The cleanup began in earnest at San Diego State yesterday, with university President Stephen Weber announcing Gene Bartow as his interim athletic director.

That's Bartow, who was athletic director for 23 years at Alabama-Birmingham and grew the program from nothing to 17 sports.

Who replaced John Wooden at UCLA and won 647 games with six different programs through his illustrious college basketball coaching career, and had zero rules violations with the NCAA.

Whose nickname is "Clean Gene."

"We are pleased and fortunate to have someone as accomplished and as skilled as Gene," Weber said. "He brings everything we could possibly ask for in experience and integrity."

Bartow, 72, was given a three-month contract beginning July 1 that Weber said is worth $36,000, plus $1,500 a month in expenses.

After Rick Bay resigned under pressure on May 22 following a California State University auditor's report into his department, Weber said he planned to hire a permanent athletic director by Jan. 1. But that time line appears to have been moved up with Bartow here only three months.

Weber also announced that he has formed a search committee to look for Bay's permanent replacement and hopes to "identify" someone by early fall. The committee, which will meet for the first time next week, is chaired by Director of Human Resources Sue Blair and includes football coach Tom Craft and men's basketball coach Steve Fisher.

It does not, however, include Padres owner John Moores, who has donated nearly $30 million for facilities at SDSU in recent years. Asked whether Moores had been invited to serve on the committee, Weber said: "No."

In other developments:

SDSU still had not heard from the NCAA regarding the school's request for a two-month postponement of Friday's appeal hearing. In February, the NCAA put SDSU on two years' probation for major football violations under Craft and former head coach Ted Tollner.

If the NCAA does not grant an extension, Weber said he is prepared to go forward with the appeal on Friday.

Frank Musgrove, the athletic department's video coordinator, was let go Friday. SDSU Vice President Sally Roush said Musgrove's contract was "not renewed" in a routine effort to "improve the use of resources," but multiple sources told the Union-Tribune his dismissal came after university officials reviewed background material from the auditor's report.

Vance Redfern, the former senior associate athletic director who retired late last year, was paid a lump sum of $61,181 (not including salary) to leave the university and agree not to sue, according to settlement documents obtained by the Union-Tribune.

Redfern, who was Bay's right-hand man and was implicated in the auditor's report, moved to New Mexico in December. His settlement agreement says in part, "Various issues have arisen regarding his employment with SDSU."

Bartow inherits a department beset by problems. There is the NCAA probation, which extends through February 2005. There is the $1.45 million deficit and the potential for more cuts once the state budget is finalized. And there is the auditor's 37-page report and the boxes upon boxes of notes that may contain evidence of more wrongdoing.

"There's a lot of detailed information in the auditor's background material that isn't specified in the report," Roush said. "It's quite a lot of information and investigating it will take time.

"We've pretty much completed our review of the material. What we haven't completed is our follow-up on some of those threads."

Roush confirmed that the background material contains allegations of more NCAA violations.

"There's a lot of really old stuff, which I'm not sure the NCAA will still care about," Roush said. "There are also allegations of more recent violations that we haven't fully investigated, but my initial impression – and I'm not an expert – is that it's generally pretty minor."

The auditor's report made nearly 80 recommendations, and the school set up a series of deadlines to implement them. Weber said the university has started the process under Roush's guidance and that Bartow will not be directly involved.

Instead, Bartow's main job is to bring stability and integrity to a reeling department.

Translation: He'll meet a lot of boosters, shake a lot of hands and – by his own acknowledgment – play a lot of golf.

"He'll be a guy who's very visible," said Fisher, who has known Bartow for years. "He's a people person. He'll be a good soothing figure where we will have someone to go to when we have an issue. He gives credibility to those in the community who know athletics.

"He's a guy who has coached, who has been in the fires, who started an athletic program (at UAB) from scratch."

Or as Bartow put it: "I want the coaches and student-athletes to know that there's a body up there in the director of athletics office."

It was Fisher's old boss, former Michigan basketball coach (and part-time San Diego resident) Bill Frieder, who phoned Bartow two weeks ago and convinced him to spend the summer in San Diego. Bartow has been working as a special adviser with the NBA's Memphis Grizzlies and took a leave of absence.

Of course, it didn't take much arm-twisting. Bartow said he has played golf three times in the Birmingham area in recent weeks and kept getting rained out mid-round.

He also acknowledged that he wants to have a retirement home in San Diego but needs to convince his wife.

"I like this area," Bartow said, "and I thought, you know, if I get my wife out here for three months she might want to come back in a year or two. I like this part of the world.

"The other reason I wanted to come here is I think it's an interesting challenge. I hope that the administration over the next three months will find someone to add on to what's been accomplished here."

Weber said Bartow will have the ability to hire and fire but doesn't expect him to use it extensively, if at all.

"He'll have the same kinds of powers that Rick Bay had previously," Weber said. "I think it's fair to say that we want to keep a lot of that (hiring) available for the new incoming athletic director. You wouldn't want to fill up the place and then have a new person come in and not be able to put his or her own stamp on it."