INDIANAPOLIS--- Dr. James Frank, former NCAA president, Lincoln University (Missouri) president and Southwestern Athletic Conference Commissioner, is the recipient of this year’s NCAA President’s Gerald R. Ford Award.
The award, named in recognition of the late President Gerald Ford, honors individuals who have provided significant leadership as an advocate for higher education and intercollegiate athletics on a continuous basis over the course of his or her career.
NCAA President Myles Brand will present the award to Frank at the opening business session of the 2008 NCAA Convention Saturday, January 12, in Nashville, Tennessee. In honor of Frank, the NCAA will donate an honorarium to the institution of his choice for the benefit of student-athletes.
“At every stop along his career, from student-athlete to university president to his involvement in NCAA governance, Dr. James Frank has been a catalyst for important and positive change. For more than 40 years, he has championed the values of diversity and inclusion within intercollegiate athletics,” Brand said. “Dr. Frank holds a special place in NCAA history, serving as both the first African-American and the first college president to hold the positions of secretary-treasurer and president.”
Frank was among the first to emphasize presidential participation in intercollegiate athletics and worked toward equality for all in sports. Brand said it is a privilege to present this award to Dr. James Frank during the 2008 NCAA Convention.
Frank is one of few who have risen through the collegiate ranks as a student-athlete, coach, professor, college president and conference commissioner. A standout in basketball, baseball and track and field, Frank received a bachelor’s degree in education from Lincoln and then spent two years as a first lieutenant in the Corp or Engineers before earning a master’s in education from Springfield College (Massachusetts). In 1956, Frank returned to Lincoln as an assistant basketball coach for two years before being named head coach.
After receiving a doctorate from Springfield College, he began teaching and coaching at Hunter College before serving as dean of students and vice president for academic affairs at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, New York. In 1973, Frank once again returned to Lincoln as the school’s president, the first alumnus to serve in this capacity. It was during his time at Lincoln that Frank became involved in the NCAA governance structure.
While at Lincoln, Dr. Frank served on many NCAA committees and held the secretary-treasurer and presidential offices of the NCAA, becoming the first African-American and the first college president to hold these positions.
Frank was closely involved in several issues that changed NCAA history. In the 1970s, Frank led the NCAA Long-Range Planning Committee and discussions of enhanced presidential partnership that eventually led to a demographic change in Association leadership. He was a key force in bringing women’s championships under the NCAA umbrella and pushing for the advancement of women’s intercollegiate athletics within the NCAA structure asserting that “’separate but equal’ does not lead to equality.” Former NCAA Executive Director Walter Byers and Frank began discussions in the late 1980s that led to the Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee, a group devoted to give diversity a greater voice in Association policy-making.
In 1983, Frank was named commissioner of the Southwestern Athletic Conference, where he served until 1998 to bring greater national recognition and publicity to the SWAC. Frank returned to the SWAC as interim commissioner from April 2001 to December 2002. Named one of the NCAA’s 100 Most Influential Student-Athletes, Dr. Frank has received numerous awards recognizing his devotion to college sports.
This is the fifth year the NCAA has presented the Gerald R. Ford Award. University of Notre Dame President Emeritus Theodore Hesburgh received the inaugural award in 2004 and former Knight Commission chair William Friday was the 2005 recipient. In 2006, Birch Bayh, former United States Senator from Indiana and “Father of Title IX”, and John Wooden, legendary UCLA men’s basketball coach who won 10 national championships, were dual recipients of the award. Christine Grant, former director of women’s athletics at the University of Iowa, received the award last year.
Ford was the 38th president of the United States taking office in 1974 after President Richard Nixon resigned. Ford was president until 1977. His political career began in 1948 when he was elected to Congress from Grand Rapids, Michigan. He became House Minority Leader in 1965, a position he held until Nixon appointed him vice president in 1973.
Ford played football at the University of Michigan where he participated on national championship teams in 1932 and 1933. He started every game at center his senior year and was voted Most Valuable Player by his teammates. Ford received contract offers from the Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions, which he turned down in favor of studying law at Yale University. Before beginning his law classes, Ford coached freshman football and boxing.
At the age of 93, President Ford died at his California home on December 26, 2006.
“Both as a public servant and as a student-athlete, President Ford embodied the qualities of integrity, achievement and dedication that we aspire to in intercollegiate athletics, and so does Dr. Frank,” Brand said. “Dr. Frank is clearly deserving of this honor.”
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