SEARCH MIGHT NOT GO VERY FAR UCLA HAS ITS OWN STOCK OF QUALIFIED CANDIDATES.

Byline: Billy Witz Staff Writer

UCLA plans to conduct a nationwide search for its next athletic director and the process could take six months. It could take them no farther than the office right next door to Peter Dalis.

Associate athletic director Betsy Stephenson, the senior women's administrator, is widely considered the front-runner for the job. She has the advantage of having worked at UCLA for the past five years and also the benefit of being one of the few people in the athletic department to have worked elsewhere.

Stephenson came to UCLA after stints at Kansas, her alma mater, and the NCAA. She declined comment on her interest in the job, preferring instead to talk about Dalis.

Three other associate athletic directors also are expected to apply for the job: Rick Purdy, a UCLA and Van Nuys High alumnus who has overseen the scholarship endowment program that is the athletic department's financial bedrock; Ken Weiner, who oversaw the athletic department's new Hall of Fame, and Glenn Toth.

``This seems to be a fairly cohesive group,'' Toth said. ``We all have our strengths and weakness.''

If the search committee, which will be formed and headed by vice chancellor Pete Blackman (a former Bruins basketball player), wants someone with experience as an athletic director and with UCLA ties, there are two candidates.

Gene Bleymaier, a former UCLA tight end, is in his 20th year as athletic director at Boise State. After graduating from Loyola Law School, he worked as an assistant athletic director at UCLA before leaving for Boise.

Bleymaier, who declined comment on his interest in the job, keeps in contact with several administrators, including Dalis. He has overseen his school's transition from the Big Sky to the Big West to the WAC in recent years. The Boise State football team won a Division I-AA title and advanced to the Humanitarian Bowl the past two seasons under former head coach Dirk Koetter, now at Arizona State, and this year's team recently gained attention by upsetting 10th-ranked Fresno State.

UC Irvine athletic director Dan Guerrero is a former UCLA baseball player whose hiring of basketball coach Pat Douglass has turned the Anteaters from one of the worst teams in the country to a Big West champion.

He's also put his department in a steady-enough financial position that the school is bringing back baseball, a sport it dropped in the early 1990s as part of a school-wide belt tightening.

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LIKELY CHOICE

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Associate athletic director Betsey Stephenson is the front-runner among a short list of candidates to replace Peter Dalis as athletic director.