DATE: Wednesday, June 4, 1997               TAG: 9706040681

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY STEVE CARLSON, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   85 lines

BRAINE WAS ARCHITECT OF AN ATHLETIC RESURGENCE AT TECH

The athletic director's job at Virginia Tech was not too attractive when Dave Braine accepted the position almost a decade ago.

It will be considerably more appealing for his successor.

Braine was introduced Tuesday in Atlanta as the new athletic director at Georgia Tech, a sobering move for most at the school he left behind. In Braine's 9 1/2 years the Hokies have gone from a moribund, debt-plagued, scandal-ridden program to a school with national name recognition, thanks to football and basketball success, and a steady stream of construction crews working on ever-improving athletic facilities.

``With Dave leaving, we kind of stop and take a look at where we've been and where we are now,'' Virginia Tech president Paul Torgersen said Tuesday. ``I'm very proud of where we are. Dave's the man behind the scenes, a lot of it's attributable to him.''

A lot of it's attributable to football membership in the Big East, which Braine helped usher into existence as a football league to get Tech out of the abyss of Division I football independent status. Without Big East membership, football coach Frank Beamer's last two teams probably don't win 20 games. Even if the Hokies do, they finish those seasons in places like the Peach or Independence bowls rather than the more-delectable - and outrageously more profitable - Sugar and Orange, the last two of their four consecutive trips.

When Braine came to Virginia Tech, the football and basketball programs were on probation. And the debt Braine inherited, associate athletic director/business manager Jeff Bourne said Tuesday, was $2.5 million and rising. Under Braine, Tech has established a firm financial footing, started operating in the black and begun repaying that debt.

``We started with a program nine years ago that was in a lot of trouble athletically,'' Torgersen said. ``Not only were we not doing well, we were not doing well very poorly.''

In other words, graduation rates were abysmal and so was the school's athletic reputation.

Under Braine, Tech has pulled up its graduation rate for athletes and put up athletic facilities at a rapid pace. The $9 million Merryman Athletic Facility - to house a weight room, sports medicine center, academic advising center, auditorium and meeting rooms - is under construction. Braine could look out his office window and count a baseball facility, track/soccer complex and a tennis center - all either dedicated during his tenure or under construction - among his accomplishments.

``He's done great things here,'' said Sharon McCloskey, the senior associate athletic director who will serve as interim athletic director.

Braine shepherded Tech into the Atlantic 10 for sports other than football when the Metro imploded a few years ago. In addition to the Big East football co-championship this past year, Tech won conference titles in nine of the 18 Atlantic 10 sports in which it fields teams. Virginia Tech beefed up women's sports offerings under Braine, and was recently ranked sixth nationally among universities in compliance with Title IX.

``The whole athletic program is better now than it was when he came here,'' Beamer said Tuesday. ``I really hate to see him go. We had a very good relationship. We didn't always agree, but I think we respected each other enough to work things out when we didn't agree.''

Torgersen said the only thing Braine left undone was all-sports membership in a conference, an issue that continuously plagued the athletic director, and the chance to test the new policy for misbehaving athletes. That policy was born out of the rash of off-the-field problems in the football program.

But there wasn't much else for Braine to do in Blacksburg from a career standpoint. He does have a son, grandchild and daughter in town. The daughter is a Hokies volleyball player.

``The man probably has 10 or 12 years before he retires,'' Torgersen said. ``I think he was looking for a new challenge.''

Tech could not challenge the financial package offered by Georgia Tech. Torgersen informed members of the Board of Visitors of Braine's decision in a letter Monday. Torgersen wrote that Tech pays Braine $150,000 and was prepared to offer him a raise and a 10-year contract that would carry him through to retirement.

``Georgia Tech offered him a five-year contract and an initial salary package, including a TV contract, of $250,000,'' Torgersen wrote. ``To match that offer would require our paying Dave more than half again the salary we pay the Provost, our chief academic officer. Even if we could find the money, and I anticipate we could have done so, I was not prepared to make that a priority statement for Virginia Tech. Stated another way, to pay an athletic director that salary, would in my opinion demean faculty, students and the university as an academic enterprise. As a Tech faculty member of more than 30 years, I could not do so.''

Torgersen said Tuesday it may be six months before a permanent replacement is named.

``What we'd like to do is clone Dave Braine,'' Torgersen said. ``Finding someone not that different than Dave would be ideal.''

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