Walters '67 will miss 'love letters' from Syracuse fans

Little work is accomplished the Monday after Selection Sunday, when American workers pick upsets instead of stocks and substitute brackets for spreadsheets. And for the last four years, one of the people sowing the seeds for all that non-productivity has been Princeton Director of Athletics Gary Walters '67.

This year, Walters capped his service to the NCAA men's basketball tournament selection committee by serving as its chairman. Walters has always been close to college basketball, playing for Princeton's varsity squad before coaching at several schools and providing commentary for Big East telecasts.

He assumed his current role as athletic director in 1994, but it is his background in basketball that he believes aided his job on the selection committee.

"One of the benefits that I had and that [Virginia athletic director] Craig Littlepage had when we were first-year committee members was that we both had played basketball," Walters said, "and I had retained my involvement with basketball through the '80s.

"We felt that as a result of our basketball backgrounds, we'd be very comfortable as it relates to analyzing teams and looking at quantitative data and blending that with our own insights and perceptions."

Such quantitative data was crucial for Walters and the rest of the committee in choosing the teams. While numbers like the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) are not the sole determiner for teams — Florida was given the overall number-one seed despite being sixth in the RPI — statistics can compare teams in an objective way.

"We have lots of data as it relates to teams," Walters said, adding that teams could be sorted by any number of categories.

"A lot of people, the media in particular, [are] a little scared or just don't know the questions to ask. The RPI becomes this mystical instrument when in fact all it does is provide a general indication of relative strength. The more independent assessments we have, the better."

In addition to numbers, Walters pointed to conference tournaments — which every Division I conference has except the Ivy League — as a determining factor for seeding teams.

Walters leadership of the committee has been influenced by people from all over the basketball community. He credits not only past committee leaders Jim Livengood, Arizona's athletic director, and Bob Bowlsby, athletic director at Stanford, but also former Princeton coaches Pete Carril and Butch van Breda Kolff. Carril was Walters' coach in high school, while van Breda Kolff coached Walters and teammate Bill Bradley '65 to the Final Four in 1965.

"[Carril] gave me my roots and my values, and my character," Walters said. "[van Breda Kolff] gave me my wings, that enabled me to explore facets of my character that I had before I came here."

Livengood, Bowlsby and Littlepage showed "tact and class" in leading the committee before Walters took the helm, and he remains close to those individuals to this day.

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Serving on the committee may be a sports fan's dream but it was far from a walk in the park — Walters estimates that he watched 300 to 400 basketball games a year.

A typical weekend included eight games each Saturday and Sunday. To facilitate this, the NCAA bought Walters and all of the committee members DirecTV's college basketball package.

This year's NCAA committee was given an especially difficult task. A record 104 teams won at least 20 games, up from a previous high of 78. As a consequence, teams like Syracuse and Drexel were left out of the tournament, causing complaints from many quarters.

"The issue related to selection is always difficult," Walters said. "I've gotten a lot of love letters from Syracuse. The area where we got criticized the most was the omission of Syracuse and Drexel, but everybody was telling us to put them in without saying who we should leave out."

"The mailbox was full by midnight on Sunday the 11th," Kim Meszaros, Walters' assistant, said. "The calls were not cordial ... I had to hang up on a few of them."

A simple search of facebook.com reveals several groups calling for Walters' dismissal, one calling for its members to email Walters and several whose titles are much too vulgar for print.

"You're going to get love letters every year from somebody," Walters said, pointing out that the proliferation of preseason tournaments has increased the number of games teams play compared to years past.

Many point to this year's Final Four and Elite Eight as indicative of the success of the committee. The Elite Eight featured all four No. 1 seeds, three No. 2 seeds and one No. 3 seed, while the Final Four had two No. 1 seeds and two No. 2 seeds.

"Notwithstanding of the fact that we've gotten a lot of praise for the fact that there were two number ones and two number twos, serendipity plays a role in this," Walters said, pointing out that Florida was tied with Butler with two minutes, 20 seconds remaining in the game before Al Horford scored on a controversial three-point play, and that Ohio State needed late controversy against Xavier and a monumental comeback against Tennessee to advance.

Walters' duties do not end with Selection Sunday. He traveled to many of the games, including the Final Four in Atlanta and the finals of the East Regional, played at the Meadowlands and featuring John Thompson III '88's Georgetown Hoyas.

"John is proud of Princeton, he's proud of his relationship with Princeton, and he's a product of this institution and he represents it in a stellar way," Walters said. "You have to feel pride in Georgetown's performance. They will continue to be a power in collegiate basketball."

Walters had extensive duties during the Final Four, including meetings and ceremonies to attend with coaches, players, CBS personnel and selection committee alumni.

"You become a ceremonial spokesman for the NCAA," Walters said. "That weekend really was a whir. The NCAA staff does a spectacular job setting the whole thing up."

Next year Walters will be relieved of his duties, but there's no question he'll continue to do what he loves most: watch basketball.