Welcoming the chance to "bridge the gap" between academics and athletics, Mike Goldberger will become the Bears' new director of athletics.

01:00 AM EST on Thursday, March 24, 2005

BY MIKE SZOSTAK
Journal Sports Writer

PROVIDENCE -- The chance to "bridge the gap" between academics and athletics and to "do something different at a place I love" were the determining factors in Mike Goldberger's decision to become Brown's next director of athletics.

Admissions director since 1995, Goldberger will assume his new duties July 1.

"This is just an incredible day for me, and I can't tell you what a great honor it is and just a great opportunity," Goldberger told professors, administrators, coaches, staff, alumni and media in a packed dining room at the Brown Faculty Club yesterday after they had given him a standing ovation.

Goldberger, 55, succeeds Dave Roach, who resigned last June for a similar position at Colgate University. Veteran administrator Joan Taylor has served as interim director.

Brown turned to "Goldie," as he is affectionately known, when a five-month search failed to produce a clear-cut choice among the three leading contenders who visited and met with officials and coaches.

"Sometimes you search around the world, and the brightest star is right here," said David Greene, vice president for campus life and student services and Goldberger's new boss. Greene talked to Goldberger about this position last summer, after receiving unsolicited calls from alumni supporting his candidacy. Goldberger told him he enjoyed his job in admissions.

But when the search committee, headed by Prof. Luiz Valente, approached Goldberger recently, he reconsidered, especially upon learning that fundraising would not have to be a primary responsibility.

"That sort of relieved one of the things that had me concerned," he said. "But the biggest thing was really the challenge of something that's different, and this different thing is that 'bridging the gap.' You get one lifetime, and the chance to do some different things at a place that you love is amazing. The opportunity to take on a new challenge with people I really care about is sort of hard to beat."

Goldberger has a unique perspective on athletics and academics. He came to Brown in 1973, a year out of Middlebury College in Vermont, to work for John Anderson, his college coach who had accepted the seemingly impossible mission of resurrecting Brown football. He also worked with Woody Woodworth, the Bears' baseball coach at the time, and yesterday credited both as his first mentors.

Goldberger toiled in those heady days of the 1970s when Brown started winning again in football, earned a share of the 1976 Ivy League football championship and became a perennial Ivy contender.

But by the time Anderson resigned under pressure in 1983, Goldberger already was shifting to administration, as director of the Olney-Margolies Center and athletics liason to the admissions staff.

Goldberger went to admissions full time in 1983, and during his 22 years in the department Brown became and remains one of the hottest colleges in the nation. This year, Brown will set records for number of applicants and lowest admission rate. The admissions "season" ends tomorrow, and notices will be mailed April 1.

Goldberger never lost his affection for sports and the students who play them, and sometimes asked a coach to join him on recruiting trips just to talk about life at Brown.

"I love going to games," he said. His wife Kathy and son Kevin, who has become a sideline fixture at field hockey and men's lacrosse games, often accompany him.

Communicating is one of Goldberger's great strengths, and he will use that skill in trying to nurture the occasionally rocky relationship between athletics and Brown's academic departments.

"We really need to talk about what role athletics should play . . . This is central to the university," he said. "It's important that everybody knows exactly what's going on. It's important that the president, the provost, David Greene know exactly how athletics does their job. It's important that athletics knows exactly what David Greene is thinking, what the president is thinking, what the provost is thinking. These are very creative people who can do what they need to do if you tell them what the parameters are. Facilitating that discussion is something that I'll do."

Goldberger's reputation is that of consensus-builder.

"Let's appreciate one another. Let's listen to what we all have to say. We're going to have to make a final decision, but let's talk about it. People appreciate that," he said.

Praise for Goldberger was widespread.

"Leadership is what it will take to move the program to a higher level of excellence. Our next athletic director has demonstrated that he can provide the leadership necessary to compete at the highest level. For more than 20 years he has helped shape a defining characteristic of this great university, the classes that are recruited and admitted through one of the most competitive processes in higher education," Brown president Ruth J. Simmons said.

"It's important to me that our athletic director have the deep trust of this community and a great respect around the league. Our A.D. has to exhibit the highest standards of integrity and judgment and have the credibility and skills to build broad support for the department. Our next athletic director has these attributes and is ideally positioned to meet the challenges facing Division I athletics. We began this process knowing we wanted a winner for our next A.D. We found that and much more in Mike Goldberger," she said.

Later, Simmons said yesterday was "one of the most exciting days of my entire time at Brown."

Football coach Phil Estes said Goldberger "is directly responsible for the success of everything at Brown. Nobody who is here would be here if he didn't put his stamp on it. He'll bridge the gap. I don't think you can find a better person. He's a person you can trust, who listens and who stands up for what he believes. I'm excited. He has a clear vision for what we want and need."

Women's hockey coach Margaret "Digit" Murphy, who served on the search committee, said, "We talked about someone who was magic, who brought something special to our department, who understood Brown athletics. Someone who could lead us, articulate for us, motivate us. Someone who understands the students, who understands student-athletes, who could articulate how valuable athletics could be as a teaching tool. Someone who could mentor us, who could fit the mission of athletics into the overall mission of president Simmons' vision for academic excellence. Someone who cares about us, someone who is family and someone who loves Brown."

Kevin Mundt, '76, another search committee member and chairman of the Brown Advisory Council on Athletics, said Goldberger "embodies all the traits and characteristics that will make . . . an excellent athletic director and leader at Brown, and we're very excited about that."

Dennis Coleman of East Greenwich, a quarterback on those first Anderson teams and now a lawyer with Ropes & Gray, observed the process from a distance and offered this:

"Brown got it right this time. It's a good move. Goldie knows athletics. He was a coach. He's respected immensely in the Ivy League. He's a competitor, and he wants to win. We can't go wrong."