Schultz Steps Down as Director of NCAA : Colleges: He denies knowledge of loans to athletes at Virginia, but says staying in job might hinder reform.

Dick Schultz announced his resignation as executive director of the NCAA on Tuesday, hours after the release of a report contradicting his oft-stated contention that he was unaware of improper loans to student-athletes at the University of Virginia nearly a decade ago.

Schultz, who served as Virginia’s athletic director before moving into the NCAA’s top administrative position, said he decided to resign after weighing his interests against those of the association he has headed since 1987.

He announced his decision after the NCAA released a report that concluded that he knew of some of the dozens of improper loans made to Virginia athletes by the Virginia Student Aid Foundation (VSAF), an athletic fund-raising organization.

The report was prepared by an independent investigator, James Park of Lexington, Ky., hired by the NCAA Committee on Infractions to look into Schultz’s involvement in the loan matter.

Schultz was Virginia’s athletic director from 1981 to 1987.

Park, who had investigated NCAA rules violations on behalf of the University of Kentucky, concluded that Schultz probably knew in 1986 or 1987 of some VSAF loans to athletes and did not report the matter to the NCAA at the time.

The improper loans did not come to the attention of the NCAA until 1991, when the university disclosed them and said it would conduct an inquiry.

Although three of Schultz’s former associates at Virginia have said he was aware that the foundation lent money to athletes, Schultz has repeatedly said that he had no knowledge of the practice, and he said it again Tuesday.

“If you take this as an admission of guilt, you’re dead wrong,” he said.

However, he added, his resignation was necessary to eliminate questions that would arise from his continued presence as a shaper of NCAA policy.

“I can’t tell you how many calls and letters I have received telling me I need to stay in this job and tough it out,” he said. “My competitive instincts and my desire to clear my name drive me to do that.

“But I must balance that instinct against the personal toll of six years of hard work, 1,200 days of travel and numerous challenging situations. . . . One of my major goals was to establish a high level of credibility for the NCAA. We’ve achieved that goal. I don’t want to contribute to the destruction of something I’ve worked so hard for.”

Schultz, who will turn 64 in September, said he will remain as executive director until his successor is found.

The Committee on Infractions put Virginia on two years’ probation last Thursday as a result of the VSAF loans, but, citing the NCAA’s four-year statute of limitations for rule violations, made no ruling on Schultz’s involvement. That determination was left to the NCAA Executive Committee, the panel responsible for supervising the executive director’s job.

University of Nevada President Joseph Crowley, who is president of the NCAA and a member of the Executive Committee, said his group decided last Thursday that Schultz should be allowed to keep his job.

Schultz, however, said his sense that public opinion was running against him prompted him to decide that he should resign.

“I’ve spoken about the infractions process in front of a lot of state legislatures and the federal government in the last two years,” he said. “And I just didn’t want it to be (said) every time an infractions ruling came down, ‘Look what they did there. The executive director wasn’t penalized.’ ”

As the replacement for Walter Byers, the only other person to have held the executive director’s job, Schultz has worked hard to change the NCAA’s reputation as an aloof, insensitive organization.

He also has been a key advocate of the reform agenda developed by the NCAA Presidents Commission.

“Listening to all segments of the membership, identifying issues in the reform movement and leading that movement--those are the things Dick will be remembered for,” said Tom Hansen, commissioner of the Pacific 10 Conference.

Hansen noted, however, that Schultz’s link to the Virginia case was a potential roadblock to reform.

“A lot of people outside the association were gathering to make an issue over this,” he said.

Gregory O’Brien, University of New Orleans chancellor and chairman of the Presidents Commission, said the reform movement would have survived had Schultz decided to stay on as executive director, but not without difficulty.

“There would have been a very stormy period--harmful to Dick, at the same time harmful to the reform movement,” he said.

Park, in his report, concluded that two former Virginia athletic officials--Ted Davenport, former executive director of the VSAF; and Tom Gearhart, a former VSAF employee--were credible in their testimony about Schultz’s knowledge of the VSAF loans to athletes.

Park also located two key witnesses who previously had not testified--a former Virginia football player and his mother, both of whom linked Schultz to a $1,000 VSAF loan the player allegedly received.

In an interview with Park, Schultz disputed those claims.