University of Evansville Athletics

Jim Byers, Athletics Director 1977-1998

Possibly no athletics director in NCAA history has faced a situation in his first year like the one Jim Byers was dealt. Byers gave up his successful career as football coach at UE early in 1977 to become the school's first Division I director of athletics. Nine months later, the Aces' basketball team died in an airplane crash.

From that terribly low point, Byers built a Division I program in his 21 years as AD that reached the NCAA Tournament in soccer 11 times, basketball four times and baseball once, won three Midwestern Collegiate Conference all-sports championships, and produced 21 Academic All-Americans. It was Byers who hired soccer coach Fred Schmalz and baseball coach Jim Brownlee, who became two of the most successful coaches nationally in their respective sports. It was Byers who pursued Indiana University assistant basketball coach Jim Crews and convinced him to take the head coaching position at Evansville. It was Byers who built up the women's athletics program and hired some of the most respected women's coaches in the country, including soccer coach Mick Lyon and basketball coach Kathi Bennett. And it was Byers who helped create three leagues: the Heartland Collegiate Conference, Pioneer League (football) and Midwestern Collegiate Conference.

"Jim was the kind of boss who every coach wants," says former UE basketball coach Jim Crews. "First of all, his father was a coach (legendary Evansville Reitz High School football coach Herman Byers) and Jim was a coach himself, so he knew what his coaches needed to be successful. When things were going well and times were good, he stayed in the background. When times got tough, he was right there fighting for you."

Added soccer coach Fred Schmalz, "Not many football-oriented coaches would have the faith in soccer that he did. Not many would get themselves on the NCAA Soccer Committee at a time when he didn't know if a soccer ball was filled with air or stuffed with feathers. But Jim did it because he thought it was important."

One of Byers' few disappointments in his last 20 years as AD came in his final year, when UE decided to drop football. Byers tried to convince the administration that football was worth keeping, but in March of 1998, Dr. James Vinson announced that the sport was being cut.

"I had a lot of high and low points," Byers says. "But all along I was fortunate in having a job where I got up in the morning and looked forward to going to work. Not many people can say that."

A group of Byers' former football players created the James A. Byers Athletic Student Scholarship in 2000. The University will present the scholarship each spring to a junior in any of the Purple Aces' varsity sports, for use during the student-athlete's senior year. The first was awarded in 2003 to senior cross country runner Chris Hollinden from Tell City, Indiana.

"I don't expect the scholarship to be awarded to the most gifted athlete," Byers says. "This is designed to reward the athlete who gives the extra effort, who shows outstanding leadership, who tries just a little harder to make his or her team win. Those were always the traits I looked for in my players when I coached."