UC Irvine Selects Guerrero : Administration: Runner-up for the job two years ago, he is selected school’s athletic director after withdrawal of three finalists.

After interviewing nine candidates, choosing two different sets of finalists and watching three candidates withdraw, UC Irvine hired Dan Guerrero as athletic director Monday and hailed him as a popular and unanimous choice.

Guerrero, 41, is a former UCLA baseball standout who has been the athletic director at Cal State Dominguez Hills the past five years.

He was the runner-up for the Irvine job two years ago when Tom Ford was hired, yet wasn’t among the first five candidates Irvine interviewed in seeking a successor to Ford, who resigned in July.

But after three finalists withdrew--including Brad Rothermel, the former Nevada Las Vegas athletic director who sought a $1-million increase in Irvine’s athletic budget--Irvine turned from a national search to a regional search and quickly chose Guerrero.

“The point is, we have now made a decision about which all of us are extremely excited, and I say that very honestly,” said Horace Mitchell, who is vice chancellor for student affairs and oversees athletics. “At first we looked at getting people from ‘big-name’ programs, so that by extension our intentions would be such. By doing that, we put too much emphasis on the place the person was.”

After the withdrawals of Fairleigh Dickinson Athletic Director Roy Danforth and Rothermel, Irvine’s nine-member search committee decided to talk with other candidates instead of recommending the remaining finalist, Vic Cegles, an assistant athletic director at Arizona State.

“At that point, we started looking at the person, the quality of leadership, vision, interpersonal skills,” Mitchell said. “(Guerrero) has all that background.”

Outwardly, Guerrero takes no offense at being left out of the first round of interviews after being a finalist in 1990.

“I always felt that some day I might get the opportunity to get back here and show my stuff, and sure enough, now’s the time,” Guerrero said. “I just look at it as it wasn’t my time two years ago, and now it is.

“What they’re getting in me is someone who is now rolling up his sleeves and who is going to work relentlessly to build this program.”

Mitchell said earlier that the appointment would make a statement about the future of Irvine athletics, and Rothermel’s involvement seemed to indicate dramatically higher aspirations. But Mitchell and Guerrero said that Guerrero’s Division II background should not be considered an indication of the direction of the program.

“I have not thought about Division II at all,” Guerrero said. “I was a Division II athletic director with a Division I mentality, and that’s what we’re going to stay.”

Guerrero, who agreed to a five-year contract, would not reveal the specifics of any additional financial commitment for athletics he negotiated with Mitchell.

“Let me just say I’m very, very pleased with the commitment from Dr. Mitchell and student affairs in terms of their support for the athletic program, very satisfied,” Guerrero said. “We got a firm commitment to support athletics in a way (UC Irvine) has never supported it.”

One irony of Guerrero’s appointment is that he is a friend and former UCLA teammate of Mike Gerakos, who was Irvine’s baseball coach until last spring, when the program was eliminated for financial reasons.

“I really must admit it was a very difficult thing even when I read it in the paper,” said Guerrero, who phoned Gerakos with condolences at the time.

“No one in athletic administration gets in the business to dismantle or tear programs apart. Unfortunately at this point in time, those are the kinds of decisions that have to be made.”

Guerrero offered no hope Monday that the revival of baseball is imminent.

“In terms of baseball in the future, I think we have a charge right now to take care of our existing program,” he said. “We’ll have to put baseball on the back burner.”

Guerrero has been applauded by superiors at Dominguez Hills as a “new breed” of athletic director, in part because of his background in business management. He earned a master’s degree in public administration at Dominguez Hills in 1982 and has been an adjunct professor in the school of management. That background is clearly one of the qualities that Mitchell and some committee members found attractive.

“This is what moved him up to the top: a combination of being recognized nationally in the NCAA, management experience, having been a student athlete of very high quality, and just being a very decent straight guy,” said James McGaugh, the Irvine professor who chaired the search committee.

Since finishing second to Ford, Guerrero has seen Dominguez Hills win the 1991 NCAA Division II title in women’s soccer and has served on two prestigious NCAA committees, including one that makes committee assignments affecting Division I. Last year, Dominguez Hills, which has a budget of about $1.6 million less than Irvine’s $2.8-million budget, raised approximately the same amount of money as Irvine--$300,000.

“He’s done quite a number of things in the last two years,” Mitchell said. “He became a compelling choice--and a unanimous choice of the search committee and others at the university.”

Gerakos, who was a third baseman for UCLA when Guerrero played second base in the early ‘70s, called Guerrero a hard-worker who is able to move with ease between the business world and athletics.

“He’s worked hard and done his homework and paid his dues,” Gerakos said. “He’s got a challenge ahead but, hey, he knows what he’s getting into. I’m sure he feels confident he can get it done.

“He knows what he’s up against. He’s not afraid of getting dirty and getting after it. He was a great competitor as a player and he’s a great competitor in this arena as well.

“He’s done an outstanding job at Dominguez Hills and created a lot of things out of very little. He’s got pretty good experience at what he’s going to be facing, I would think.”