Sample, who turns 69 in November, said he will end his presidency in August, allowing USC trustees ample time to choose a new president for the 34,000-student private campus just south of downtown. 'It's a time for fresh leadership. I don't mean to sound self-congratulatory, but we've had a good run. And so, why not quit while you're ahead?' Sample, an electrical engineer who previously headed the State University of New York at Buffalo, said in an interview in his campus office. 'I think I'm still pretty high-energy compared to most university presidents. But I think a new president might bring a lot more energy and that would be great.' Diagnosed eight years ago with Parkinson's disease, Sample has a noticeable tremor in his right hand and walks somewhat stiffly, although his voice remains steady. He said that his health is stable and the illness was not a major factor in his decision. Yet he also spoke of life's unpredictability, noting with sadness that his predecessor, James H. Zumberge, was diagnosed with a brain tumor soon after resigning as USC president and died within a year. Many on campus said they expected USC's executive vice president and provost, C. L. Max Nikias, to be a strong contender to replace Sample. Board Chairman Edward P. Roski Jr. confirmed that Nikias would be a candidate but emphasized that the search would be open and thorough. 'We are going to search the whole gamut of individuals who would qualify,' said Roski, the chairman and chief executive of Majestic Realty Co. Becoming USC president 'after someone like Steve is a daunting task,' he said. 'We've made great strides under him and we want to continue those.' Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education, which represents 1,600 colleges and universities, praised Sample as 'a towering figure' in U.S. higher education who had helped catapult USC into the upper ranks. 'I think Steve is just about the perfect example of the benefits to a university that derive from long, continuous service by a leader, and that doesn't happen very much any more,' said Broad, a former president of the University of North Carolina. Since 1991, USC has climbed from 51st to 26th in U.S. News & World Report's rankings of U.S. research universities. Its number of freshman applicants more than tripled while the portion accepted dropped from 70 percent to an exclusive 24 percent. And the average SAT score of incoming freshmen rose 28 percent, to 2,068 this year out of a possible 2,400. USC's endowment grew from $450 million to nearly $4 billion before the recession, then fell to about $3 billion. USC's international presence -- particularly in Asia -- grew as Sample helped start a consortium of Pacific Rim universities. USC became the U.S. campus with the most foreign students, a position it has retained in recent years, with about 7,000 in attendance last year. Morton Owen Schapiro, president of Northwestern University and a former USC vice president and dean, said only one other school, New York University, has so transformed itself in recent decades. Sample understood that university leadership involves both improving substance and marketing the change, Schapiro said. 'The brilliance of Sample is that he does both,' he said. 'The good news is that Steve's successor is going to inherit an institution much stronger than Steve did. The scary thing is how do you replace Steve Sample?' Sample's time was marked both by tumult and achievement: a financial crisis early in his term that led to 300 layoffs; the 1992 riots that came close to campus but left it unscathed; USC's first Nobel Prize, to professor George A. Olah in chemistry in 1994; two national football championships and a new basketball arena but also scandals involving academic fraud by athletes; improvements in nearby neighborhoods, along with street crimes against students. Sample, the 10th president since USC's founding in 1880, said he was proudest of the improvements made in the university's undergraduate course offerings and the academic quality of its students, the latter achieved partly by cutting the freshman class by 25 percent and boosting selectivity. Asked to cite his biggest setback, Sample said it was 'a major, major, major disappointment' that he could not persuade transit authorities to place a light-rail line fully underground along Exposition Boulevard between USC's main campus and the museums, sports facilities and gardens in Exposition Park. He said the line will create physical and psychological barriers, and dangers for pedestrians. He also expressed some regret about decisions surrounding the firings of two football coaches: Larry Smith in 1993 and John Robinson in 1997. Sample said he probably should have kept Smith on for another year while the campus looked for a new athletic director and allowed that person to choose Smith's replacement. And Robinson's messy firing could have been handled better, he conceded. Sample, whose salary is about $800,000 a year, earned a doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, taught at Purdue, was second in command at the University of Nebraska and then, at 41, became president of the State University of New York at Buffalo. A specialist in electromagnetic theories, he is an inventor of control systems in microwave ovens but does not hold the financial rights. He and his wife Kathryn, college sweethearts, have been married 48 years and have two grown daughters and two teenage grandchildren. The Samples plan to stay in the Los Angeles area, he said. (Optional add end) After he steps down, Sample said he wants to continue teaching at USC part time, possibly the leadership classes he now shares with management expert Warren Bennis, or a literature course on Willa Cather, his favorite novelist. Sample said he and his wife had long discussed his retirement. 'We just have a feeling about what's right for Kathryn and me and our family,' he said. 'And this feels right for us.' 