INDIANAPOLIS — Myles Brand, who fired Bob Knight as Indiana University basketball coach and went on to become NCAA president, died yesterday of pancreatic cancer. He was 67.

The first former university president to run college sports' largest governing body, Brand worked to change the perception that wins supersede academics and earned accolades for his efforts.

Brand broke the news that he had cancer in January at the NCAA convention and continued to handle the organization's day-to-day operations, despite undergoing treatment. NCAA officials, who announced his death, were not ready to say who would replace Brand or when they may begin searching for a successor.

"Myles Brand's passing is a great personal loss of a dear friend and an even greater loss to the NCAA and collegiate athletics," said Georgia president Michael Adams, who worked closely with Brand. "I believe Myles will be remembered as a person who helped us refocus on the student in student-athlete and his academic reforms will long outlive him."

Brand gained national attention in May 2000 when, as Indiana president, he put Knight on a zero-tolerance policy after a former player alleged the hugely successful but hotheaded coach had choked him during a practice years earlier.

Four months after that announcement, freshman Kent Harvey accused Knight of grabbing him, and Brand did what fans considered unthinkable — he fired the coach who won three national championships in Bloomington.

Indiana students protested at the time of the firing, gathering in front of Brand's home and even hanging him in effigy, but his decision gave Brand a platform to address the problems he saw in college sports.

After his term began in January 2003, Brand pushed for tougher eligibility standards for incoming freshman and current students. Eventually, the NCAA adopted two new academic measures, the Academic Progress Report and the Graduation Success Rate — calculations that provide real-time statistics on how athletes are performing in the classroom.

Those initiatives earned praise from university administrators and others.