NIU athletic department personnel gave mixed reviews of the internal committee’s report which was released Tuesday.

Men’s Athletic Director Robert Brigham said Wednesday he would be in favor of implementing the recommendation to have only one athletic director. However, he said he does not know if one athletic director would be better than two because he has not seen such a system in place.

At one point during the interview, Brigham said he would not apply for the director’s position because he would be retiring in two years. Later, he retracted that statement, saying he was keeping his options open.

Brigham, who graduated from NIU in the 1940s, has been athletic director since 1968. “Northern has been good to me. I certainly can’t be anything but supportive. I think it’s always a great honor to work for your alma mater,” Brigham said.

Brigham declined comment on the report’s statement of problems associated with the two-athletic director system, although he said he did not like the reference to an “us against them” problem between men’s and women’s athletics.

Men’s basketball coach Jim Rosborough said he only deals with Brigham. However, he said problems stemming from the need for other areas of the athletic department to go through Brigham and women’s Athletic Director Susie Pembroke-Jones probably are true. He said he would prefer for women’s basketball coach Jane Albright to choose a permanent practice time instead of the men and women switching every year.

Brigham said a recommendation to drop its Division I-A status for football and Division I status for the other sports does not bother him because NIU should be on its way to reaching its goals. Football coach Jerry Pettibone agreed.

“I can appreciate that,” Pettibone said. “We have to increase our revenues. We have to strive for excellence in football. I don’t think that is an unfair judgement by the review committee.”

Brigham also said men’s Associate Athletic Director Chuck Shriver was hired for promotions but not solely to handle the men’s sports. The report expressed a lack of clarity over Chuck Shriver’s job, stating he was hired under the impression that he would work with the men but wound up working as much with the women.

Pettibone said he has not had problems with two sets of equipment being ordered. He said he was happy with proposals for priority scheduling for athletes and the plans to expand Huskie Stadium and build a new basketball arena.