INDIANAPOLIS – Paul Tagliabue, former commissioner of the National Football League (NFL) from 1989 to September 2006, has been named the recipient of the 2007 Theodore Roosevelt Award, the highest honor the NCAA bestows. 

The award, also known as the “Teddy,” will be presented at the NCAA Honors Celebration on Saturday, January 6, during the annual NCAA Convention in Orlando, Florida.

The “Teddy” is presented annually to a former NCAA student-athlete for whom competitive athletics in college and attention to physical well-being after graduation have been important factors in a distinguished career of national significance and achievement.

The award is named after President Theodore Roosevelt, whose concern for the conduct of intercollegiate athletics led to the formation of the NCAA in 1906. Past recipients of the Teddy have included a variety of public- and private-sector leaders including Byron R. White (1969), Omar Bradley (1973), Althea Gibson (1991), Bill Richardson (1999), Williams S. Cohen (2001), Eunice Kennedy Shriver (2002), Sally K. Ride (2005) and former presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower (1967), Gerald R. Ford (1975), George H.W. Bush (1986) and Ronald Reagan (1990). Last year’s award winner was Robert K. Kraft.

Jack Ford, Emmy and Peabody award-winning journalist and nationally recognized trial attorney, author and teacher, will serve as emcee of the event. Ford, a former Yale football student-athlete, has served on the NCAA Honors Committee and was named a 1997 Silver Anniversary Award honoree.

Tagliabue was a freshman and three-year varsity basketball student-athlete at Georgetown University and was captain of the 1961-62 team. He ranks ninth on Georgetown’s list of highest career rebound average and 21st on Georgetown’s all-time rebound leader list. The government major was president of his senior class, was a dean’s list honors graduate and a Rhodes Scholar finalist. He graduated in 1962 from Georgetown and graduated with honors in 1965 from New York University School of Law, where he was an editor of the law review. He is a former member of the Board of Trustees of the NYU School of Law.

Tagliabue addressed a number of NFL priorities in his 16 years as NFL Commissioner. Among them, the NFL expanded from 28 to 32 teams, it operated under successive long-term labor agreements with the NFL Players Association, secured the largest television contract in entertainment history, and refocused its efforts in developing public-private partnerships for new stadiums. Tagliabue presided over the reorganization of the league’s management structure, adopted stringent policies on steroids and other drugs and expanded the NFL’s presence internationally. He also initiated a series of rule changes to speed up the game, to ensure balance between offense and defense, and to promote player safety. Under his leadership the competitive action on the field flourished, stadium attendance and television audiences reached record levels and the value of NFL franchises soared.

Tagliabue took office in November 1989, succeeding Pete Rozelle. For the prior two decades he had represented the NFL as an attorney in the areas of television, expansion, legislative affairs, franchise moves, labor and antitrust cases. His involvement with the NFL began in 1969 when the merger of the NFL and the American Football League was being implemented and Monday Night Football was being launched. Before becoming Commissioner, Tagliabue was a partner at Covington & Burling, a Washington, D.C., law firm, then the NFL’s principal outside counsel. Earlier, Tagliabue served in the office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense as a defense policy analyst on European and North Atlantic affairs. Upon leaving the department, he was presented by the Secretary of Defense with the Meritorious Service Medal, the department’s highest civilian award.  

Tagliabue is a member of the Board of Directors of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and of Georgetown University, and he chairs the Board of the Graduate Institute of International Management of the State University of New York (SUNY). Previously he served on the Boards of the National Urban League and the United Way of America. He has been honored for his work by Parents, Friends and Families of Lesbians and Gay and has received a variety of honorary degrees and awards.

The “Teddy” honoree is selected by the NCAA Honors Committee, which comprises eight athletics administrators at member institutions and nationally distinguished citizens who are former student-athletes. The committee members are: Thomas J. Brown, commissioner, Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference; Cedric W. Dempsey, president emeritus, NCAA; Timothy W. Gleason, commissioner, Ohio Athletic Conference; Calvin Hill, consultant, Dallas Cowboys; Jackie Joyner-Kersee, former University of California, Los Angeles, track and field student-athlete and Olympian; Gibbs Knotts, faculty-athletics representative, Western Carolina University; Julie Power Ruppert, associate commissioner and senior woman’s administrator, America East Conference; and Barbara G. Walker, Senior Associate Athletic Director, Wake Forest University.