U.S. Olympic chief resigns in resume scandal

Baldwin resigned Friday after acknowledging discrepancies in her academic credentials.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (CNN) -- The president of the U.S. Olympic Committee resigned Friday after revelations that academic information in her official biography was inaccurate.

Sandra "Sandy" Baldwin, 62, had told USOC Chief Executive Lloyd Ward that she would resign, and the executive committee accepted that resignation Friday morning.

"This is an emotional time for Sandy and the Olympic family," Ward said in a statement issued Friday. "She did what she considered best for the USOC and the Olympic movement. She took full responsibility for her actions and the mistakes in her biographical sketch."

Baldwin, the first female president of the USOC, claimed to have graduated in 1962 from the University of Colorado and to have received a doctorate in American literature in 1967 from Arizona State University. She later taught English at Arizona State for 11 years.

She admitted in a news conference Thursday that the information was false, and that she in fact graduated from Arizona State in 1962 after leaving Colorado three years earlier and never completed her dissertation.

She said she received a master's degree from Arizona State but did not complete her dissertation because she had two small children and had to run the family farm after her parents' deaths.

"I accept full responsibility for the mistakes I have made," Baldwin said in the statement Friday.

The USOC said it has already begun the process of replacing Baldwin, who became a member of the International Olympic Committee earlier this year.

The International Olympic Committee had no immediate comment on her resignation.

Baldwin was elected USOC president in December 2000 after serving as the committee's vice president and treasurer. She led the U.S. delegation at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.

The mother of two adult children, Baldwin began her involvement in sports when her son took swimming lessons as a child. She went on to serve as chairwoman of Arizona Swimming and president of the Arizona Amateur Athletic Union.

Her involvement with the USOC began when she pushed for passage of the Amateur Sports Act in 1978, in which Congress officially placed the USOC in charge of U.S. Olympic sports.

Baldwin also served on the board of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games and the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee.