Retire in ’94

Joe Kearny, commissioner of the Western Athletic Conference since 1980, will retire effective July 1, 1994, the league announced Tuesday.

Kearny, 65, the former athletic director at Arizona State, Washington and Michigan State, was the fourth commissioner of the 30-year-old conference. The WAC’s Council of Presidents accepted his retirement at its annual meeting.

“It’s been a year-by-year thing with him,” said Jeff Hurd, WAC associate commissioner. “He just decided two more years and that would be it, and that this would be the time to announce it.”

The council also announced that the WAC men’s and women’s basketball tournaments in 1993 and 1994 will be conducted at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City.

In other WAC business:

- Fresno State was approved as the site of the 1993 baseball tournament.

- Cal State Northridge and Cal State Sacramento were approved as WAC members in baseball and softball; Boise State and Denver University were approved in women’s gymnastics; Drake was approved in wrestling; and Southern Utah was approved in women’s gymnastics and softball.

- San Diego State President Tom Day was named chairman of the council effective July 1, and University of New Mexico President Richard Peck was named the WAC’s representative to the NCAA Presidents Commission.