News
Learning from Auburn
Rice University is considering expanding its football program and has sent a
questionnaire to alumni soliciting their input.
I am posting my answers here so that the thousands who let Auburn die will know
that Rice and Houston know, and are herewith forewarned.
_____________________________________________________________
May 12, 2004
Rice University Board of Trustees
Re: Athletic Study
Football is the cute baby tiger, loved, coddled, and overfed, until one day it
kills and eats the master who supported it.
If this statement seems overly dramatic, allow me to present a brief summary of
Auburn University’s fall from excellence in the 1960s and 70s to the brink of
disaccreditation in 2004.
My first 15 years, 1963-1978, were marvelous. Somehow in the red clay piney
hills of east Alabama thrived an oasis of excellence. With architectural degrees
from Rice ‘53 and Princeton ‘57, my standards were high, but Auburn measured up
well with only 1/3 the budgets of my former schools.
Rice grads had had a lot to do with Auburn’s success in architecture and other
disciplines. A Rice classmate was department head here, and I came to teach
after seven years experience in practice. Until the early 1980s we sent a lot of
good students to Rice’s graduate programs in architecture, and they did
very, very well. We have always had a sprinkling of good Rice professors on our
faculty, plus two department heads and one dean, now in office.
But I was troubled by Alabamians’ passionate worship of football and the general
statewide lack of interest in academic endeavors, and while academics at
Auburn had been forging ahead, athletic boosters were quietly and deviously
plotting their takeover.
Sure enough, in the mid-1970s, when a popular coach demanded also to be named
athletic director, and the best president we ever had wisely refused to grant
so much power to one man, the stage was set.
Our trustees fired that president. I was put on a 25-person committee which
“discovered” Stephen Sample, overwhelming first choice of all groups involved.
(As you probably know, he is now the highest-paid university president in the
U.S. with great successes at SUNY and in California.)
But a newly-elected governor, ex-football player, industrialist, interfered just
in time to veto Sample and substitute a local boy loser. Athletes hate and
fear strong academic presidents and do all they can to unseat them. Good
provosts and vice presidents began resigning, but we faculty dug in our heels.
After
three years and three votes of no confidence, our loser was replaced by a series
of moderately good, weak presidents, but our trustees, bolstered by a 1900
Alabama constitution giving them dictatorial powers and by a psychotic
billionaire booster, usurped more and more management and self-governance
functions,
bullying academics and uplifting athletics.
Since 1985 the Board has ignored eleven no-confidence votes while establishing a
totally fascist dictatorship.
The last five years have been a nightmare, beginning in 1999 with the sudden
ouster of our sitting president. Abruptly, with no consultation with anyone on
campus, the trustees installed Bill Walker, a Texas grad who had taught at Rice
for eight years before coming to Auburn.
Walker spent all his time trying to justify the insanities of the Board of
Trustees, who were by then making a mess of athletics along with academics.
Under
constant criticism from faculty and some alumni, they hired a succession of
big-time lawyers to come over and lecture us on the “great and good qualities”
of
the Board.
Meanwhile the campus is exploding with vast acreages of athletic facilities,
fields, gyms, stadia, offices, weight rooms and, of course, parking for all
these, which more and more blocks space needed for academic buildings. The Board
and most alumni never come on campus except for football games, so access to
the ever-larger stadium (90,000 seats plus 2 levels of VIP skyboxes) is their
only campus planning criterion. A much-needed student union building has been
delayed three years because it might constrict football parking. For several
years I was on a committee to site an art museum on campus. Our jock Board,
which hates art, rejected seven site proposals. We finally had to build it a
mile and a half from campus, beyond easy student access.
Four coaches have been fired since 1998, and all have been given huge chunks of
hush money (millions) not to tattle about the football and basketball
cheating that goes on.
The Board, made up of “successful” businessmen, sees Auburn as “just another
business.” This means lowering standards to let in more and more students and
constantly raising tuition. Students are our “customers,” and we must graduate
as many as possible, like manufacturing trucks or lawn mowers. All connected
parties are classified as “stakeholders” in this dreary business, with our own
self-appointed dictator CEO, who has stacked his booster Board with people to
whom he has lent large sums of money, so he owns them. All Board votes are
unanimous, somehow.
Our best administrators have been fired. A few good faculty remain and fight on,
mostly AAUP members. Fear of speaking out has paralyzed hundreds. Freedom of
speech had been gone for several years.
The Board owns a battery of bad lawyers. They even sued SACS, our accrediting
body, to keep them from a much-needed visit. Board tactics have in fact delayed
a scheduled SACS visit for 2 1/2 years. Our trustees live by the lawsuit.
Millions have been spent to intimidate detractors. Pending articles in national
magazines have suddenly been dropped. People who do speak out suddenly become
quiet.
The only free press we now have is the student newspaper. Our trustees have
tried to shut it down. Our longtime vice president of Alumni Affairs was just
fired for including negative letters in the alumni magazine.
You would think alumni would be furious and fill the streets like Palestinians.
They have been as silent as an undiscovered tomb. They only care about their
ever more gigantic tailgating battleships and their favorite parking spots. They
sit in them for three days before every game, luxuriating in redneck
splendor while classes get bigger and bigger, students dumber and dumber, and
faculty more and more mediocre. The vast majority just say, “There’s nothing we
can do.”
Academic excellence terrifies sports fanatics. Professors are told to stop
striving for excellence and stop trying to be the “Harvard of the South.” We are
in the midst of a great Redneck Renaissance here that does not like people who
have books in their homes and try to speak correctly. Football is their only
way to feel a part of the University.
I have written hundreds of letters to newspapers, magazines, and on the
Internet. I have scolded other faculty, administrators, and students for their
silence, and the Board of Trustees itself for its multiple malfeasances. Almost
nobody outside Auburn is disturbed by the lapses in academic standards, the
browbeating of faculty, and the progressive mediocrity of appointees, with no
faculty or student input. Even other retirees like myself do not utter a sound.
I cannot understand this attitude. It’s a tragic loss of will. Some of it is
cowardice; some is the apathy of a lower Appalachian mindset that sees little
need for education beyond junior high school. Many alumni–– and this is
frightening––hunger so much for a national football championship that nothing
else
matters.
With the governor and legislature gathered against us in favor of big business
and big football money, we could get nowhere with our protests and complaints.
We could never draw large enough crowds for our protests, so politicians could
dismiss us as “a small minority of dissidents,” even though those “dissidents”
included the very top minds of the University. The sports mafia simply paid our
political “leaders” to maintain that there was really nothing wrong at
Auburn, which had never experienced such “wonderful times.”
The problem of corruption all the way up to the governor’s office, plus the
weak, jellyfish attitudes of the majority of alumni, faculty, administration,
and
students makes it easy to see how dictators from Hitler to Milosevech could
seize and hold power.
In short, what the whole state seems to think is that higher education is too
expensive, too overfunded, and that academic excellence reduces chances for
national football championships. This from the worst-educated state in the USA!
This is the addictive nature of competitive sports of which you must beware. The
infamous Bear Bryant is still a saint in Alabama, and his underhanded
tactics appeal to the booster mentality.
Whatever boosters secure at Rice will simply be used to gain a stronger
foothold. They now have a vast and powerful network. They buy people, bribe
people,
threaten and harass them to get their way. I have a journalist friend whose
house has been broken into a dozen times. They use the latest surveillance
equipment and “gaslighting” techniques. And they are not deterred by his array
of cameras and alarms. They are highly professional.
Sports addiction is contagious. The hullabaloo and hype surrounding sports now
is at a fever pitch. Young people are totally vulnerable, and parents show no
signs of encouraging them to think about anything academic. Of course, Rice gets
a much higher caliber of students, but even the best are susceptible to this
fever.
I tell you all this, because those of us who value education as the topmost
purpose of universities have been totally defeated by the clever machinations of
big business jock boosters, who have checkmated our every move. Even the “fair
and balanced” consulting firms they have selected have a hidden bias in favor
of athletics. Big business can buy the opinions and findings they want. They can
buy spin doctors to twist the truth into lies. Auburn now has three highly
paid “communications experts” who do nothing else. Truth no longer exists here.
As a Rice grad who once loved sports, I say, “Beware!” I was there in the glory
years from 1948-53, and was caught up in the hype, but the attempted
integration of athletes with academs never worked, for reasons you already know
about.
This has been a 20-year battle for the soul of higher education in Alabama.
Instruction, scholarship, research, and outreach have lost to overwhelming odds.
I fear that many of the same forces that defeated us are at work in many or all
parts of this country, including Texas.
Football has nullified the importance of academic achievement in Alabama. I feel
that the excellent education I got at Rice and Princeton has been wasted on
a crowd of people who are intimidated and victimized by the cancer of football.
They have no appreciation for our massive efforts at minimum pay.
Eight years ago I resigned from Auburn, an honored and full professor. I no
longer want my name connected with it in any way. I tell parents not to send
their children here and professors not to come.
I’m sure you’re saying,”This could never happen at Rice.” Nobody thought it
could ever happen at Auburn.
The upshot of this turmoil is that Auburn University is officailly on probation
until major changes are made in the makeup and actions of its trustees. If
these changes are not made by December of 2004, Auburn will probably lose its
accreditation.
Strangely, this imminent threat has produced little consternation among alumni
and students. We do have a new interim president who is patching things up
here and there, but I see no serious sense of crisis. Apparently things have to
hit rock bottom before anyone gets excited.
Further, the number of mediocre faculty, administrators and students now
involved is so great that only decades can restore the high quality of the
1970s.
Extreme outrage could have saved us. It never came.
I present this phenomenal case study in the hope that you can learn from it and
not fall into any of its traps.
Please call if I can assist.
