By Libby Sander

The search for Myles Brand's successor is officially under way.

After weeks of speculation over who might succeed the man who was the first college president to lead the NCAA, officials said Thursday afternoon that the search had begun. A search committee planned to meet for the first time Thursday night, and its chairman, Edward J. Ray, president of Oregon State University, said the committee hoped to have a new president in place by the beginning of the 2010-11 academic year.

Mr. Ray made the announcement at the conclusion of the association's presidential meetings Thursday in Indianapolis, during which he also assumed the role of chairman of the NCAA's executive committee.

He succeeds Michael F. Adams, who stepped down abruptly on Thursday, with six months remaining of his term. (The departing chairman, who is president of the University of Georgia, will continue to serve on the NCAA's Division I Board of Directors.)

Mr. Adams, whose name has been floated as a possible successor to Mr. Brand, said on Thursday that to remain on the executive committee would distract people from the search for a new president.

In other news from the meetings, the Division I Board of Directors approved a series of new measures intended to rein in college coaches who funnel money to people associated with prospective athletes to gain access to those recruits.

The measures, which take effect immediately, deal with a variety of practices that have cropped up in recent years in the highly competitive recruiting landscape for men's basketball. The rules bar coaches from giving jobs to people close to a recruit, for instance, and prohibit the use of 1-900 telephone numbers for contacting prospective athletes.

James E. Delany, commissioner of the Big Ten Conference, said in a phone call with reporters that the new rules would regulate a recruiting environment for men's basketball that has changed significantly in the past decade and provide "a bright line" for coaches regarding tactics that are now prohibited.