UCI Opts to Screen Local Candidates

After failing to negotiate an agreement with any of its three finalists after a national search for a new athletic director, UC Irvine is taking a more local approach, choosing four candidates who were to be interviewed Monday night.

Among those in the group are Dan Guerrero, who is the athletic director at Cal State Dominguez Hills and was one of six finalists for the job when Tom Ford was hired in 1990, and Steve Holton, an associate athletic director at Cal State Long Beach.

Neither Guerrero nor Holton was among the five candidates Irvine brought in for preliminary interviews. The committee later invited three finalists back for second interviews.

Irvine was forced to start over after all three withdrew from consideration, although the job was never formally offered to anyone.

The university’s apparent first choice, Brad Rothermel, the former Nevada Las Vegas athletic director, withdrew after Irvine indicated it would not meet his demands for at least an additional $1 million in department funding.

Roy Danforth, the athletic director at Fairleigh Dickinson in Teaneck, N.J., withdrew earlier for unspecified reasons.

With the list of finalists down to one--Vic Cegles, an assistant athletic director at Arizona State--some members of the search committee apparently had reservations. The group met last Tuesday to review the status of the search, and Cegles withdrew Thursday, saying the process had dragged on too long.

All three finalists expressed concern about Irvine’s $2.8-million athletic budget. Now, in turning to a group of candidates that includes administrators from other California public universities, Irvine will be talking to people familiar with the dire statewide budget situation.

Guerrero is used to working with meager funds. Cal State Dominguez Hills, which competes in NCAA Division II, had an athletic budget of only $480,000 in 1991.

Holton oversees promotions and fund development at Long Beach, a school that dropped football after last season because of budget problems. As the director of the 49er Athletic Foundation, a community booster group, Holton helped raise about $450,000 during an annual scholarship fund drive in 1991. That amount is about $150,000 more than Irvine’s most successful fund drive.