ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 21, 1996 TAG: 9602210047
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
CHUCK TAYLOR, athletic director since 1974, wants to teach full time.
Chuck Taylor, the only athletic director Radford University has ever had, has submitted a formal request to university president Douglas Covington to be reassigned to the classroom as a full-time physical education professor.
The request is included in Covington's report to the university Board of Visitors, which convenes today for a two-day meeting.
It will be up to the board to act on Taylor's request to return to full-time teaching when school opens next fall. He has been Radford athletic director since 1974, his first year at the university.
Taylor declined comment until the board has a chance to meet.
According to sources familiar with his thinking, Taylor believed the time was right to step down as AD both for personal reasons and to give Covington an opportunity to install his own person as the head of the athletic department.
Covington has been Radford president since last June.
``He needs to get a member of his team in there [as AD],'' a source quoted Taylor as saying.
Furthermore, it is known that Taylor has grown weary of the daily grind of a job that he has held for 22 years. There are no indications that his request to be reassigned is anything other than voluntary.
Taylor spent Tuesday meeting with coaches and other athletic department personnel to inform them of his decision.
Taylor has taught at least one physical education class at Radford every year since he's been there. Tenured for almost 15 years, his formal title is associate professor of physical education.
Covington would like for Taylor to continue to work closely with athletics, according to a source familiar with the situation. One possible role for Taylor would be as a faculty representative to the NCAA, a post held currently by Chuck Hayes. Taylor already serves on the Advisory Council that governs the university's athletic fund-raising body, the Athletic Association.
Taylor first came to the university, then still known as Radford College, as chairman of the then Department of Health, Physical Education, Dance, and Recreation. Within a year, he had been appointed by then president Donald Dedmon as the school's first men's basketball coach (men only recently had been admitted) and athletic director.
Taylor directed the then independent NAIA basketball team to a 56-43 four-year record before turning the program over to Joe Davis in 1978.
Radford had six sports when Taylor began at Radford. It has 17 now.
Taylor has enjoyed a reputation as an ardent supporter of gender equity long before it was a popular political issue.
Taylor ushered the program from independent status, to the NAIA for the men and the now defunct Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, to NCAA Division II, to Division I. The Dedmon Center was built on his watch.
Taylor is known to have been increasingly discouraged in recent years as Radford's athletics battled with shrinking budgets. That may have played a part in his decision to step down.
Taylor is a graduate of Union (Tenn.) University, and he earned a master's in physical education from Western Kentucky and a doctorate from Virginia Tech.
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Taylor.by CNB