HE WAS WORTH HIS WEIGHT IN TENURE.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

Peter Dalis delights in recalling that when he first set foot on the UCLA campus in September 1955, his undergraduate tuition was $48 a semester and Westwood was a wide-open space.

``You could drive up the main road and park in front of the Men's Gym at 8 o'clock in the morning,'' he said to reporters so unfamiliar with those days of free and easy parking at UCLA, a few must have though Dalis was talking about horses and buggies.

Oh, how things have changed.

In 1955, Pauley Pavilion had not yet been built, John Wooden was that young coach who hadn't won anything nationally, and the Bruins were the reigning champions of college football.

Oh, my how things have changed.

At UCLA, and in college sports everywhere, everything has changed, even in the 18 years that Pete Dalis has been the university's athletic director.

Proof of that change is the fact that when Dalis, 63, announced Monday afternoon that he will retire next June, he could be hailed for a job well done.

When Dalis was named athletic director in 1983, replacing Bob Fischer, men in that position were judged by the standards set by Fischer's late predecessor, the legendary J.D. Morgan. Athletic directors in Morgan's era, from the early 1960s to the late 1970s, were grand characters who ruled their simple worlds with autonomy, often more powerful than school chancellors and presidents.

Morgan, the commander of a World War II PT boat with a giant presence, gave Wooden the means to win his 10 basketball national championships, and presided over UCLA's 20 national titles in 17 years in the minor sports (all men's, back then).

If he were measured against Morgan's personality and power, the dour, deliberate, details-oriented Dalis could not be considered a success.

Then again, who knows if Morgan would have been a success in Dalis' era?

Chances are, Morgan wouldn't recognize modern college sports.

Morgan didn't have to worry about women's sports and Title IX. He didn't have to negotiate television contracts (the NCAA controlled TV time). He had less scrutiny from the NCAA and the university, no strict scholarship limits to chafe against, no drug testing to raise privacy issues, no Internet to intensify the media migraines.

College sports wasn't a cash-eating monster in Morgan's time.

By contrast, Dalis' athletic department operates on a $37 million annual budget.

``It is much more of a business now,'' said Thomas Hansen, the Pacific-10 Conference commissioner since a few months before Dalis became athletic director. ``J.D. was a great businessman, but things weren't as dollar-driven then.''

Given the demands of the job then and now, and the suitability of the men who held it, Hansen doesn't hesitate to say: ``J.D. Morgan was a great athletic director in his time, and Pete Dalis is a great athletic director in his time.''

Blood-and-guts Bruins fans might beg to differ.

UCLA basketball has won only (only!) one national title, and the coaching reign of Jim Harrick collapsed shortly thereafter in scandal, one of the Dalis athletic department's several losing skirmishes with the rulebook. Dalis is the guy who hired Walt Hazzard and who tortured Steve Lavin with uncharacteristically loose talk about courting Rick Pitino.

UCLA football has become an annual tease.

So what if, under Dalis, UCLA has won 39 national titles in various sports? That total includes women's water polo.

The answer is that nowadays, athletic directors are not judged by basketball and football alone.

``A program like UCLA's has doubled in scope since 1980,'' Hansen said.

Within the conference, Dalis' legacy might be the TV contracts he has helped to negotiate.

At UCLA, the legacy of the man whose 47-year career in and around Bruins sports began when he was a football team student manager under Red Sanders might be building the John R. Wooden Center and modernizing the Morgan Center, projects that rewarded millions of dollars in fund-raising efforts.

It's not the stuff of a legend, but it's what it takes nowadays to be the longest-tenured AD in the Pac-10.

``Pete is a very complete package,'' Hansen said. ``That's somewhat unusual. Almost every (AD) comes up short in one area or another. He has lasted 18 years as UCLA's athletic director. That's extraordinary in this day and age when nobody stays anywhere very long.''

In 1983, Dalis had big shoes to fill.

Next June, Dalis' successor will have sensible shoes to fill.

If UCLA doesn't name a building for him, at least it can save him a parking space.