New athletic directors live on the edge in college sports

Former athletic director Don Canham represented a more stable period in Michigan's sports history. He hails from a time when athletic directors served their entire careers at one school, and breaking a lifelong relationship with that institution was as rare as divorcing one's spouse.

Canham served as Michigan's athletic director from 1968-88 - an eternity in today's frantic-paced sports world. But his 21-year term at the helm was only the pinnacle of Canham's lifelong relationship with Michigan.

Jacob Wheeler Behind the Wheel

The man competed in track & field as a student, and later coached the sport at his alma mater before becoming athletic director.

Canham's relationship with his school is a love affair. He lives in Ann Arbor, and he still attends most home football games and occasionally a basketball game. Canham considers current athletic director Tom Goss a friend, and talks to him often.

But he belongs to a dying breed of lifelong Michigan men.

Canham lasted 21 years as Michigan's athletic director. Fritz Crisler, the man who stood before him, headed the department for 28 years. Before him, Fielding Yost, presiding from 1921-41.

Those three men ran Michigan sports for a combined 68 years - from the Roaring Twenties until nearly the end of the Cold War - and, to their credit, three staple sports venues are named after them.

Canham, Crisler and Yost were, as Canham called them, "career athletic directors" whose interests rested solely in Michigan sports.

But the three men who followed Canham had other interests in mind which took them away from Ann Arbor.

After running the athletic department from 1988-90, Bo Schembechler left Michigan for a front office job with the Detroit Tigers. And both of his successors, Jack Weidenbach and Joe Roberson, were political men placed in the chair by the administration.

Including Goss, the last four athletic directors have filled the position for only 13 years. And when Goss resigns his post this week, as The Michigan Daily reported yesterday, the University will seek to fill the position for the third time in 10 years - a task which required very little changing of the guard during most of the 20th century.

The age of lifelong Michigan men is over.

The age when an athletic director's only job was finding good coaches for his teams has also gone by the wayside.

Now, in the days of recruiting, scholarships, professional drafts, boosters and more stringent NCAA guidelines, off-the-court violations seem to overshadow the X's and O's which naturally flow through a coach's mind.

For instance, Michigan's 21-point loss, this past Sunday, at the hands of Ohio State, was never more than a footnote as soon as reports surfaced that Goss' tenure at Michigan was over.

And after the game, reporters were interested only in the story behind Jamal Crawford's absence - the freshman phenom is the team's beached whale while he serves his suspension.

Canham cites an athletic department's increased accountability to the NCAA as part of the headache.

"In my day the reinforcement division was the Big Ten conference, not the NCAA. When you had a problem you resolved it with someone from the Big Ten. The NCAA rule book is much thicker than anything in my day."

Canham can't believe the number of athletes at Michigan who own cars or the resulting problems they've caused.

"In the past you never worried about whether a kid had a car, we were too poor. We had to work for room and board when I was an athlete."

But full scholarships and NCAA regulations have replaced the purity of yesteryear. Canham knows that the "golden age" of college athletics is gone, and job turnover is inevitable.

He only questions whether wiping the slate clean and hiring a new athletic director every few years - the case with Goss' successor - is effective.

"They'll have a difficult time finding the right person for the job - someone as reputable as Goss," Canham said.

"I would never consider taking the job at a school with constant turnover. What does that say about the school?"

- Jacob Wheeler can be reached via e-mail at jwheeler@umich.edu