SAN DIEGO — Cedric Dempsey, the former NCAA president who helped turn Arizona into a national power as athletic director before leading the national organization through key years of transition and growth, died Saturday in San Diego, the NCAA said. He was 92.
Dempsey was revered as an administrator on campus. His nine-year tenure as the NCAA’s leader included moving its headquarters and significant fiscal growth for the organization, including landmark television deals worth billions.
“Ced was instrumental in shaping the NCAA as it moved into the new century, overseeing a restructuring of the organization, and strengthening the foundation of college sports for years that followed his tenure,” current NCAA president Charlie Baker said in a statement released by the organization.
“His impact on the lives of student-athletes and administrators across the nation will be felt for years to come,” Baker said.
Dempsey oversaw the organization’s move from the Kansas City suburbs to Indianapolis in 1999 and helped reimagine how the governing body could work best in the 21st Century.
His most enduring legacy may be the role he played in creating television deals with ESPN and CBS that brought in $6.2 billion over an 11-year span.
Dempsey charmed his way through it all with a smile and wit that was lauded throughout the headquarters and the college sports world.
“Twenty-one years ago, Cedric painted a picture for me that I could one day be an athletic director,” current Arizona athletic director Desireé Reed-Francois said in a statement. “His guidance helped me see a calling I never knew could be possible. I am forever grateful for the impact he had on the trajectory of my career and on my life as a whole. He will be deeply missed by our family and by everyone in the University of Arizona community.”
Reed-Francois first met Dempsey when she was serving as an associate athletic director for Compliance and as the Senior Woman Administrator at Fresno State.
Dempsey’s hires in Tucson included coaches such as Lute Olson and Dick Tomey, who became iconic figures for Wildcats fans. During his 11-year tenure, Arizona State teams won five national team championships, 39 individual NCAA titles and 17 Pac-10 crowns.
He also served as the men’s basketball selection committee chairman in 1988-89.
Dempsey grew up in Equality, Illinois, and went on to play football, basketball and baseball at Albion College in Michigan. From 1959-62, he served as the men’s basketball and cross country coach at his alma mater before stepping back in 1963 to become an assistant basketball coach.
In 1965, he started a 46-year career in administration by becoming an associate athletic director also at Albion. He left there to be the athletic director at Pacific in California, before stints at San Diego State and Houston before moving to Arizona in 1983.
Dempsey left Arizona in 1994 to become the sixth executive director/president in NCAA history, and it was there he became a national figure.
“I think the NCAA is where it is today because of Ced,” former NCAA executive committee chairman Bob Lawless said when Dempsey announced he was retiring in January 2002. “He has been a real treasure for the NCAA.”
He also served as commissioner of the All-American Football League from 2007-10 and battled cancer three times. Dempsey is a member of multiple Halls of Fame and is survived by his wife, June, and two children.