Opinions on Questions:
1. If you make football changes at Rice I strongly advise going down to a lower
level, not up. I really loved sports at Rice. I hardly missed a game. I
played in the band, sold programs and cushions for spending money. But the past
two decades at Auburn have taught me a hard lesson.
.2. We have such a center at Auburn. The noise of basketball is almost
impossible to isolate. One person practicing 3-pointers can drive out
practically any
other function except rock bands. Would the center just be a “toehold”?
3. As you know, Rice tried big football in the 1950s and 1960s. Athletes brought
down standards. Many cheated on exams openly and regularly. They had special
tutors who got inside information on exams, and multiple excused cuts from
classes. They ate at “training tables” at the front of the mess hall, slicing
three-inch steaks while the rest of us had corned beef hash. I had three athlete
roommates, and liked them very much, but there was always the feeling that
they were out of place and yet overly privileged.
4 No, I will not make donations to what will amount to a professional football
program. If the jocks keep pushing, I hope you’ll drop football altogether.
Better to drop it than let a game in the grass destroy one of the top schools in
the world!
Donations to athletics suck money out of academic programs, because donors think
that they are fulfilling thier obligation to help the school by donating to
athletics, and all too often neglect to donate to academics also.
Only a very few at Auburn know what happens to any athletic moneys here. Top
secret. We do know they never have enough. New skyboxes, new weight rooms,
sports museum, new study center for athletes––all part of the arms race. It’s a
money pit. The stadium now dominates and compromises the academic campus and
is always growing.
Coaches now make six- and seven-figure salaries. Four or five coaches and other
athletic staffers have left Auburn since 1998, and they all get huge chunks
of hush money or big houses, or both, when they leave, to keep them from ratting
on the rampant cheating. Others never leave but stay on forever as
highly-paid “advisors.”
I’m sure you’ve by now heard about President Walker, two trustees, and the
athletic director piling into an airplane and sneaking off up to Louisville,
Kentucky, to recruit Coach Bobby Petrino last November. Our athletic program has
long been an out-of-control secret crime syndicate, a total disgrace to
Auburn and the whole state. Again, beware of the coercive, Machiavellian power
of rich boosters.
Fight ‘em Owls!
Nicholas D. Davis ‘52
Senior Professor of Architecture, Emeritus
Fellow, American Institute of Architects, Emeritus
Top
At Auburn, trustee rehabilitation
In our opinion
05-11-2004
After a shocking slap from an accrediting agency late last year, Auburn
University is taking positive and overdue steps to get its house back in
order.
The school announced new procedures on Friday that should dispel the notion
that it’s run by a powerful and out of control few on the board of trustees.
As we’ve seen in cases involving undue influence in grading and clandestine
trips to hire new coaches, this perception of renegade board members
micromanaging the affairs of the university is grounded in reality.
The abuses mounted until last December when the Southern Association of
Colleges and Schools (SACS) put Auburn on notice: Clean up your act or face
loss of accreditation, something that would have devastated the university.
We’re pleased to see that the board announced that it will now, among a list
of initiatives, limit contact between trustees and members of the athletic
department; establish its own code of ethics; and create an audit board to
review financial ties of trustees.
All are laudable steps in rehabilitating the reputation of the board and the
university.
Other institutions, academic and otherwise, have received much sterner
wake-up calls than the one issued by SACS and yet those institutions have
not acted as decisively as Auburn has. We’re pleased to note that interim
President Ed Richardson and Anniston’s Earlon McWhorter, the board’s
president pro tem, are said to have championed these reforms.
This opening up of the affairs of the board and the acknowledgement that
business as usual landed the school in hot water is just the prescription
for lifting the SACS probation.
About our editorial page Address letters to Speak Out, The Anniston Star,
P.O. Box 189, Anniston, AL 36202. Please limit letters to 200 words. Letters
may be edited for length, libel and taste. All letters are confirmed with
the author before publication.
Contact our editorial page Phone:
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E-mail:
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Top
Abolition of Athletics Committee Puts AU at Forefront
By Jacqueline Kochak , Auburn Observer
May 11, 2004, 10:36
The Auburn University Board of Trustees took steps Friday that could put the
beleaguered school at the forefront of a widespread movement to reform
big-league college athletics.
The board unanimously and with little discussion approved a proposal to
dismantle the board’s Athletics Committee, the focus of concerns about trustee
“micromanagement” of AU’s sports program.
A little over a month ago, the Association of Governing Boards adopted a new
Statement on Board Responsibilities for Intercollegiate Athletics.” Noting that
board members have sometimes been associated with problems in prominent football
and basketball programs, the statement recommends taking a long, hard look
at the role of such committees.
Earlon McWhorter, the board’s president pro tem, said AU’s bold plan was already
under consideration when he, Interim President Ed Richardson and others
attended an AGB conference in late March. He said he was delighted to see Auburn
was on the same page.
“We’re on the cutting edge of change,” McWhorter said.
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools is also considering
recommending the abolition of athletics committees, McWhorter said. Richardson
confirmed
that Dr. G. Jack Allen, SACS’ Commission on Colleges associate executive
director, conveyed that information to him in an e-mail.
In December, SACS hit Auburn with probation, a sanction just short of loss of
accreditation. Richardson has said repeatedly that he is totally focused on
addressing SACS’ concerns, some of which involve athletics.
At Friday’s board meeting, Richardson said he followed up his e-mail
conversation with Allen by calling him on Wednesday. He said Allen assured him
AU was on
target in addressing SACS’ concerns, although he cautioned that he couldn’t
speak for the Commission on Colleges. The commission comprises presidents and
chancellors from universities across the South.
At the board meeting, Richardson urged trustees to approve the proposal. He is
to meet with SACS representatives on Friday.
“With final approval, we can say that you have done all that you can be expected
to do as a board of trustees,” he said.
Oversight dispersed
Besides dissolving the board’s Athletic Committee, the resolution disperses
oversight of Auburn’s athletic program policies to four other standing board
committees. The Finance, Academic Affairs, Student Affairs and Executive
committees will be responsible for reviewing the president’s report on athletics
programs.
Trustees will continue to review and approve the athletics budget, as well as
significant capital improvements. The president will control and oversee all
funds raised by affiliated organizations and spent on athletics.
Under Richardson, AU’s athletics department has seen dramatic changes. Long-time
head David Housel announced his retirement, and his associate Hal Baird has
taken on day-to-day responsibilities for the department. Basketball coach Cliff
Ellis was summarily dismissed shortly before his program was put on probation
by the NCAA.
Richardson has also taken steps to curb communications between trustees and
administrators. He said trustees should feel comfortable being on campus and
talking with administrators, but only to educate themselves and to collect
information.
“Crossing the line is when an individual bypasses the president or athletics
director and pushes a personal agenda. That’s not gathering information,” he
told trustees.
The road to probation
Auburn’s journey to probation started with a complaint lodged by an ad hoc Joint
Assessment Committee, alleging over-involvement by the board of trustees in
the university’s day-to-day affairs. Trustee Bobby Lowder of Montgomery was
accused of acting as the university’s de facto chief executive, at least in the
past.
Lowder has in the past been accused of virtually running the athletic department
from his Montgomery office suite and of attempting to solidify his control
by hand-picking allies to fill vacant seats on the board.
Lowder was long-time chair of the committee. He was replaced by Jimmy Rane,
another athletics booster famous for pacing the sidelines at football games and
whispering advice into Coach Tommy Tuberville’s ear.
Lowder recently donated $3 million to the athletics program, and the Anthony J.
Rane Reception Center at the Auburn Athletic Complex is named for Rane’s
father as thanks for contributions. The names of both trustees are conspicuously
absent from the list of donors to Auburn’s new Jule Collins Smith art
museum, although McWhorter and others are represented.
In one of his first actions as the board’s new president pro tem, McWhorter
replaced Rane as chair of the Athletics Committee. McWhorter appointed trustee
Jimmy Samford as his successor, with Samford serving until his untimely death in
December. Since then, the position has gone unfilled.
Athletics: Concerns in many quarters
The high profile of college athletics has raised concerns in many quarters. At
some colleges and universities, intercollegiate athletics programs may be
detracting from the institution’s academic mission, the AGB’s statement notes.
“Restoring balance between sports and education is long overdue,” the statement
said.
The statement falls short of demanding the abolition of all athletic committees,
but suggests boards and presidents discuss the pros and cons of such an
action.
A standing or advisory board committee might be necessary to consider immediate
and complex issues at institutions with highly visible programs, the report
noted. On the down side, such committees can end up dominated by trustees who
fail to police sports programs because they are enamored of athletics
themselves.
AU’s resolution had gone through “maybe nine drafts,” Richardson said. When the
final draft reached the Executive Committee’s hands Friday, not all members
had read the finished product. Discussion was postponed until the full board
meeting in the afternoon.
”It’s been a long month,” McWhorter said.
Top
Richardson to dissolve athletics committee
Friday, May 07, 2004
CHARLES GOLDBERG
News staff writer
AUBURN - The Auburn University Board of Trustees' athletics
committee will be dissolved today in yet another move
authored by interim President Ed Richardson to put a new
face on the school's most high-profile department.
Richardson, who was named the school's interim president
last January, has encouraged change in the athletics
department, in part because the university's academic
accrediting agency charged the trustees have wielded too
much power in athletic affairs. Richardson has taken that a
step further by handing the day-to-day operation of the
athletics department to Hal Baird, naming him the athletics
assistant to the president.
Richardson's move for more separation between the trustees
and the athletics department will not stop with today's
regularly scheduled trustees meeting, however.
Richardson plans to tell all of his head coaches in a
meeting next week that he expects them to have only limited
access to trustees and that any concerns they might have
about their sport should be handled within the athletics
department or the president's office.
Richardson has already notified the trustees of that stance.
