The Oregonian is reporting that former UO President, current NCAA President, Myles Brand has died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer at the age of 67.  My thoughts and the Oregonian's article are below:

Link: Myles Brand, former Oregon president who went on to transform NCAA, dies at 67

Key Quote: Myles Brand championed the most substantive academic reform in the
NCAA's history, embraced issues of diversity and preached the proper integration
of athletics into university operations. But the philosopher and former
University of Oregon president might be best remembered for firing volatile
basketball coach Bob Knight while president of Indiana University.

Brand died today after an eight-month battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 67.

With a background more intellectual than athletic, Brand became the first
sitting university president to lead the NCAA.

His biggest coup was the NCAA's 2005 adoption of an unprecedented academic
reform package that punished teams that lag academically. Though some complained
about its effectiveness or potential for abuse, the NCAA's Academic Progress
Rate gradually improved as more athletes met benchmarks.

It is far too early to say what impact Brand will have on the NCAA in the long-term but here are my quick thoughts:

1. He did bring back some modicum of academics to revenue sports, albeit in a way that still shields major universities from harm (very few schools from the BIg 6 conferences are every penalized).

2. He helped bring a lot of financial balance to the NCAA, or transparency at least.  That should help college sports for a long time.

3. He failed to fix the NCAA's biggest problem, which is its selective enforcement of its rules against bigger schools (see the Reggie Bush situation with USC as an example).

4. I was in the Midwest (attending Grinnell College in IA) when he fired Knight.  He really had no choice but certainly did not deserve the vitriol that followed.

RIP Myles, once a Duck, always a Duck.