UCI Is Left With No Finalists : College athletics: Cegles, the last remaining candidate for athletic director’s job, withdraws from consideration.

IRVINE —  Vic Cegles, the last remaining finalist for the UC Irvine athletic director’s job, withdrew from consideration Thursday, sending Irvine back to the drawing board after failing to negotiate an agreement with any of its three finalists.

“I pulled out,” said Cegles, an assistant athletic director at Arizona State. “The process went on too long.”

Cegles became the leading candidate by default after Irvine’s first choice--Brad Rothermel, former Nevada Las Vegas athletic director--withdrew because the school would not meet his demands for $1 million or more in additional departmental funding. The third finalist, Fairleigh Dickinson Athletic Director Roy Danforth, had withdrawn earlier for unspecified reasons.

But some members of Irvine’s nine-person search committee apparently were not satisfied with choosing Cegles from a group of one, and the committee met Tuesday to review the status of the search. James McGaugh, the chairman of the committee and director of the university’s Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, declined comment on the discussion.

Cegles, a highly regarded fund-raiser who has been at Arizona State seven years, returned to Irvine on Monday for an informal third interview with upper-level administrators. But when he had not heard from Horace Mitchell, vice chancellor for student affairs, by Thursday, he telephoned Mitchell’s office and left a message removing the final contender--himself--from contention.

“I think it’s a great institution, and the coaches and the student-athletes are doing a great job,” said Cegles, who like both other finalists expressed dismay at Irvine’s $2.8-million athletic budget. “But I think the expectation level the institution has and the expectations I had were just too different--both for the job and the funding.”

Irvine is seeking a replacement for Tom Ford, whose resignation in July also was influenced by budget issues.

Now, nearly seven weeks after Irvine began interviewing candidates, the search appears to be back at the same spot.

One of the other two men who received preliminary interviews, former Coastal Carolina Athletic Director Ed Green, said Wednesday he had not heard from Irvine recently. The other, outgoing New Mexico Athletic Director Gary Ness, was generally judged not to have interviewed well.

The only other obvious candidates--Barbara Camp, the acting athletic director, and Associate Athletic Director Ed Carroll--both say they are not interested.