The move to dissolve the athletics committee is in response
to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the
university's accreditation agency, which said last December
the trustees have "micromanaged" school affairs,
particularly within the athletics department. SACS put
Auburn on probation.
Richardson said his meeting with the coaches will detail new
guidelines, such as "whether or not the president is in
charge of athletics. Hopefully, I can clear that up at that
time."
Much of the detailed work of the athletics committee will be
handed over to other committees with the trustees'
framework. The budget committee, for example, will handle
monetary issues. The trustees will now be limited to policy
issues within the athletics department.
The athletics committee's role had diminished somewhat over
the last several years. Trustee Jimmy Rane ended his tenure
as the athletics committee chairman before his term was
over. His replacement, Jimmy Samford, died last year. The
trustees made no attempt to name a new athletics chairman.
Richardson has already effected a variety of changes in the
athletics department. He promoted Baird, accepted the
retirement plans of Athletics Director David Housel, fired
men's basketball coach Cliff Ellis, and hired new men's
basketball coach Jeff Lebo and new women's basketball coach
Nell Fortner. He also presided over the final stages of an
NCAA investigation into the men's basketball program.
Richardson accepted the NCAA's two-year probation for Auburn
basketball last month.
AU athletics committee likely out
Trustees expected to abolish it Friday; president to have more control
Top
Thursday, May 06, 2004
By PHILLIP MARSHALL
Times Sports Staff pmarsh9485@msn.com
AUBURN - The Auburn Board of Trustees is expected to abolish its athletics
committee at its Friday meeting.
The move to turn the necessary functions of the athletics committee over to
other board committees is part of a resolution calling for the adoption of a new
"Policy on Intercollegiate athletics."
Drafts of the resolution and the policy were obtained by The Times.
According to the draft resolution, the board would "modify its athletics
governance structure to exercise authority only in such manner as is necessary
to
oversee policy issues within the athletic department."
Auburn president Ed Richardson made the proposal in his ongoing effort to
satisfy the Southern Association of Colleges & Schools, which placed Auburn on
probation last December. Among the issues identified by SACS was presidential
control of the athletics department.
Richardson, who has said repeatedly that his No. 1 mission is to get the school
removed from SACS probation, said Friday's board meeting will be another step
in that direction.
"You can say what you want, but SACS is driving this and that is what is of
concern to many people," Richardson said last week in an interview with The
Times. "We're going to work it out. I wish I could say that we would know before
the first week in December, but we won't. That's their annual meeting. The
team will come in here in September and look at us in terms of if we are living
up to what we said. Is the president in charge? Are the trustees overly
involved? Are we committed to accreditation?"
The proposed policy closely follows recommendations made by the Association of
Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges in its "Statement on Board
Responsibilities in Intercollegiate Athletics.
According to the resolution, the "dispersion of athletics oversight into the
university's existing committee structure will enable the board to oversee and
monitor athletics policy in a manner which is comparable to that employed with
other Auburn University programs."
The athletics committee has historically been involved in major athletic
department decisions. According to board bylaws, the athletics committee "may
consider and provide recommendations to the board for action policies relating
to programs of intercollegiate athletics, including facilities, finances,
staffing and scope of program."
In the proposed policy, those duties would be given to the president. The board
"acknowledges its constitutional and statutory obligation to 'manage and
control' the university, commits itself to the most effective administration of
that duty, and as such, delegates to the president of the university the full
conduct and control of Auburn's athletics program, holds the president
responsible for it, and includes this responsibility among those assessed during
presidential performance reviews."
The president would be required to report "annually and periodically as
necessary" to the board on his fulfillment of responsibilities in the athletics
program, according to the proposed policy. The board would designate the
academic affairs, student affairs, finance and executive committees with the
responsibility of reviewing the president's reports on athletics programs.
The academic affairs committee is chaired by Jack Miller and includes John
Blackwell, Golda McDaniel, Sarah Newton and Paul Spina. The student affairs
committee is chaired by Byron Franklin and includes Charles Ball, Blackwell,
McDaniel and Spina. The budget (finance) committee is chaired by Bobby Lowder
and includes Miller, Newton, Jimmy Rane and Spina. The executive committee is
chaired by president pro tempore Earlon McWhorter and includes Franklin,
Lowder, Newton, Rane and Spina.
Franklin, Lowder, McWhorter and Rane are current members of the athletics
committee. Its chairmanship has been vacant since Jimmy Samford died last year.
McWhorter and Franklin were on the ill-fated trip to secretly interview
Louisville football coach Bobby Petrino last November.
Sarah Newton, confirmed as a board member in January, said Wednesday she sees
the changes as positive and necessary.
"It's a pretty radical move, but it's a move that a lot of universities are
going toward," Newton said. "A lot of issues we have with SACS are related to
athletics. This is just another positive step in getting off probation with
SACS. Whether it has to do with money, academics, graduation rates, scholarship
vs. non-scholarship, any kind of information can be gathered from any of those
other committees.
"It's not about hiring and firing coaches and shouldn't be. That doesn't have
anything to do with the board of trustees."
Rane said he was not ready to comment on the proposals.
"I haven't had a chance to read it and study it - yet," he said. "I will
certainly do that before the meeting."
In the proposed policy, among the board's duties would be to review and approve
budgets and proposals for significant capital improvements; confirm that the
president monitors compliance with Title IX and NCAA regulations; and monitor
compensation packages for the athletic director and head coaches of major
sports.
Analysts doubt rumor of BB&T buying Colonial (Birmingham Business Journal, April
1, 2004)
Banking analysts, in trade publications and published reports, say they doubt
the veracity of rumors that Winston-Salem, N.C.-based BB&T Corp. will buy
Montgomery-based Colonial BancGroup Inc. and subsidiary Colonial Bank to gain a
bigger position in Florida.
Analyst Dick Bové at Hoefer & Arnett says the rumors make "no sense" despite
widespread circulation in recent days.
"If BB&T were to make another acquisition at this time, not only would it break
faith with its investors, but it might destroy any opportunity for this stock
to recover for at least two years," he says in his report.
"The fact that this rumor developed despite these considerations suggests that
investors have not yet accepted the fact that (BB&T's) management may actually
do what it says," Bové says. "This is discouraging."
Other banking analysts rejected the notions of such a merger in various trade
publications, with same saying the rumor began in an online chat room.
Meanwhile, Colonial and BB&T officials declined to comment, saying their
companies do not discusses merger speculation. Colonial has $16.3 billion in
assets
and operates 274 branches in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Tennessee and
Texas.
Colonial BancGroup acquiring PCB Bancorp (Tampa Bay Business Journal, December
23, 2003)
Montgomery, Ala.-based Colonial BancGroup announced the planned merger of
Florida-based PCB Bancorp Inc. and its four Premier Community Bank subsidiaries
in
Fort Lauderdale, Largo, Fort Myers and Venice into Colonial.
The deal, valued at roughly $141 million, consists of 75 percent stock and 25
percent cash.
In a press statement, Colonial CEO Robert Lowder said the transaction "will
enhance our market presence in key Florida" cities.
According to the company, the deal will boost Colonial's position as the sixth
largest bank and 10th largest financial institution in Florida with
approximately $4.9 billion in deposits.
PCB reports total assets of $664 million, total deposits of $519 million and
total loans of $471 million.
Colonial's Bay Area Region, headquartered in Tampa, is expected to see the
biggest increase in size from the merger with PCB. Colonial's footprint in this
area currently consists of 16 offices and $857 million in assets and $695
million in deposits in Pasco, Pinellas and Hillsborough counties.
The addition of PCB's seven branches in Pinellas County is expected to increase
Colonial's Bay Area assets 44 percent to $1.2 billion and increase deposits
45 percent to $1 billion in this region. This merger will also mark Colonial's
third regional bank, out of four in Florida, to exceed $1 billion in assets.
Colonial, a multi-state bank holding company, has assets of $15.8 billion and
operates more than 270 offices in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Tennessee
and Texas. The company's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
Completion of the transaction with PCB is subject to approval by regulatory
agencies and PCB's shareholders.
Top
Is Lowder Leaving?
By By Jacqueline Kochak , Auburn Observer
May 4, 2004, 17:47
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May 4 – Rumors that Colonial BancGroup could be acquired boosted the company’s
stock last month, according to the publication Banking News. Colonial’s chief
executive officer is Auburn University trustee Bobby Lowder.
Robert Lowder
Rumors are rife in the wild world of bank mergers and acquisitions. At the same
time, however, rumors are circulating in Montgomery that Lowder’s
multimillion-dollar mansion is for sale, and that Lowder is planning a move to
Florida.
The controversial trustee’s 12-year term on Auburn’s governing board is not set
to run out until 2011. As a Montgomery resident, Lowder represents Alabama’s
2nd Congressional District, and under Alabama law he might not be able to keep
his seat if he is not a full-time resident of the district.
A suitor?
According to Banking News, Colonial’s stock rose 5.1 percent early in April on
rumors that BB&T Corp. of Winston-Salem, N.C., is interested in acquiring it
for $24 a share in cash. A year ago, the stock was listed at about $13 a share
and has soared as high as $18 a share in recent weeks, a 30 percent increase.
“In the world of bank mergers and acquisitions, everybody talks to everybody and
I wouldn’t rule anything out,” said Christopher Marinac, an Atlanta stock
analyst.
“Stranger things have happened,” he added.
BB&T and Colonial declined to discuss the rumor with Banking News, and in that
article Marinac, an analyst with FIG Partners, expressed some skepticism. At
that time, Marinac said Colonial told him the rumor originated in an online chat
room.
Last week, Marinac wasn’t ready to dismiss the rumors but said he thought
selling Colonial now would be a mistake.
“It seems to me Colonial is still in improvement mode, enhancing a lot of
internal operations,” he said. “For them to sell seems premature to me, because
I
envision a situation where the company becomes more valuable.”
