Former LSU Chancellor Mark Emmert will blend his background in academia with athletics, as the NCAA Executive Committee named him president of the organization Tuesday. Emmert, who worked as LSU’s top leader from 1999 to 2004, will become the NCAA’s fifth chief executive when he takes the post Nov. 1, according to a NCAA news release.Emmert left LSU in 2004 to return as president to his alma mater, the University of Washington. Emmert will take over the job from Interim President James Isch, who took that post when Myles Brand died in September 2009, according to the NCAA release. “It is my great honor to accept this assignment,” Emmert said in the release. “It is more than a new job for me. This is special. This is an opportunity to help shape one of the great American institutions.”The UW Board of Regents announced in a news release the board will name an interim president while searching to permanently fill Emmert’s role. “We recognize that the NCAA presidency is a unique opportunity,” said Herb Simon, UW Board of Regents Chair. “It is the only organization of its kind, national in scope and we feel the only type of opportunity that could possibly lure Mark away from his alma mater. The nation’s gain is our loss.”Emmert “led Washington to its standing as second among all public and private institutions in research funding with $1 billion in grants and contracts per year” during his time there, according the NCAA release.Before coming to LSU, Emmert was chancellor of the University of Connecticut from 1995-99 and provost and vice president for academic affairs at Montana State University from 1992-95. Sean O’Keefe, who had been administrator of NASA and U.S. Secretary of the Navy, followed Emmert as LSU’s chancellor in 2004 until he resigned amid pressure from the Board of Supervisors in 2008. Michael Martin, LSU’s current chancellor, took the post in August 2008. He previously worked as president of New Mexico State University. –Contact Nicholas Persac at [email protected]