A Toast to Tom Jernstedt

By Brendan F. Quinn, Basketball Times

For over a month now, Tom Jernstedt’s colleagues have been eulogizing their friend. The mere mention of his name elicits a myriad of emotions. There’s sadness. Lots of fond memories.  Endless recognitions of his achievements. For some, it’s a difficult subject to broach.

"Tom was the heart, soul and the passion behind the NCAA basketball tournament for a long time,” said former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese. "Whether you were a coach or an administrator or anybody – if you had a question about the tournament, that’s where you went – you went to Tom Jernstedt. He’s going to be a very, very difficult person to replace.”

"His ethics and morals were beyond reproach,” said Bill Hancock, the president of the Bowl Championship Series and former director of the Final Four. "He decided that no event in the country would be managed more professionally than the NCAA tournament. That’s his legacy ­ that the tournament be run right.”

Added Princeton athletic director Gary Walters: "He was a steward for the good of the game.”

At times, it becomes difficult to remember that Tom Jernstedt is, in fact, alive and well. There is no coffin. No headstone. No bagpipes. No black suits. He’s in Indianapolis with his family. The grim reaper, in this case, claimed Jernstedt’s career as an administrator with the NCAA. Yet the eulogies continue and the gray cloud that surrounds each is the fog of how his unceremonious "departure” took place.

See, departure is the key word here. On the morning of Aug. 13 (Friday the 13th), Jernstedt sat at his computer, logged in and drafted an e-mail to his countless friends that span the full spectrum of the basketball hierarchy in this country. Over a 38-year career with the NCAA, he went from being a hopeful young administrator from Oregon to one of the most powerful men in basketball. He went from being hired as the NCAA’s director of events in 1972 to being named NCAA’s executive vice president in 2002. Along the way, he served as the organization’s chief staff liaison to the men’s basketball committee and helped steer the NCAA tournament into becoming the multi-billion dollar bonanza we see today. Additionally, he has served USA Basketball since 1975, including a stint as vice president from 1997-2000 and as president from 2001-2004. 

That is why, sitting at his computer, it was so difficult for Jernstedt to hit "send.” As is his style, he used the e-mail as an opportunity to praise and give thanks to those who received it. Not long after sending his note, a news release was discharged from Indianapolis. On the third page of the three-page release entitled "Focus on the future,” in the second-to-last paragraph, it read, "Tom Jernstedt, executive vice president of Division I women’s basketball, baseball and football will depart the NCAA at a mutually determined time.”

And that was it. Just like that, Tom Jernstedt’s career was over. A few weeks before the official announcement was made, he and the NCAA selected the word "departed,” as opposed to "dismissed” or "fired.” "Retirement” couldn’t be used because, well, Jernstedt has no intention of retiring.

If it were up to him, he’d still be in his office at this moment.

"The mutually agreed upon word was ‘departed,’” Jernstedt noted, before answering the question of why he departed with, "The NCAA can answer that however they want.”

Needless to say, for this story, no answer was given. The response from NCAA headquarters was as silent as an Indiana breeze.

Back in February, another Jernstedt-related press release emerged from the NCAA’s public-relations office. That one was entitled, "Jernstedt to be enshrined in college basketball hall.” And indeed, next month, on Nov. 21, the 65-year-old will be enshrined in the Hall of Fame. Which of course means that Jernstedt will have lost his job and been inducted to the Hall all in a four-month span.

So how, or why, is Tom Jernstedt unemployed?

It’s a question that fetches awkward pauses left and right. Most people tread lightly, seemingly handpicking each word. Some avoid an answer all altogether. Everyone wants to honor and defend Jernstedt, but no one wants to (publicly) pick a fight with the NCAA’s new commander in chief. 

(This is where the 8,000-pound purple elephant walks in the room.)

When Mark Emmert was named the fifth chief executive of the NCAA in late May, he already had some defined goals in place. "Many college administers and presidents wanted him to trim the fat in the NCAA executive office, streamline the operation and get rid of some of the bloated salaries,” said one current Division I athletic director.

Unlike the commissioner of professional sports league, the NCAA president is not King Kong. Decision-making duties in the NCAA are bestowed to the executive committee and governing boards. When Emmert, the Washington president, was selected to replace the deceased Myles Brand, he inherited Brand’s executive staff. So in preparation of officially taking office this month, the new boss commandeered the executive office. Emmert revealed his new seven-person senior management group in August, along with the "departures” of Jernstedt, Dennis Cryder, the senior vice president of branding and communications, and Elsa Cole, the vice president of legal affairs and general counsel.  