The Florida connection
“Florida” is the key word here. The company’s first-quarter report noted that
Colonial has grown to be the seventh largest bank in Florida in just seven
years. Florida’s wealthy residents have boosted the state’s share of deposits to
more than 50 percent of Colonial’s total, even though the bank has branches
in six states.
“You’d have to be an idiot not to make money in Florida,” said one rival banker.
Florida markets are growing so fast in population, business and real estate that
any solidly managed bank that wants to sell can fetch a premium price, an
investment banker recently told the Orlando Sentinel. The catch is that most
Florida-based banks aren’t looking to be bought, he said.
The voracious BB&T has acquired 60 banking companies since 1990, sometimes at a
rate of five a year. In February, however, BB&T’s chairman said the company
had no interest in large acquisitions and intended to slow down its merger and
acquisition activity.
The 1,400-branch BB&T boasts nearly $100 billion in assets, compared to
Colonial’s $16 billion. BB&T’s biggest deal ever was for a banking company with
$11
billion in assets.
Despite the chairman’s assertion that BB&T is not looking for acquisitions,
subsidiary BB&T Asset Management is eying potential targets in Florida and
Georgia, according to a later Banking News article. The asset management unit
offers accounts and special services for high-net-worth investors – and there
are plenty in Florida.
According to Colonial’s financial reports, asset management is one of the
company’s fastest-growing areas.
‘Nothing would surprise me’
Although some of BB&T’s acquisitions have given the conglomerate indigestion,
Marinac again said nothing would surprise him.
“BB&T has been known to do what they’ve said they’re not going to do,” he said.
“But our expectation is that they want to sit still at this point.”
Colonial has branches strung from Nevada to Florida. On an acquisition binge
itself over the last few years, Colonial just closed on the purchase of
Florida’s PCB Bancorp. Colonial’s assets have more than doubled in the last five
years, with much of the growth in Florida.
“I talked with Lowder recently, and the company is making it very clear Florida
is a key part of the franchise,” Marinac said.
“Florida is a critical state for Colonial, and I don’t think Colonial’s stock
price reflects much of a premium for its presence in the state,” he said. “A
buyer should be paying a premium for that Florida franchise.”
Despite popular perception, Lowder doesn’t own Colonial BancGroup. The bank
holding company is public, owned by stockholders. As chief executive officer and
largest stockholder, however, Lowder exerts extraordinary influence over the
company.
Ready to relinquish the reigns of power?
Sale of Lowder’s more than 600,000 shares at $24 a share would enrich the CEO by
more than $14 million, and at 64 the banker is nearing retirement age. The
banker usually earns more than $1 million a year, however, and relinquishing the
reigns of power at the bank could mean relinquishing the reigns of power in
the state.
As a trustee, however, the press-shy banker has presided over the most troubled
period ever in Auburn University’s history. The university’s accrediting
agency, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, slammed the school
with probation last December over concerns of “micromanagement” by trustees.
Last week, the NCAA put Auburn’s basketball program on probation.
Lowder has long been viewed as the board’s “alpha” trustee, accused of
personally running the school – especially athletics – in violation of SACS
criteria.
The elder statesman of the board, he was first named a trustee in 1983. In that
capacity, he has outlasted three AU presidents.
In recent months the university has been rocked by change, as new Interim
President Ed Richardson attempts to steady the ship and reassure SACS. He is
taking
steps to address SACS’ concerns about business relationships among trustees, and
administrators say they are no longer contacted directly by trustees.
Some fear that SACS won’t be placated until Lowder is gone, however, although no
one in the state has the power to force his resignation. The Auburn Alumni
Association has called for his resignation, and leaving in style might suit the
banker.
Various scenarios
The battered university faces perilous financial straits, and Lowder could bow
out with the knowledge that his legacy would be leaving Auburn as the most
financially solvent university in the state. Without his financial acumen,
Auburn could suffer.
Marinac, however, offers a different scenario. Lowder might move to Florida,
where so much of the bank’s business is located and where he owns a vacation
home in Naples, simply to take advantage of the state’s tax advantages. Florida
levies no personal income tax, making the state a haven for the wealthy.
A former executive doubts, however, that Lowder would move to Florida without
moving the bank’s headquarters. That would mean selling Colonial’s headquarters
in downtown Montgomery, a daunting prospect.
Lowder started Colonial in 1981, just two years before being appointed to the AU
board. Starting with a single bank, Lowder cobbled together more than 20
small community banks to create a $1.6 billion bank holding company by 1990.
Although trustee reform legislation passed by voters in 2000 doesn’t spell out
that trustees must keep their full-time residence in the district they
represent, presumably Lowder could not continue to represent the 2nd District.
The legislation created three at-large positions that can be filled from
anywhere in the continental United States, but all three seats are now filled.
The
first to open is held by Golda McDaniel, who recently moved to Auburn from
Mississippi.
Her term expires in 2005, and nominating a replacement will fall to the current
governor, Bob Riley, and a trustee nominating committee. Auburn alumni have
shown themselves to be a force with which to be reckoned, and Riley could ill
afford to back Lowder as McDaniel’s replacement just before the next
gubernatorial race.
The other two at-large positions are held by newly confirmed trustee Charles
McCrary, CEO of Alabama Power, and Earlon McWhorter of Anniston. McCrary’s term
will expire in 2011 and McWhorter’s in 2008.
Lowder owns a home in Auburn, where Colonial is building a regional
headquarters. The 3rd District trusteeship and new Lee County trusteeship also
were both
recently filled, however, and won’t open until 2011.
No way to confirm rumor
A local realtor said the rumor about the possible sale of Lowder’s Montgomery
mansion would be difficult to verify, because an upper-bracket luxury home
would be a “quiet listing,” not publicized on the Multiple Listing Service or on
general tour sheets.
Most likely, she said, sale of a multimillion-dollar home would be handled by an
acquaintance or by Sotheby’s, which has no listing for the property.
“Someone interested would have to show proof they were a buyer looking for a
million-dollar-plus property, and prove it,” the realtor said. “Most likely, a
friend would buy the house – someone with the funds.”
Top
Star-crossed effort to fire coach changed Auburn
Sunday, May 02, 2004
By PHILLIP MARSHALL
Times Sports Staff pmarsh9485@msn.com
AUBURN - As Auburn's football team left the field for
halftime at Jordan-Hare Stadium on Nov. 22, the crowd was up
and roaring. Carnell Williams had run 80 yards on the game's
first play and Auburn led 18-2.
High above the field, in a luxury box on the west side of
the stadium, Earlon McWhorter, president pro tempore of the
Auburn Board of Trustees, was looking at a television as
friends expressed excitement that the Iron Bowl was going
Auburn's way.
McWhorter agreed but nodded at the television. "My coach has
66," McWhorter said, according to a friend who was there.
The score of the Louisville-Houston game was crawling across
the bottom of the TV screen. Louisville, where Bobby Petrino
was the head coach after spending one season as Auburn's
offensive coordinator, had won 66-45.
McWhorter knew what only a handful of others knew. Two days
earlier, as the Auburn football team put the finishing
touches on preparations for Alabama, McWhorter had joined
president William Walker, athletic director David Housel and
trustee Byron Franklin on a trip aboard an airplane owned by
Colonial Bank, where trustee Bobby Lowder is the president
and chief executive officer, to a small airport near
Louisville, Ky.
Their plan was to talk to Petrino about replacing Tommy
Tuberville as Auburn's football coach. Instead, it was the
first in a series of events that changed the face of Auburn
athletics and the university as a whole.
Today, former state superintendent of education Ed
Richardson sits in the big office at Samford Hall as interim
president. Housel, who will retire at the end of the year,
has relinquished day-to-day control of the athletic
department to Hal Baird.
Tuberville got a one-year contract extension and remains
safely in his corner office at the Auburn athletics complex.
McWhorter and Franklin, basically untouchable under state
law, remain on the board, but once-frequent calls from
trustees to top administrators have ceased.
Tuberville says he's no more secure than any other football
coach, but he says he's comfortable now.
"My feeling is that this university, in the last three
months, has taken an entirely new direction," Tuberville
says. "I feel like we have a president who is in control of
the university. He is making decisions in the athletic
department and on campus. He has no personal agenda. He puts
Auburn first."
Others in the department echo those sentiments. Where there
was turmoil, there is calm.
Talk is of winning instead of controversy. None of that
seemed possible as the group returned from their trip north
on Nov. 20.
Walker had been so impressed with Petrino that he had told
him he wanted him to be Auburn's next coach. Petrino had
said he wanted to wait until after Louisville's game against
Cincinnati the following week. Walker, who planned to take a
Thanksgiving vacation in Texas, had agreed.
He planned to fire Tuberville on Dec. 1, after he returned
from vacation, and to name Petrino head coach a week later.
Walker called in a secretary during the week of Thanksgiving
and told her to scour the Internet for anything negative she
could find written about Tuberville.
The secret gets out
On the night of Nov. 25, things were quiet on the Auburn
campus. School was out for Thanksgiving, still two days
away. The women's basketball team was cruising to an easy
victory over Youngstown State. But in the president's
office, there was frantic activity. Newspapers in Montgomery
and Louisville had tracked the Colonial Bank airplane that
had carried the group to meet with Petrino.
News of the trip was reported the next morning, sparking
intense anger among Auburn supporters. When it was revealed
that no Auburn official had asked Louisville athletic
director Tom Jurich for permission to talk to Petrino and
that Tuberville had not been told, the anger turned to
outrage. Nationally, Auburn was pilloried.
On national television, Juirch leveled scathing criticism at
the administration. Tuberville received more than 15,000
e-mails, almost all supportive. Petrino, who had denied the
meeting to Jurich, was embarrassed. He apologized and said
he would remain at Louisville.
