New athletic director to bring “˜real integrity’

By Vytas Mazeika
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
[email protected]

Chancellor Albert Carnesale described the UCLA athletic director
position as one requiring a person of “unquestionable
integrity, both real and perceived.”

Then, with an almost seamless delivery, Carnesale praised Dan
Guerrero, the university’s new athletic director, as a man of
“impeccable credentials in integrity.”

It seemed as if every other sentence coming out of
Carnesale’s mouth included the word
“integrity.”

As Peter Dalis’ 19-year tenure is poised to end June 30
with his retirement, it will be important for UCLA to enter the
Guerrero era without any of the indiscretions the athletic
department has recently endured ““ including the handicapped
parking placard and DeShaun Foster fiascos.

So Guerrero, 50, took the baton from Carnesale at Friday’s
press conference and sprinted the rest of the way with the same
topic.

“We’re going to be about winning, and we’ll
continue to be about winning, but we want to win the right
way,” Guerrero said.

“So when I say substance, it’s win without
compromising integrity. It’s win by doing things right. And
it’s win in a way that everyone that supports this program
will be proud of what we do and how we do it.”

Is all the talk of “integrity” for real? Is it
merely perceived?

Those who know Guerrero best, his coaches at UC Irvine, with
whom Guerrero spent the past 10 years as athletic director,
don’t hesitate to support Carnesale’s statements.

Though Guerrero fired 10 coaches in his first five years at UCI,
he didn’t immediately clean house. That’s not
Guerrero’s style according to head track coach Vince
O’Boyle, who has been at UCI for 20 years.

O’Boyle tells the story of the women’s volleyball
head coach, who was fired because she did not deliver the desired
results after receiving an extension. Guerrero did the same with
the men’s basketball head coach, giving him chances to
succeed before searching for a replacement.

“I think he’s going to see what’s happening,
see what resources they’ve got, see what the problems are and
try to address the problems and help those programs cure the
problems instead of knocking around and trying to move people
out,” O’Boyle said.

If his time at UCI is to be an indicator, Guerrero is not likely
to overlook the non-revenue sports at UCLA. According to
women’s water polo head coach Julie Swail, Guerrero was
always very supportive. He attended several water polo games, and
kept up with how staff and even players were doing.

“I think what Dan is known for is trying to make all of
the coaches and all of the athletes feel special,” Swail
said. “I think if you ask the coaches or athletes what they
will remember about him, it’s that he made each team feel
very special and really gave the time and energy to each individual
program, not just to the big programs.”

Whether Guerrero can do the same at UCLA remains to be seen. But
it’s hard to count out an athletic director who revived UCI
athletics.

“Please know, that under my leadership we will be involved
in doing something, and doing something that will be very, very
special for the student-athletes of this campus and for the members
of the UCLA community,” Guerrero said.

That sounds like a promise from a man of impeccable integrity,
both real and perceived.