"It’s the duty, responsibility and obligation of any new administrator to put together his or her administrative staff as they see fit,” Jernstedt said. "I understand that. I’ll leave it at that. I’d rather reflect on the great opportunity I was given. My 38 years couldn’t have been more exciting, humbling and gratifying.”

Though Jernstedt has handled his marching papers with the diplomacy of a defeated politician, the reshuffling in Indianapolis sent tremors across the NCAA landscape. 

"I was shocked,” said Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany. "Just stunned.”

That type of sentiment rang throughout the country. Over nearly four decades, Jernstedt left a lasting impression on several avenues running through the NCAA – his guidance of the men’s basketball committee, his overseeing of many aspects of the NCAA Tournament, his prominent role in the NCAA’s decision to absorb women’s championships and his mentorship of numerous administrators past and present. 

"His fingerprints are all over various projects, but his legacy in my mind is in the trust and integrity found in the men’s committee and the (NCAA tournament) selection process,” said Delany, who served as committee chair in 1990 and ’91.

According to many former committee members, the sweet specificity of Jernstedt’s vision and leadership often moored a tournament that could have easily gone adrift. He offered a becalmed voice educated by years of experience for members of a men’s basketball committee that came and went.

"There were numerous times during the six years that I served on the committee that the committee as a whole was preparing to make policy changes that would have been disastrous,” said Terry Holland, the former Virginia athletic director (currently at East Carolina) who served as committee chairman in 1997.  "Tom would patiently explain the history of how the committee decided to adopt the particular policy. Ninety percent of the time the committee would agree with the previous committees’ reasoning and therefore avoided a serious problem that would have developed if we had stayed on the wrong road.”

Jernstedt’s first year working with the 10-person committee was 1973, when the selection process consisted of a four-to-six hour teleconference and received very little attention. Ever since then, he helped to assure tournament selections were made solely by informed committee members, not members of the NCAA staff. When questions arose, he offered advice of how the committee could come to a consensus, not his own opinion on which team should find a spot on the bracket.

"The committee will miss his voice of reason,” said Charlotte athletic director Judy Rose, who became the first female committee member in 2000 and served through 2004. "That’s something you can’t replace. I can’t imagine selections taking place without that knowledge-base in place.”

One aspect of his career that Jernstedt is proudest of was his role in the NCAA’s overtaking of women’s athletics in 1975. The move was highly controversial at the time. Many members of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) didn’t want to move to the NCAA, believing they’d be relegated to second-class citizenship. Likewise, many members of the NCAA didn’t want any part of women’s athletics, believing it produced little, if any, revenue. 

"He was a visionary,” said Rose, a former assistant coach to Tennessee’s Pat Summitt who became Charlotte’s first women’s basketball coach in 1975. "He understood where the rules and regulations were headed in regard to Title IX and instead of fighting it, Tom embraced it. He knew it was the right thing to do.”

When it came to the NCAA Tournament, Jernstedt possessed a mobile perspective – never stuck in his ways, always looking toward a bigger, better future. He played a prominent role from the selection process to event planning to grassroots operations in host cities to the television deals. He was a constant. When uncertainty struck, it was often Jernstedt’s counsel that was sought.

"He got things done,” said Neal Pilson, the former president of CBS Sports and the self-proclaimed president of the Tom Jernstedt Fan Club.

According to Pilson, Jernstedt served as "an interface between CBS and the NCAA.” He understood how the tournament should emanate on television. As a result, he played an integral role in the first contract between CBS and the NCAA; a three-year, $50 million contract inked in 1982, as well as extensions in 1989 and 1994 that ultimately led to the 11-year, $6 billion mega-deal that was signed in 1999. 

"Tom’s vision was that the tournament needed more coverage, more promotion and he was one of the first to recognize the value of the Selection Show,” said Pilson, who left CBS in 1995 to operate his own sports consultancy. "Like CBS, Tom saw the tournament as a single event, like a movie with a beginning, a middle and an end. … We worked with Tom to make a sequence of games, and storylines, and competitions that ultimately led up to the Final Four and the national title game itself. He got it.”

In many ways, Jernstedt could have wielded power however he chose over the years. Instead, he delegated responsibilities. He wasn’t a locomotive. He was the wizard behind the curtain keeping an eye on a complex, expansive operation. He hired talented individuals and entrusted critical duties to familiar names such as Bill Hancock, Dave Cawood, Jim Marchiony and, most recently, Greg Shaheen.  

"I took pride in hiring the best possible people and giving them responsibility and empowerment to move forward as quickly as they could handle it,” Jernstedt said. "I was always thrilled to watch people grow and become top-flight, skilled administrators.”