Walker, under serious duress, issued conflicting statements
on back-to-back days, one saying Petrino had become a
candidate and one saying the trip to talk to Petrino had
been only to get his evaluation of the Auburn program. The
second statement, hammered out after a full day of telephone
conversations from Texas with communications director John
Hachtel, said Tuberville would not be fired. Housel issued a
statement of apology, but vowed that he would not resign.
After a meeting with Walker on Dec. 1, Tuberville tearfully
announced he would remain.
Walker had informed few board members of his plans. When
other trustees learned they had been left in the dark, many
were angry. There was growing tension, but an even harsher
blow was coming.
On Dec. 9, in Nashville, the Southern Association of
Colleges & Schools stunned Auburn officials by placing the
school on probation, citing micromanagement by the board of
trustees and ostensibly putting the school's accreditation
in danger.
Unrest and conflict that had plagued Auburn for several
years became an all-out rebellion. Gov. Bob Riley's office
was besieged with letters, calls and e-mails from Auburn
supporters asking him to get involved. Alumni Association
board member Ralph Jordan Jr., emerging as a thoughtful
spokesman, called for Walker, Housel and the trustees
involved to resign. Others quickly followed. The Auburn
University Senate voted no-confidence in Walker.
Riley was angry. He'd been angry at Walker for months, since
Walker had dismissed him as a "one-term governor." He was
angry because he'd asked McWhorter about talk of a move
against Tuberville, and McWhorter had told him no such move
was afoot. Riley put in a call to Jordan and promised
action, asking for patience. Riley said privately that he
was determined that Walker and Housel would be replaced.
Over the objections of some in his administration who
counseled Riley - a University of Alabama graduate - to stay
out of the controversy, he started an investigation into the
circumstances surrounding the trip. He dispatched
Conservation and Natural Resources Commissioner Barnett
Lawley to talk to Petrino and get the details of what had
taken place. Tuberville publicly accepted Housel's apology,
but privately he made it known that he did not believe he
and Housel could co-exist long-term. Riley, who considers
Tuberville a friend, promised the situation would eventually
be one with which Tuberville would be comfortable.
McWhorter had vehemently defended Walker and Housel, saying
it was the wrong time for a change in leadership. But armed
with the results of his investigation, Riley told Walker and
board members that Walker had to go. Several trustees
agreed. Others weren't so sure.
"I think he twisted arms and had a lot of that stuff that
had been uncovered," says a source close to the governor's
office. "If the trustees didn't drop a dime on Walker, he
was going to drop a dime on them and their involvement. I
would say he used his political powers of persuasion."
Ironically, it was McWhorter, Walker's staunchest defender,
who finally agreed to go to Walker and tell him that his
time was up.
Once on the job, Richardson started to swing his ax. He
secured Housel's agreement to retire as athletic director at
the end of 2004 and, days later, turned operation of the
department over to Baird, the senior associate athletic
director who he named athletic assistant to the president.
He fired Betty DeMent, the vice president for alumni
affairs, and basketball coach Cliff Ellis.
Richardson says he sought no approval from board members for
those decisions or when he and Baird decided on Jeff Lebo as
the men's basketball coach and Nell Fortner as the women's
basketball coach. He says he will seek no approval for any
decision. At the upcoming May 7 board meeting, resolutions
are expected to be passed that further confirm that the
president is in full command of the operations of the
university.
"The issue of trustee involvement, that's non-existent,"
Richardson says.
Through two basketball coach searches and dealing with NCAA
sanctions against the basketball program, Baird says he has
had no interaction with trustees.
"I've had absolutely no conversations with any trustees at
all relative to the athletic business at Auburn since I've
been in this position," Baird says. "Athletic administrators
want to lead and administer the department. We feel the
expertise is ours and the accountability is always with us.
You make decisions and are judged by the decisions you make.
"Dr. Richardson has been unequivocal about the leadership of
the university and the athletic department and has led by
what he has said and done."
Richardson told Riley and the trustees he would take the job
only with the understanding that he would do things his way,
with no interference. He told them his focus would be on
making sure Auburn is removed from SACS probation.
Richardson says the changes have been good for Auburn.
"There's no question about that," he says. "I think you are
going to see the institutional control that was part of the
SACS probation. That was the big blow. I've had Alabama fans
say 'You'd better get that thing straightened out.' That was
the shocker, and I've used that for leverage."
One of Richardson's first acts was to send word to Auburn
coaches that talking about department business with trustees
could result in their dismissal.
"We have had people try to go around the president and the
athletic director in the past," Richardson says. "That's not
going to be tolerated in the future."
But the journey from late November has been bumpy and
fraught with peril. Richardson, who was a member of the
Auburn Board of Trustees because of his position as state
superintendent of education, says he knew nothing of the
trip or the move to fire Tuberville until he read about it
in the newspaper.
"I don't know what the motivation was," Richardson says.
"Why Bobby Lowder let them use his plane, I don't know. He
usually doesn't miss a beat, but that was not a smart
decision, especially when they log all the flights. Id
wouldn't have taken two trustees with me, considering we are
under the gun anyway. I would have expected David to call
and get permission. I expect David advised the president
that call should be made, to tell you the truth."
It didn't take long for Richardson and others to recognize
that the so-called Auburn family was ready for a fight.
"People were incensed and they still are," Richardson says.
"It was deceptive and dishonest, and they weren't fair to
Tommy. The timing, two days before we played Alabama, seemed
to trigger a lot of resentment."
Trouble began in August
Though unrest among the faculty, alumni association and
board of trustees simmered, there was great joy in Auburn
last August. The football team had been picked by some
publications to win the national championship and was ranked
No. 6 in both preseason polls. It was supposed to be an
autumn to remember.
Instead, the football team lost its opener 23-0 to Southern
California and lost 17-3 in Atlanta to heavy underdog
Georgia Tech. That is where the trouble started.
Walker called Housel out of the athletic director's box at
Grant Field and launched into a tirade. An engineer by
trade, Walker had friends at Georgia Tech and he was
embarrassed.
As the season went on, it became obvious Tuberville's fifth
Auburn team would never reach the greatness predicted.
Walker grumbled that Tuberville wasn't getting the job done
and began moving toward making a change.
Franklin, an ordained minister who Tuberville considered a
friend, spoke to the Auburn team before its game against Ole
Miss on Nov. 8. Twelve days later, Franklin was visiting
with Petrino.
After a 26-7 loss at Georgia, the decision was made. Auburn
would seek a new football coach. Former basketball great
John Mengelt, a close friend of Housel's who owns an
executive search firm in Chicago, was secretly asked to help
in the search. He had been secretly asked the previous year
to search for a replacement for Ellis, but Ellis got a
reprieve after Auburn advanced to the Sweet 16.
It was Mengelt who set up the meeting with Petrino.
"People believe it was the trustees who wanted Tommy gone,
but it really was Walker," says a source close to both.
"Some of the trustees finally agreed to go along with it and
help. With the SACS investigation going on, they felt like
they had to let Walker have his way, and they knew he didn't
know what he was doing."
Housel had a similar reaction when Walker told him to make
arrangements for the trip. Housel said privately that he
told Walker he shouldn't go, but that when Walker insisted,
he went along to try to keep it from getting "totally
screwed up." Walker refused suggestions that such a trip
should wait until after the Iron Bowl, saying he would not
change his vacation plans.
Against that backdrop, Tuberville prepared his team for the
annual Iron Bowl. Riley, having heard the talk, called
Tuberville to ask what he knew. Tuberville asked Housel if
he was going to lose his job, if Petrino had been hired.
Housel told Tuberville he knew nothing about it.
Tuberville would remember that moment when he learned the
details of that week and learned that Petrino had already
been talking to prospective assistant coaches at other
schools.
As the game neared and rumors swirled, Auburn's coaches
became increasingly alarmed. They told the players to focus
on the game, to let them worry about their futures.
Tuberville confided in friends that he was convinced it was
over, that the Iron Bowl would be his last game as Auburn's
coach. In the president's box, Walker told at least four Id
people during and after the game that he had made up his
mind to fire Tuberville.
After Auburn won 28-23, Housel visited the coaches' locker
room. Tuberville angrily told him he should go to the
players' locker room and offer them an apology. Housel said,
"I'll be in touch," and left.
Three days later, word broke of the trip to talk to Petrino,
but Walker, vacationing in Texas, was privately adamant that
he would still make the change. Finally, he relented, saying
Tuberville could stay. That did nothing to quiet the storm.
The SACS action soon followed. Auburn was a university in
turmoil.
On Dec. 11, Walker addressed the university senate. He said
he would not resign before his planned retirement date of
June 2005. He said it was "ridiculous" to talk of removing
Housel. Asked about conflicting statements, he said "truth
is in the eye of the beholder." The senate, with members
expressing anger at apparent lies about the trip and the
embarrassment of SACS probation, voted to censure Walker and
voted no-confidence. It voted down a motion demanding his
resignation. If that was a reprieve, it wouldn't last.
Petrino agreed to meet with Lawley in Louisville, but as he
was on his way to the airport, Lawley got a call and was
told Petrino had canceled. He sent word that, if Petrino
didn't talk to him, he would get a subpoena, and Petrino
relented. On Jan. 16, Walker announced his resignation.
Richardson was named interim president at a special meeting
of the trustees on Jan. 20.
Richardson says there is still work to be done to pull the
Auburn factions together, but he says he believes there is a
desire on all sides to get it done.
"Most people are ready for this squabbling to end,"
Richardson says. "It isn't like I had to figure out what was
wrong. It's been pretty well-documented. If I can establish
a pattern of behavior so that my successor has a chance to
succeed, I can say I ended my career well.
"This is it for me as far as being an administrator. That's
why I felt I was uniquely qualified. To do this job right,
you have to be willing to be fired."
Top
The Auburn Plainsman -- Thursday, April 29, 2004
Harry's Place to close
One of Auburn's oldest bars will close doors in June
by Daniel Thompson, Staff Writer
Like the rest of the building, the sign out front is old and discolored.
At one time it proudly displayed the words, "Harry's, where the Elite Meet," but
now it simply reads, "Harry's Place."
This small Auburn bar off Opelika Road opened in 1973, but now faces its last
days. Harry's Place will be closing its doors indefinitely June 1, 2004.
Maurice "Mo" Weeks, Harry's owner, has leased the lot the bar sits on for 31
years.
The lot was recently purchased by local business owner Marty Williams, who plans
to tear down the building and construct a rental center.
"I knew it was coming, but I thought I'd have more notice," Weeks said.
"I've been here 31 years. It's kinda like a divorce."
Harry's Place is known for its cheap beers and patrons' signatuires on the walls
and ceiling, a tradition started by one of Auburn's fraternities.
"The Phi Delts were the first Auburn fraternity to really start hanging out here
a lot, and one night one of their guys wanted to sign the wall in the
back, so I started selling bricks for a dollar," Weeks said.
Harry's became a hot spot for many local bartenders over the years.
Cory Hattier, one of Harry's bartenders, remembered some late nights spent at
the bar.
"People start showing up around 1 a.m., but the real crowd starts coming in
around 2 a.m.," Hattier said.
"If you still wanted to have a good time after 2 a.m., you could find people
here to do that with."
After years spent serving Auburn's students and local citizens, Harry's is
closing its doors.
One of Harry's patrons who goes by the name of "Flick," [sic] said he is sad to
see the bar close.
"They're leaving an extensive hole in Auburn that cannot be filled. It will be
almost too weird to be sad," Flick said.
As Weeks looked around his bar in quiet reflection, a slight grin crossed his
face.
"It's all the good times you don't remember," he said. "I think Jimmy Hoffa is
buried somewhere in here."
Top
AUBURN UNIVERSITY PLACED ON PROBATION FOR VIOLATIONS IN
MEN'S BASKETBALL
INDIANAPOLIS---The NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions
has placed Auburn University on probation for two years for
multiple violations of NCAA recruiting legislation in the
sport of men's basketball.
This case revolved around activities conducted by the
university's men's basketball staff with basketball club
teams and individuals associated with these amateur teams,
which are composed of high-school-aged prospective
student-athletes.
The committee found that the evidence in this case
demonstrated that the university's men's basketball staff
became involved with two amateur teams operating out of
Huntsville, Alabama, and with two individuals associated
with the teams - a Huntsville businessman who provided
financial support for these teams (the "team sponsor") and a
self-described "sports agent" who had befriended a member of
one of the teams.
The committee found that, from January 2000 through August
2001, in an effort to recruit prospect 1, members of the
Auburn men's basketball staff made a deliberate effort to
develop a close relationship with the team sponsor of the
prospect's amateur team and the sports agent who had
befriended prospect 1. The committee found that, in the
course of these relationships and attempts to recruit
prospects, the team sponsor became a representative of the
university's athletics interests. Specifically:
Former assistant coach A and the sports agent traveled to
the institution's campus to attend a home basketball game
March 3, 2001, at the team sponsor's expense. The tickets
were booked for the sports agent and prospect 1 by the wife
of former assistant coach A, an employee of a local travel
agency, and then charged to the team sponsor's credit card.
In conjunction with the visit, former assistant coach A
provided round-trip automobile transportation between the
Montgomery, Alabama, airport and the institution's campus.
Also, the reservations for the rooms at the University Hotel
were initially made in the name of Athletics-Men's
Basketball, and the instructions on the hotel registration
cards specifically stated that the credit card on file
should be used. The team sponsor's credit card was the one
on file in this case. The committee noted that the evidence
reflected that the hotel reservation was made by someone
associated with the men's basketball program who had direct
knowledge that the team sponsor would pay for the room.
Between March 5, 2001, and July 18, 2001, the team sponsor
wired money or arranged for money to be wired to the sports
agent on six occasions with the intention that the money be
delivered to prospect 1 or used on his behalf. The wire
transfers ranged in amounts from $200 to $2,000 and totaled
$3,125.
On July 2, 2001, the team sponsor purchased electronics
equipment valued at $643.97 for prospect 1. The team sponsor
also paid to have the equipment installed in prospect 1's
vehicle at an additional cost of $50.
During the spring and summer of 2001, the team sponsor
provided air travel, meals and lodging expenses for the
sports agent so he could accompany prospect 1 to tournaments
in Nevada and North Carolina while prospect 1 was competing
as a member of amateur team No. 1.
The committee noted that telephone records reflected
frequent contact by the university's men's basketball staff
with the team sponsor. The records also showed patterns of
contact by former assistant coach A with both the team
sponsor and the sports agent in the weeks leading up to the
weekend trip. In the committee's view, "these records were
evidence that the team sponsor was operating as a
representative of the university's athletics interests."
The committee also found that, beginning in the summer of
1999 through August 2001, in an effort to recruit prospect
2, the team sponsor made improper recruiting contacts,
offers and inducements to prospect 2 and his mother. Also,
the team sponsor's inducements resulted in the young man
receiving three expenses-paid visits to the institution's
campus. Specifically:
Beginning in the summer of 1999 and continuing through the
summer of 2001 and while prospect 2 played for the team
sponsor's two amateur teams from Huntsville, the team
sponsor encouraged prospect 2 to attend the university to
play basketball. The team sponsor also indicated to the
prospect that the institution wanted him and needed him.
In the summer of 1999, the team sponsor drove prospect 2 to
the university, where he met the men's basketball coaching
staff for the first time. Subsequently, men's basketball
assistant coach B attended amateur team No. 2's practices in
Huntsville and, on at least one occasion, told prospect 2
that the institution was interested in him.
In September 1999, the team sponsor provided round-trip
automobile transportation between Huntsville and the
university's campus (240 miles one way) and one night's
lodging at the University Hotel in order for prospect 2 and
his mother to attend a university football contest.
In the fall of 1999 and after prospect 2 had turned 16,
prospect 2's mother asked the team sponsor to help her find
an inexpensive car she could buy for her son. The team
sponsor referred her to a friend of his at a local car
dealership. The mother selected a 1996 Dodge Stratus that
cost $6,324.65. Sometime later the team sponsor told her he
had taken car of everything and she should pick up the
vehicle. In December 1999, the mother returned to the
dealership, signed some papers and took possession of the
car at no cost to her. The team sponsor later told her he
had paid for the vehicle.
On the weekend of January 5-6, 2001, the team sponsor
provided round-trip automobile transportation between
Huntsville and the university's campus, one night's lodging
and meal expenses to prospect 2 and his mother. The group
traveled to the university to attend a men's basketball
contest.
During part of the summer of 2001, the team sponsor supplied
$65 in cash per week to prospect 2 for spending money. On
one occasion, the team sponsor gave $300 to prospect 2's
mother to purchase school clothes for prospect 2.
The committee noted that, on the trips set up by the team
sponsor, prospect 2 met the men's basketball coaches and was
shown around the coaches' offices. Also, each time the group
stayed in the University Hotel on campus, where reservations
were initially made in the name of the men's basketball
department. Prospect 2's mother stated that on every trip to
campus (paid for by the team sponsor) she and her son
interacted with the men's basketball coaches and they told
her they were interested in prospect 2.
The committee noted that the close relationship between the
university's men's basketball coaches and the team sponsor
was reflected on the University Hotel registration cards as
well as, in at least one instance, by the institutional
phone records of the men's basketball staff.
The committee found that, because the team sponsor was a
representative of the university's athletics interests, his
involvement in facilitating and financing trips to the
university for prospect 2 and his mother violated NCAA
recruiting legislation. The committee also concluded from
the evidence that the men's basketball staff facilitated and
coordinated these trips with the team sponsor.
The committee also found that, since the team sponsor's
actions in the provision of cash for prospect 2 and his
mother could not be exclusively linked to his recruitment by
the institution, the university's culpability was reduced.
In determining appropriate penalties, the committee
considered the institution's self-imposed penalties and
corrective actions.
The following penalties were imposed by the committee or
were self-imposed by the university and adopted by the
committee. Those penalties that were self-imposed by the
university are so noted.
Public reprimand and censure.
A two-year period of probation commencing on April 27, 2004,
and concluding on April 26, 2006.
A reduction of total grants-in-aid in men's basketball by
one (from 13 to 12) for both the 2004-05 and 2005-06
academic years. (The university had proposed a reduction of
one initial grant-in-aid and one total grant-in-aid for only
the 2004-5 academic year.)
A reduction in the number of official paid visits in men's
basketball from 12 to nine for the 2003-04 academic year and
from 12 to nine in the 2004-05 academic year. (Self-imposed
by the university.)
A reduction in the number of off-campus evaluations from 40
to 35 for both the 2003-04 and 2004-05 academic years. The
number of coaches allowed to recruit off-campus was reduced
from three to two for the July 2004 evaluation period.
(Self-imposed by the university.)
During the probation period (April 27, 2004, to April 26,
2006), the men's basketball staff shall cease recruiting
prospective student-athletes (through the amateur team
program) who play for the team sponsor named in this report.
This penalty permits the recruitment of prospects directly
and through their families and high-school coaches. But, it
prohibits any contact or involvement by the men's basketball
coaching staff with the team sponsor as it relates to
recruitment of players on his teams. During this period, any
contact with the team sponsor regarding prospective
student-athletes other than incidental and/or unavoidable
contact is prohibited. (The university had proposed that
this prohibition conclude on December 15, 2005.)
