Cal's Sandy Barbour out as athletic director

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Cal Athletic Director Sandy Barbour will leave her position next month, a university official confirmed late Thursday.

In Barbour's decade at the helm of Cal athletics, the school produced 19 national team titles, renovated seismically unsound Memorial Stadium and built a state-of-the-art athletic performance center. But her tenure has been fraught with problems, including:

-- The ongoing issues associated with paying off the debt on the stadium and athletic center, estimated in June 2013 at $445 million.

-- The decline of a football program that ranked near the top of the then-Pac-10 for most of the 2000s, but had only one win last season.

-- A shocking report in October that listed the football program as having the worst graduation rate among the 72 major-conference universities and the men's basketball program as having the worst graduation rate among Pac-12 schools.

On Barbour's exit, a UC Berkeley senior administration official who declined to be identified said Chancellor Nicholas Dirks "has been involved in discussions about the future of the athletics program. He believes the university and intercollegiate athletics (are) at a crossroads and will benefit from new leadership and a new perspective.

"He's also gratified that Sandy Barbour came to share that conviction."

Graduation report

Sandy Barbour's time at Cal was fraught with problems. Sandy Barbour's time at Cal was fraught with problems. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 12 Caption Close Cal's Sandy Barbour out as athletic director 1 / 12 Back to Gallery

The October graduation report is believed to have cost Barbour support among many of the Bears' most loyal alums.

In October, Barbour acknowledged the damage the report had done. "Ultimately," she said, "it is my responsibility."

"She's tried hard all the time she's been here, but she's been over her head as a manager," said Michael O'Hare, who teaches public management at the Goldman School of Public Policy. "There have been a variety of bad outcomes - whether success on the field or graduation rates or financial pressures, especially from the stadium - that have come to pass. She's been tasked to get the athletic department back on a reasonable keel for years, and it hasn't happened."

Barbour, 54, became Cal's athletic director in September 2004. She had been an assistant athletic director at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana and the athletic director at Tulane University in New Orleans.

Barbour's final day as athletic director will be July 15. She then will put together a sports-management program through UC Berkeley Extension.

Monday will mark the end of her fifth year of a six-year contract that began in 2009. She will receive just less than $417,000 for this year.

Pitied, not censured

O'Hare blames "the toxic environment of big-time sports" more for Cal's current problems than he faults Barbour. "She's more to be pitied than censured, and she's to be admired for having undertaken" the job.

Cal will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. Friday to introduce an interim athletic director. One source described that person as a "prominent alum and former Cal student-athlete."

In December 2012, Barbour hired Sonny Dykes to replace Jeff Tedford as head football coach. Dykes signed a five-year deal worth $9.7 million. Fans were hoping Dykes would reinvigorate a program that fell to 3-9 in 2012.

Far from improving, Cal fell to 1-11 in 2013.

In September 2010, Barbour and then-Chancellor Robert Birgeneau cited financial reasons for the planned elimination of four programs - baseball, women's lacrosse and men's and women's gymnastics - and the reduction of Cal's decorated rugby program from a varsity sport to what was termed a "varsity club sport."

Ultimately, funding was found to keep all five of those programs at the varsity level.

Barbour had success in hiring basketball coaches: Recently retired Mike Montgomery led the Bears to the postseason in each of his six years as head coach.

For the women, Barbour hired Lindsay Gottlieb in 2011. She has led Cal to three consecutive NCAA Tournament berths.

Chronicle staff writer Ron Kroichick contributed to this report.