Ford Joins Ranks of Departed : UC Irvine: Athletic director is one of several officials who have left the Anteaters’ financially strapped department.

Staff meetings in the UC Irvine athletic department have become an exercise in looking to the left, looking to the right, and wondering who won’t be there next week.

On Monday, coaches and staff learned that Athletic Director Tom Ford will be the latest to leave.

Frustrated by the demands of a job that has required him to tell athletes and coaches there is no longer a place for them because he cannot find the money, Ford has resigned to become assistant executive director of the National Assn. of Basketball Coaches.

Others have left before him. Mike Gerakos lost his job as baseball coach when Irvine discontinued the program. Danny Williams thought he had lost his as women’s track coach when the men’s program was eliminated, only to get at least a temporary reprieve while supporters try to raise $70,000 by Aug. 3 to save the team. Assistant Athletic Director Mike Tracey, the department’s chief fund-raiser, was the victim of a layoff. And Greg Patton gave up his job, resigning to become the tennis coach at Boise State.

“I start to worry,” said Vince O’Boyle, director of track and field. “You start to concern yourself: Maybe more people are going to leave.”

O’Boyle himself has considered it, turning down an offer from the U.S. Air Force Academy, while admitting he is open to other prospects.

“It’s a great area, a strong university,” O’Boyle said. “But I’ve been here 10 years, and I’ve had 3 1/2 athletic directors, including an interim. It’s like changing managers in baseball. You’ve got to get some stability to run it properly. All of a sudden people start to leave. People identify Patton with UC Irvine, people identify (water polo coach Ted) Newland with UC Irvine, people have told me they identify me with UC Irvine. Your leaders need to be identified with UC Irvine.”

Despite wielding the budget ax, Ford was fairly popular within the athletic department. He’ll leave his lasting impact chiefly in the hiring of men’s basketball Coach Rod Baker and women’s basketball Coach Colleen Matsuhara.

“I won’t be here to see the Rod Baker era really unfold; I think he’ll do a great job,” Ford said. “I think he’s got all the tools to make a very good basketball program. I’ll miss sharing the excitement. I’ll do it from afar, but I’ll be watching very closely.”

Baker and the rest of the department are left to wait for their next leader.

“I’m disappointed; I had gotten to know Tom and I felt real comfortable with him,” Baker said. “I felt we both were trying to get the same things done, and I’m sorry to see him go. You never know what someone new is going to be like. You feel comfortable with the person who hired you. You know that guy is in your corner.”

It seemed likely that Ford would stay at Irvine for at least another year, mostly because he had told his daughter Jill that the family would not move again until she finished high school. Jill, who will be a senior at University High in the fall, might stay in Irvine for a year with an older sister after her parents move to Kansas City, where the NABC is relocating.

“That’s been the hardest part, and we don’t have it resolved yet,” Ford said.

His decision, announced in a Monday afternoon staff meeting, was generally met with disappointment, but not surprise.

“Nobody was really that shocked because everybody knows how tough it’s been on him,” said Shelly Toole, the administrative assistant for men’s basketball. “It’s kind of been that way for everybody, but he had to carry the brunt of everything, all the problems.”

Now comes the search for a replacement. Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Horace Mitchell reaffirmed the university’s commitment to a Division I program, and said he hopes the next athletic director will take over by early 1993.

Those who have experience on such committees know the search is not likely to be easy, particularly considering the department’s financial struggles.

“I think it’s really a great loss for UCI,” said Lyman Porter, a professor in the Graduate School of Management who is also the faculty athletic representative. “I think it’s going to be extremely hard to find a replacement of the same caliber, with the same level of experience and ability. Now that I’ve been in this job a few years and met a fair number of athletic directors, I know he’s up there at the top.

“I think the sort of tragedy is that in a couple of years things will probably pick up. I’d have liked to see Tom here to experience the upside.”