Friday, March 23, 2012

PIAA tabs Lombardi executive director

STATE COLLEGE (AP) — The PIAA has selected longtime associate executive director Robert Lombardi to succeed Brad Cashman as head of the governing body for Pennsylvania scholastic sports.
The announcement was made Friday morning in State College, before the state basketball finals at the Jordan Center on the Penn State campus.
Lombardi has been associate executive director since 1988. He was one of two finalists for a national search that began in October. The other finalist was not identified, though the candidate was from outside the PIAA.
The candidates each had final interviews with the 31-member board Friday morning before the board voted unanimously to go with Lombardi.
“I’d like to make the PIAA the best it can be,” Lombardi said Friday night at the basketball championships. When pressed to offer specifics, Lombardi praised the quality of the organization’s officials, and said he hoped to improve lines of communications with the member schools.
“The schools, these are our customers,” he said. “The 225,000 young people playing, we need to tell their stories a little better. There are a lot of folks out there doing great things, and I think the public needs to know that.”
Cashman is retiring in July after 18 years as executive director. He cited the additions of the Philadelphia public and Catholic school leagues to the PIAA as one of the highlights of his tenure.

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