NIU President John LaTourette Tuesday named Raymond J. Dembinski the chairman of the NIU Athletic Board.

Dembinski, a professor of special education, will take over the spot beginning August 15 and will succeed James Mellard, who has served as the board’s interim chairman since late March. Mellard, an English professor, became interim chair when Curt Norton, a 10-year board member, resigned from his position in protest of Athletic Director Gerald O’Dell’s firing of men’s basketball coach Jim Rosborough.

The parent of two sons who have competed in intercollegiate sports, Dembinski says he will be “sensitive to demands placed on student-athletes,” having dealt with the issues as a parent, professor and six-year athletic board member.

“As a parent, I understand the demands and stresses placed on student-athletes,” he said. “My experiences have taught me to look for a balance between institutional success, coaches’ desires, athletic board’s interests and the student-athletes’ time and abilities.”

Representing the College of Education on the Athletic Board for the past six years, Dembinski has been on several board committees, including those dealing with budgets, scheduling and structure of the board, and also has been on search committees for wrestling and men’s basketball coach. During that time, he also has worked with three board chairs—Nancy Vedral, Norton and Mellard—and with four athletic directors—Mellard, Robert Brigham, Susie Pembroke-Jones and O’Dell.

Before coming to NIU in 1972, Dembinski taught in Indianapolis at Indiana University-Purdue University, was administrative director of the Indiana Department of Mental Health’s development disabilities program and was an instructor in the psychiatry department at the Indiana University Medical Center.

Dembinski, 48, and his wife Pat are the parents of two sons, Tim and Todd, both of whom have competed in intercollegiate baseball. Tim played at Indiana University, while Todd will be a sophomore at Eastern Illinois.

As board chairman, Dembinski will be one of 22 board members, only 17 with votes. Although NCAA rules state that athletic boards, either advisory or in control of athletics, are not required, LaTourette said he is “pleased with the system we have at NIU to provide helpful, balanced and informed advice to the president from our key athletic constituencies.”

The NIU Athletic Board, although “directly responsible” to NIU’s president, also reports on substantive policy changes directly to the University Council, NIU’s academic policy-making body, which must approve such changes. Among the board’s duties are “responsibility for directing the policies through which intercollegiate athletics, both men’s and women’s programs, shall function as a university activity.”