Schaus, White named to DI men's basketball committee

Two Division I administrators with extensive basketball backgrounds have been named to the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee.

Jim Schaus, a former member of the men’s basketball rules committee, and Kevin White, who has more than 30 years of experience as a collegiate administrator, will begin their terms Sept. 1, 2015. The duo will replace current committee chair Scott Barnes, the vice president and director of athletics at Utah State, and Conference USA Executive Associate Commissioner Judy MacLeod, whose terms expire Aug. 31.

Schaus became Ohio director of athletics in April 2008 after spending nine years leading the athletic department at Wichita State. Schaus’ nearly quarter century of experience in intercollegiate athletics includes stops at Oregon, Cincinnati, UTEP and Northern Illinois.

Schaus was a member of the initial NCAA Division I Committee on Academic Performance and has served men’s basketball as a member of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Rules Committee. A 1983 Purdue graduate, Schaus went on to earn a master’s degree from West Virginia, where he was recently honored as a distinguished alumnus by the institution. His father, the late Fred Schaus, was the head coach at Purdue and West Virginia as well as the Los Angeles Lakers, and was a member of the men’s basketball committee from 1987-90 while he was the director of athletics at West Virginia.

“It’s a supreme honor to serve on the men’s basketball committee,” Schaus said. “Basketball has been a big part of my life, and I look forward to contributing to the successful future of the committee’s work.”

White has been the director of athletics at Duke for the past six years. Prior to arriving in Durham, White was the director of athletics at Notre Dame from 2000-08. White’s distinguished career in athletic administration also includes stints as director of athletics at Arizona State, Tulane, Maine and Loras, where he originated the National Catholic Basketball Tournament.

White has served on numerous NCAA committees, including the NCAA Council, formerly the NCAA’s highest governing body. A former head track and field coach at Southeast Missouri State, the collegiate sprinter is a 1972 graduate of Saint Joseph’s (Ind.). White earned a master’s degree from Central Michigan and completed postdoctoral work at Harvard after he completed his Ph.D. from Southern Illinois in 1983. His son Michael is the head men’s basketball coach at Louisiana Tech, while another son, Danny, is the director of athletics at Buffalo and played at Towson and Notre Dame.

“To be sure, I am incredibly honored to become a member of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee. This group is tasked with very important work for the membership and is ultimately responsible for managing one of the truly outstanding events in all of sport each year,” White said. “Certainly, I look forward to working with my esteemed colleagues, whereby continuing to build upon the unparalleled tradition that makes the NCAA Tournament historically significant and unequivocally captures the attention of an entire nation for three weeks in March and April.”

The committee will be chaired in 2015-16 by Joseph Castiglione, the director of athletics at Oklahoma and current vice chair. Along with Schaus and White, other committee members include Joe Alleva, the director of athletics at LSU; Janet Cone, the director of athletics at the North Carolina-Asheville; Mark Hollis, the director of athletics at Michigan State; Tom Holmoe, the director of athletics at Brigham Young; Bernard Muir, the director of athletics at Stanford; Bruce Rasmussen, the director of athletics at Creighton; and Peter Roby, the director of athletics at Northeastern.