Myles Brand

He beat the bully. Myles Brand, the NCAA president who died Sept. 16 at 67, will always be remembered as the man who finally fired Bobby Knight. For years, the basketball coach’s boorish behavior had embarrassed Indiana University, of which Brand was president. After Brand bounced Knight in 2000 for allegedly grabbing a student, rabid supporters of the coach burned Brand in effigy. But history will laud Brand’s bravery. In 2003 he took over the NCAA, an outfit in desperate need of stricter academic standards. Though he couldn’t purify college sports–can anyone?–Brand’s reforms held schools more accountable by threatening to revoke athletic scholarships for poor classroom performance. Brand never looked like a power broker; the former philosophy professor seemed better suited to lecture halls. The scholarly demeanor, however, masked his grit. “He doesn’t take s___ from anyone,” admitted one of Brand’s toughest critics. In college sports, the bully will always be the bigger man on campus. But this smart guy was the bigger man.