Booster Warned by Husky Coach : NCAA: Former Washington athletic director tells of meeting in which James told Mead that the football program would be run ‘the honest way.’

A University of Washington booster named in published reports of apparent NCAA rules violations was warned by Husky football coach Don James several years ago to act “with integrity,” Mike Lude, the school’s former athletic director, said Thursday.

Herbert T. Mead, a Seattle businessman and prominent Husky booster, was warned by James during a discussion of recruiting tactics in James’ office, Lude said.

”. . . As I recall, we were talking about recruiting and other schools and the people involved and so on, and we just wanted to make absolutely certain (to Mead) that there was no misconception as to how we

wanted to run our program,” Lude said, adding he was not certain when the conversation was held.

Lude, now athletic director at Auburn, said Mead was told that Washington’s athletic program would be operated “only one way--the right way, the honest way, a way filled with integrity.”

Mead is one of two Washington boosters identified by The Times on Wednesday as having regularly provided Husky football players with cash and other benefits in apparent violation of NCAA rules.

Mead denied the allegations.

A Pacific 10 Conference official said Wednesday that the league will investigate the allegations as part of a continuing probe of Washington’s football program.

James Collier, vice president at Washington, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on Wednesday: “We’re taking it very, very seriously. It will be reviewed thoroughly. It seems to be something new every day.”

The Seattle Times reported last Sunday that the Pac-10 is investigating whether Washington boosters arranged a job for former Husky quarterback Billy Joe Hobert before his senior year in high school.

The Seattle newspaper named Mead as one of the boosters allegedly involved in arranging Hobert’s job.

Lude, who left Washington in 1991 after 16 years as the school’s athletic director, said the allegations of wrongdoing by Husky boosters were “a great shock and a total surprise.”

“We worked very hard at making sure we disseminated information describing appropriate conduct (under NCAA rules) to people who were enthusiastic boosters of the Husky program,” he said.

Lude said he made sure that members of the Tyee Club, Washington’s athletic fund-raising organization, received regular mailings outlining NCAA rules pertaining to boosters.

Still, he conceded that it is virtually impossible to be completely effective in monitoring such a group.