The committee required that, during the probationary period,
the university shall continue to develop and implement a
comprehensive educational program on NCAA legislation and
submit periodic reports to the NCAA. The university also is
required to submit, to the director of the NCAA Committees
on Infractions, a preliminary report that sets forth a
schedule for establishing this compliance and educational
program. The institution also must file annual compliance
reports indicating progress made with the program and
placing particular emphasis on adhering to NCAA recruiting
legislation, particularly the recruitment of prospects
competing on amateur teams. The report also must include
documentation of the university's compliance with the
penalties imposed and adopted by the committee. At the end
of the probationary period, the university's president will
provide a letter to the committee affirming that thepar wa
university's current athletics policies and practices
conform to all requirements of NCAA regulations.
As required by NCAA legislation for any institution involved
in a major infractions case, Auburn University is subject to
the provisions of NCAA Bylaw 19.5.2.3, concerning repeat
violators for a five-year period beginning on the effective
date of the penalties in this case, April 27, 2004.
The members of the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions
who heard this case are as follows: Thomas Yeager, committee
chair and commissioner, Colonial Athletic Association; Paul
T. Dee, athletics director at University of Miami (Florida);
Alfred J. Lechner Jr., attorney, Princeton, New Jersey;
Andrea L. Myers, athletics director at Indiana State
University; Josephine R. Potuto, professor of law,
University of Nebraska, Lincoln; and Eugene D. Smith,
athletics director at Arizona State University.
Richardson Assessment And Potential Probation Solutions
I have followed the actions of Dr. Richardson with interest. While reserving
broad judgment for a later day, I stand cautiously optimistic by some
decisions, enraged by others. On balance, however, I would say that were
SACS to meet today, probation would not be lifted. Here's why and here's a
few recommendations I've gleaned from conversations with knowledgeable
folks.
First, let's state the obvious. There are two primary reasons for the SACS
probation, one of which involves a web of sub-issues:
1. Trustee micromanagement, in violation of the SACS clause requiring that a
governing board set broad policy while leaving initial formulation of that
policy and subsequent implementation of said policy to administration and
faculty.
2. Minority control of the governing board (aside from SACS, this perverts
even the Alabama Constitution, which, as some trustees have so gleefully
reminded us, declares that "Auburn University shall be under the management
and control of a board of trustees." It bears noting that "board of
trustees" refers to the entire body, not an individual member or subset of
members.) The minority control issue is intertwined also with a SACS
prohibition of board members having undue financial interests either with
the institution or with each other.
Now, as this relates to Dr. Richardson, he has from the start of his interim
presidency made clear his understanding of the first point. He has noted ad
nauseum that "I talked with every board member before" accepting the job "to
let them know I'd be in charge." He has stated on numerous occasions
something to this effect: "My mission is to get this university off of
probation and to conduct myself in a way that defines the distinct roles of
the administration, president and the board. Only then will a permanent
president succeed." He's even gone so far as to take subtle -- actually,
not-so-subtle -- slaps at his predecessors, arguing (perhaps accurately)
that overactive boards develop in absence of real presidential leadership,
i.e. a president whose inaction creates a vacuum of leadership is asking for
a board to fill it.
Looking at his early performance, Richardson appears to be intent on proving
to SACS that he's in charge. Here's a few examples:
A) THE BASKETBALL search is perhaps the best example, as Richardson made the
atypical insistence early on that any candidate was coming to him. That's
not usual, and it looks as if it could have cost Mike Anderson the job.
(Richardson can say all he wants about Lebo being his only choice. While
perfectly happy with the hire, I don't buy for a minute that Richardson
wouldn't have hired Anderson had the courtship not gone more smoothly.) Now,
Anderson recognized the unusualness of Richardson's request, but Richardson
at least appeared to be determined to send a public message, for SACS, board
members, the NCAA and the prospective coach: "I am the president. And as
such I am the CEO of this athletics department, just as the NCAA and SACS
require. You will answer to me." Arrogant, isn't he? But, you know, that's
how it should work. Think about it, if Richardson had caved on his initial
insistence for on-campus interviews, then Anderson would have known from the
start that he could have his way as long as called the interim president's
(i.e. the boss's) bluff. So, Richardson proved he wasn't bluffing. Maybe it
cost Auburn a good coach. But that cost was paid for the right reasons, and
we got a good coach anyway. The only embarrassment in my book is that the
university missed out on the opportunity to hire a minority candidate after
the interim president has so publicly announced his hope to do so.
As an aside, there are considerable rumors around Auburn that Anderson was
working through a trustee to get the job. Byron Franklin was seen at UAB's
regional game in St. Louis. Franklin says he was there to support UAB. Also,
reportedly, another trustee contacted Jeff Capel during the search process.
Both of these alleged circumstances reportedly angered Baird and Richardson,
perhaps making Lebo the most attractive choice. This could all be garbage,
but it fits the usual Auburn way -- at least when Lowder ran the department
through Housel.
Even if that last theory is true, the bottom line remains: It seems that for
the first time in about 25 years, the head coach of a major men's sport
comes to the job without owing his employment and his loyalty to Bobby
Lowder. I'd argue that the way this search was conducted ultimately will
help Auburn, Richardson and Jeff Lebo considerably. And it further exposes
that Louisville trip last year for the indefensible, needless bulls--t that
it was. So, good job Coach Baird. Good job Dr. Richardson.
B) TRUSTEES AGENDAS: Richardson stated up front that board members were
considering too many routine administrative issues. So he whittled down
trustees agenda. Good job. But more can be done. I'll get to that below. As
it is, this decision could turn out to be little more than window dressing.
C) FINANCIAL INTERESTS: This is the kicker, here, as Richardson's promise
last week to push an audit process for board members financial arrangements
marked his first acknowledgment of the issue. Before then, Richardson had
been entirely in that "beat down micromanagement" mode. I remember being
very frustrated early on that he never made mentioned of interlocking
business relationships which clearly were a part of SACS decision and are at
the very heart of the second Bradley report, which, by the way, still
remains sealed in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Now, as Breaker
pointed out in another thread, this could also be window dressing if not
written or implemented effectively. I'll make some recommendations below
that would give it teeth and just say for now that I'm encouraged that
Richardson is finally pursuing this issue.
D) PROGRAM REVIEW -- Richardson has said little about his program review
intentions in light of budget considerations. I give it brief mention just
to say that it is different from the last such commission, which officially
came from Muse but was conceived only after Muse and Don Large traveled TO
MONTGOMERY and heard from the Grand Poo Bah that they weren't "doing enough"
to make Auburn more efficient. This time, the interim president is pushing
the idea apparently without trustee prodding. (For the record, this still
makes me very nervous just because this Richardson is the same man who
presided -- with his predecessor, actually -- over the Role Commission. This
becomes one of those cases where the process might be good, but the policy
is bad anyway, i.e. just because the idea originates in the president's
office doesn't mean it's a good idea.)
------------------
Now, while Richardson has not been directly involved in the process, it
bears mention that five new trustees have been confirmed in recent months,
thus beginning -- note the meaning of that word "beginning" -- the process
of changing the face of the board.
-------------------
Richardson has also made a few key personnel decisions, chief among them
firing Betty Dement. (I'd mention Housel here, too, but he didn't get fired
per se, though he has been castrated in terms of power -- if he ever had any
in the first place.) As angry as I was and am over Betty's firing, and as
relevant as this decisions are to any discussion of Richardson's job
performance, I think an objective assessment would say that it means little
in terms of SACS. That said, if it does mean anything, I can only think it
to be negative, i.e. as Conner Bailey said following Richardson's recent
address, it is "walking around knowledge that a certain board member" has
wanted Betty gone for years. Richardson can say all he wants that it was his
decision. But the burden of proof is on him, and it's a tall burden when all
who wear orange-and-blue know that, at the very least, Bobby Lowder had a
big smile on his face that day. So, no rave review there. Having no bearing
on the SACS case, I still wonder from a purely political standpoint what
Richardson could have possible hoped to gain from firing Betty. I've heard
the theories that Lowell Barron was traded for Betty Dement. I've heard,
too, that it was David for Betty. Who knows?
The first possibility makes little real political sense, because the alumni
flat had the votes to block Lowell (particularly once they identified
Charles Ball) and Housel has been the lamest and lousiest of ducks since
Jetgate. No need to compromise in politics or anything else unless the
compromise gets you something you wouldn't have gotten otherwise. The second
possibility could have been true if initiated by the Lowder/Housel faction,
i.e. "We realize David has to go but we want Betty to fall, too." Whatever.
Richardson isn't saying much b/c of reports that Betty will sue. He
reportedly told her in the firing meeting, "I just want my own people."
Richardson and PR spokespeople have referred more than once to the new
interim president's "thorough review" of the upper echelon of the university
administration. It will be quite revealing to see if Richardson wants his
"own people" but magically comes to the conclusion that "Walker's people"
are just fine with him, particularly Heilman and Hachtel, the former being a
tenured professor whom Richardson cannot outright fire but can banish back
to the political science classroom. Hachtel, meanwhile, has yet to justify
his existence, merely collecting $120,000 in taxpayer funded salary while
hiring more lieutenants and dispatching all difficult spokesperson issues to
David Granger.
But I digress. These personnel decisions, while interesting to Auburn
insiders, likely have little to do with the overarching issue of
accreditation, at least as long as Richardson can make decisions that appear
to be free from board control.
------------------------------------
That's a broad stroke of what Richardson's been up to the last two months.
Some good, some bad, some ugly, some yet-to-be determined. But I refer back
to my bottom line mentioned up top: It ain't enough for SACS yet. While
Richardson has made considerable process on the micromanagement front, much
is left to be determined. Remember, SACS is a peer-group of human beings
that must make subjective judgments about compliance. So impressions are
important here. Who are we to say that Richardson, Bob Riley, Earlon
McWhorter and Willie Larkin can just go to SACS in December, sing Kum Ba Yah
and the Alma Mater and expect all to be made well? Ain't that simple.