Few benefited from Jernstedt’s guidance more than Shaheen. Emmert’s announcement of his senior management team included a note that Shaheen, the senior vice president of men’s basketball and business strategies, will serve as interim executive vice president (Jernstedt’s old gig) and manage all 88 NCAA championships (Jernstedt helped to build the total number of championships from 24 to 88). Just 10 years ago, Shaheen was the director of operations for the local organizing committee when Indianapolis hosted the 2000 Final Four. He was earmarked by the NCAA, namely Jernstedt, as a strong, young administrator and ultimately hired by the organization.

By 2005, Shaheen was being listed alongside the likes of Mark Shapiro, Drew Rosenhaus and Theo Epstein on Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal’s prestigious "40 Under 40,” a list of the most powerful sports executives under age 40.  His profile had rocketed, but Jernstedt still piloted the plane. Prior to the 2005 Final Four, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch provided a list of the 50 most influential people in college basketball. Jernstedt sat atop the mountain at No. 1.

But since then, Shaheen has very much been the public face of the tournament from the NCAA’s end. It became most apparent last spring when the debate on tournament expansion went from smolder to forest fire. Over and over, it was Shaheen returning serve on questions fired at the NCAA. All the while, those in the game’s inner-circle continually asked, "Where’s Tom?” According to Jernstedt, his focus of late was supervising women’s basketball, baseball and the NCAA’s involvement in football from a rules standpoint.

"(Over the past 10 years), there was a clear power shift from (Jernstedt) to Shaheen, but I think Tom might have been comfortable with that,” Delany said. 

The uncomfortable aspect is the reality that Jernstedt might have empowered younger administrators so well that he made himself disposable. It’s potentially a harsh truth, but that’s life in big business. Jernstedt doesn’t refer to Shaheen as a "protégé,” but instead says he is "an immensely talented individual in the mold of previous top-flight administrators,” specifically Hancock and Marchiony.

"Great leaders don’t do, they enable, and Tom was an enabler,” Hancock noted. "As the boss, he deserves the credit. He brought in bright people with good ideas and let them do the things that let the tournament grow.”

At the same time, Tranghese pointed out that, "On any big, big issues – and I’m not talking about the selection of teams – just big issues that had anything to do with college basketball, Tom Jernstedt was always involved. Oftentimes, Tom would be the person who would figure things out.”

Fairly or not, before he even officially takes office as NCAA president, Emmert will likely take a hit in the eyes of those who know Jernstedt. His disciples still follow him like sheep to a shepard. Emmert’s staff didn’t have room for Jernstedt, and it’s a move that could place the sword of Damocles over the new president’s chair.  

"I was taken aback when I found out about Tom’s departure,” said Tranghese, after pointing out that he has little objectivity on the matter and has considered Jernstedt a close friend for nearly 40 years. "For those of us that have been in the trenches of this tournament for a long time, it’s just disappointing. Tom has done an unbelievable job, but there’s a new president of the NCAA and he’s going to do what he has to do because he’s the one who ultimately has to answer for it. 

"My concern is that with Tom not being there anymore, and there are very capable administrators there, but I don’t see anyone within those walls that really has a basketball presence. Tom brought that in addition to all the other things. I don’t see it there any more.”

For better or worse, a college basketball season will begin next month without Tom Jernstedt in the NCAA office. In the meantime, his friends continue to tell their stories. All are different, but most usually focus on the man, not the administrator.

One former member of the men’s committee remembers that on the Friday before the 2006 Final Four, while the committee toured an empty RCA Dome, Jernstedt was cognizant of the moment’s magnitude for one individual committee member. He nudged Tom O’Connor and motioned for him to enter the vacant dome for a moment alone.

O’Connor, the George Mason athletic director, walked in, looked up to the rafters, and gazed at a massive green and white banner emblazoned with his Cinderella’s logo. "I get goose bumps just thinking about it,” O’Connor recalled. "Tom understands the little things that are important to individuals. I knew he was excited for us, but he had to wear his executive director hat and be as neutral as possible, but he knew it was a special time for our institution and for me personally and professionally. He just gave me that little nudge to make sure I was the first one in there. It meant a lot.” 

Those stories aren’t uncommon.

As for Jernstedt now, he isn’t brooding with bitterness. When he has hired by the NCAA as a 25-year-old, he expected to spend three-to-five years there, then jump ship to become an athletic director. Ultimately, he embarked on a 38-year love affair. 

Reflecting back, he summates, "I lived it … I loved it … and I’m so grateful for the opportunity that I received.”

And that is Tom Jernstedt’s eulogy.

Brendan F. Quinn is a freelance writer in Philadelphia.  He has contributed to Basketball Times since 2006 and can be reached at bfquinn06@gmail.com.