Indiana Sports Corp to Honor Jim Host, Gene Corrigan at Men’s Final Four

The Indiana Sports Corp will present the 2024 Tom Jernstedt Lifetime Achievement Award to Jim Host and will posthumously honor Gene Corrigan for their careers dedicated to the advancement of Division I men’s basketball.

Host and Corrigan will be honored at the 2024 Men’s Final Four in Phoenix on April 8. The Tom Jernstedt Lifetime Achievement Award was created in 2023 by the Sports Corp to honor those who best exemplify the leadership and service demonstrated by Jernstedt during his 38-year tenure at the NCAA and who have made a meaningful impact on college basketball.

Host was founder and chief executive officer of Host Communications, a collegiate sports marketing and production services company, that first bought the radio broadcast rights to University of Kentucky basketball in 1974 and was awarded the rights for the NCAA Radio Network in advance of the 1976 championship. Six years later, Host Communications co-produced the NCAA Radio Network with CBS Radio. Host is credited with starting what is now called the NCAA’s Corporate Partner and Champion program in 1983.

Corrigan’s experience in college basketball launched in 1971 when he was named athletics director at the University of Virginia. After 10 years in Charlottesville, he became the athletics director at Notre Dame and simultaneously served on the Division I men’s basketball committee for the 1982–1987 championships. During Corrigan’s time on the men’s basketball committee, the bracket expanded to 52 teams in 1983 and 53 teams in 1984. Corrigan would become the commissioner of the ACC from 1987–1995, then NCAA president from 1995–1997. Corrigan passed away on January 25, 2020, at the age of 91.