The National Collegiate Athletic Association says it will honor University of Hartford President Walter Harrison with its Gerald R. Ford award for his career-long advocacy of college sports and for promoting academic success among student-athletes.
The college-sports sanctioning body said Harrison will be honored at its 2015 NCAA convention in Washington D.C.
According to the NCAA Tuesday, Harrison, 68, a former college-hockey broadcaster and ex-New Britain Rock Cats game announcer, has chaired the NCAA’s Committee on Academic Performance its entire existence. He also serves on a group whose college presidents represent conferences without permanent seats on the Division I board of directors.
Harrison also served on the board from 2002-2007; the Executive Committee (now known as the Board of Governors) from 2004 to 2007 and chaired that group from 2005 to 2007, the NCAA said.
Harrison has led the 7,000-pupil private college in West Hartford since 1998.
The award, established in 2004 by late NCAA President Myles Brand, was first awarded to former Notre Dame President Theodore Hesburgh.
It is named for this nation’s 38th president, who was a star lineman on two national championship teams at the University of Michigan in the 1930s.
