NCAA head Myles Brand dead of cancer

INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 16 (UPI) -- NCAA President Myles Brand, best remembered for firing fiery Indiana University basketball coach Bob Knight, died of pancreatic cancer Wednesday in Indianapolis.

Brand, 67, had announced in January he had been diagnosed with the fatal disease a month earlier, but continued to work despite chemotherapy.

Brand, who dismissed Knight in September 2000, became NCAA president in January 2003.

"(He showed) everyone that academics is the first focus for student-athletes, the membership and the organization," Executive Vice President Tom Jernstedt said on the NCAA Web site. "Myles was a visionary."

"Myles Brand leaves a clear and strong legacy that captures all the best things about college sports," said University of Hartford President Walter Harrison, a former chairman of the NCAA executive committee.