Cedric Dempsey, the man who hired Lute Olson away from Iowa and turned the Arizona athletic department into a Top 10 enterprise from 1983-94, died Saturday in San Diego. He was 92.
Dempsey, who left Arizona to become the executive director of the NCAA in 1994, also hired UA Hall of Fame coaches and multiple-national champions Frank Busch, swimming; and Mike Candrea, softball, a period known as the “glory days” of UA athletics.
Cedric Dempsey, left, the former University of Arizona athletic director, has a laugh with UA softball coach Mike Candrea as they await the introduction of Dave Heeke as the athletic director in 2017.
A native of Equality, Illinois, Dempsey was hired by the UA as an assistant basketball coach and assistant AD in 1963. He left in 1967 to be the AD at Pacific. He later was the athletic director at San Diego State and Houston before moving to Tucson in the summer of 1983.
He graduated from Albion College in Michigan, a basketball standout; it was the same school that the UA’s first athletic director, Pop McKale, attended 50 years earlier.
Dempsey was known for his financial responsibility — the school’s athletic department never finished a season in debt during his tenure — and for his acute ability to hire championship-level coaches like Olson, Candrea, Busch, Joan Bonvicini, Dick Tomey and Dave Murray.
Dempsey was the executive director of the NCAA from 1994-2003, where he pursued financial responsibility and negotiated major TV contracts with ESPN and CBS.
He survived cancer in the late ’80s while at the UA and went on to be the chairman of the NCAA Tournament’s selection committee.
In 2020, the Star named Dempsey the No. 11 most significant sports figure in Tucson history.