Taking the role of a voting member of SACS Commission on Colleges, the body
that will determine Auburn's fate, I'd look at today's situation and say:
"Well, you've got five new trustees. You had 12 appointed members before.
Now you've got thirteen. Eight of them -- Bobby Lowder, Paul Spina, John
Blackwell, Golda McDaniel, Jimmy Rane, Jack Miller, Byron Franklin, Earlon
McWhorter -- are part of your old board. And they're still a majority. Heck,
we don't even have to bother with the 'minority' rule. So if we though the
old board, dominated by Bobby Lowder, micromanaged the university, why is it
you expect us to believe that adding five other faces is going to change
anything? And aren't these eight, at least most of them, the same ones we
saw mentioned in that Bradley report, the one about all those business
relationships with each other and with the university? Don't they have all
those business ties? Only one you've gotten rid of there is Lowell Barron.
Don't Jimmy Rane and Jack Miller sit on Lowder's Colonial Bank corporate
board? Isn't Miller the primary outside counsel for Colonial Bank, to the
tune of more than $1 million per year? Isn't Paul Spina heavily indebted to
Colonial Bank, all while sitting on one of the company's regional boards?
Doesn't John Blackwell work with former trustee Lowell Barron to build
Colonial Bank buildings, all using Colonial funds for the construction
before leasing the buildings back to Colonial. Isn't Earlon McWhorter the
builder who uses Colonial loans to finance his projects for Lowe's?
"And as I look closer, I see that Bobby Lowder is still chairman of your
budget committee, so he controls the money. He's also chairman of the Auburn
University Montgomery Committee. John Blackwell now chairs the Property and
Facilities Committee, replacing Lowell Barron. Blackwell also chairs the
Agriculture Committee, ostensibly with oversight of the Extension System and
Experiment Station. Paul Spina is still chairman of the Investment
Committee, which hires and fires university fund managers. Jack Miller is
chairman of the Academic Affairs committee. One all of those committees, a
majority of the members come from those eight old board members, and on most
committees a majority of members are part of the outside financial web. I
see, too, that the Athletics Committee has no chairman, but it's membership
roster is Franklin, Lowder, McWhorter and Rane. Advancement Committee? No
chair there either. But its roster is Lowder, McDaniel, Miller, Rane and
Spina. That's a 3-2 majority of Colonial Bank board members. And the
Executive Committee -- and this one is the kicker, since that panel is
empowered sometimes to act in the board's stead -- comprises a noble list:
Chairman Earlon McWhorter; Byron Franklin; Robert Lowder; James Rane and
Paul Spina. There's an open spot for now. Maybe that'll be filled by a new
board member. Until then, same thing: 3-2 vote for Colonial Bank board
members. One of the two is one of the largest single Colonial Bank debtors.
"Further, Auburn officials, if I recall my reading correctly, that open
meetings suit from a few years back, which admittedly has no official
bearing in these SACS proceedings, still did bear out the fact that about 98
percent of action items placed before the full board received a unanimous
vote, basically meaning that all work is done in committee. So, tell me, ye
of the Auburn delegation, if we believed that a minority faction controlled
the board when we voted to place you on probation last December, how is that
we're supposed to believe that the same minority -- hell, the same majority
-- faction isn't in control now?"
Tough question, isn't it? Can any of you out there answer it?
Here's what Ed should do (and, incidentally, he should ask the governor to
join him in these public declarations, since Riley is chairman of the board
and has promised himself to preserve Auburn's accreditation):
1. Ask board members to codify disclosing financial information required to
be disclosed by other public officials who must file Alabama Ethics
Commission Statement of Financial Interests.
2. Ask affected board members officially to urge the unsealing of the second
Bradley report.
3. Ask all board members to submit complete financial statements and tax
returns to an outside auditing agency to compile and release them in a
cumulative statement.
4 Privately urge Jack Miller's or Bobby Lowder's resignation from the board.
Their financial relationship is simply to deep to salvage anything good. (To
say nothing of Miller's harmful presence in the first place, ala his absence
of any Auburn pedigree and his arrogant appointment by Don Siegelman in the
first place). And urge Jimmy Rane and Paul Spina to resign their positions
on Colonial Bank's corporate board and regional board, respectively. Now,
note that all this would be done privately. I understand the politics here.
I don't expect Richardson to call names in public. But he can highlight the
issue in public. Leave it to the newspapers and the Bradley report and the
audit to make clear the individuals involved. Then he and the governor can
pressure said individuals in private. This is atypical, I know. But
Richardson is not a permanent president. He's here, as he has stated, under
special circumstances. That can justify special means to reach the
university's desired end.
5. Ask Earlon McWhorter to step aside as president pro tem of the board when
his current term expires in June. Ask Dwight Carlisle to run in his place.
Ask Sarah Newton to serve as vice president pro tem. Carlisle, under board
rules would then have the authority to make committee appointments.
5. Ask President Pro Tem Carlisle to make changes in the rosters of key
committees, chiefly budget, investment and academic affairs. See to it that
members of the aforementioned financial Web constitute two or fewer members
of any committee of six or more. (This applying to every committee, not just
budget, investment, and academic affairs.)
6. Present board members a board bylaws change that would abolish the
Property and Facilities Committee. It is not needed and actually invites
micromanagement. Those who follow Auburn closely also know this committee,
together with the Athletics Committee, most commonly run afoul of Alabama
Sunshine Law -- at least before its recent gutting by the Alabama Supreme
Court. It is entirely appropriate for the FULL board to approve master
campus plans, building projects, site locations and the like, but those
policies should be developed by professional staff members and outside
consultants hired by and overseen by a v.p. for facilities or an asst. v.p.
for facilities who reports to the executive v.p. (Don Large at the moment).
7. Propose a bylaws change to abolish the Athletics Committee. Same thing as
above. The board already has as its policy that they will have final
approval over athletics director. That is enough. (And I would argue too
much.) The A.D. also has an advisory council already, something akin to
dean's advisory councils in the respective schools and colleges. Looking
over past news reports, the transcripts of Bill Muse and from general
conversations, it is clear to me that this committee did little more than
engage in micromanagement. Presidents and A.D.s should hire and fire
coaches, negotiate contracts, etc. A.D.s should sign budgets, approve ticket
prices, etc. When it is necessary for big picture decisions (stadium
expansions etc.) to come before trustees, they should go before the FULL
board upon recommendation of the president after prior review and comment
from the athletics administration and advisory council (which by the way
includes names ranging from Quentin Riggins to Lloyd Nix, I believe.)
8. Ask new President Pro Tem Carlisle to appoint co-chairs of a presidential
search committee and have that committee in place by the December SACS
meeting. Not necessarily having announced the decision but having already
begun work on job descriptions to be published in the relevant journals.
9. He should privately encourage Debbie Shaw and alumni leaders to continue
nominating a slate of independent alumni leaders. Not necessarily the vocal
naysayers he doesn't seem to like, but those who will not fall lockstep
behind Bobby and pave the way for Lowder's reappointment in 2007. (This is a
separate post, really, and an issue I would like to give more attention to
in the near future.)
All of this could satisfy many of the central SACS concerns. I have heard
time and again that the strategy of many alumni leaders and the governor is
to "dilute" Bobby's power. The above plan moves in that direction, even with
him remaining on the board. This is Auburn's best hope in the limited time
frame before SACS gathers in December to reconsider Auburn's status. This is
Richardson's best hope to achieve his goal and establish his legacy, despite
his previous association's with this very board and despite the way he came
into the job.
But, remember, the sad bottom line is that Auburn trustee created this mess.
And Auburn trustees will have to clean it up -- or it won't be cleaned up at
all.
War Eagle,
C009
Top
__________________
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Bowden talks about time on The Plains: Part Two
"I loved Auburn. I loved being there, but I felt the way in which they handled
that was as badly as the way the Tuberville situation was handled."
- Former Head Coach Terry Bowden
By Carten Cordell
Sports Staff
April 15, 2004
Editor’s Note — This article is the second in a series on former head coach
Terry Bowden. Bowden was interviewed by Auburn student Carten Cordell for an
assignment in a journalism reporting class.
Just before the Outback Bowl, Auburn announced long-time defensive coordinator
Wayne Hall was leaving at the end of the season. Hall had been on Pat
Dye’s staff since 1981 and was a candidate to replace Dye, but Terry Bowden won
the job.
“He was the heir-apparent, but when the job came open Auburn was going on
probation and the University felt that they could not afford to hire somebody
from the staff,” Bowden said. “It just wouldn’t work.”
“The problem is that it wasn’t right. Here’s a guy whose goal in life was to be
the coach at Auburn, and here I am the head coach at Auburn. I think
that there were some alumni boosters that started coming between us. Maybe (they
were not) coming to the head coach, but going to my staff. You can’t have
that. So I call him in one day and I said, ‘Wayne, your goal was not to be the
assistant coach of Terry Bowden at Auburn. Your goal was to be the head coach.
We probably need to coach different places. It’s not satisfying for us for you
to be my backup.’ He was applying for the head coaching job at Georgia. So I
didn’t fire him. I said, ‘Wayne, I’ll keep it quiet. In the next month why don’t
you get a job and you can leave us, but I won’t fire you.’ I wish it had
worked better for him.”
Bowden hired Alabama defensive coordinator Bill Oliver to replace Hall as the
Tigers headed to the 1996 season. The 1996 campaign didn’t fare well for
Bowden and Auburn although they put up solid numbers on offense. The Tigers
finished 1996 with an 8-4 record after losing to LSU, Florida (national title
year), a loss to Georgia in four overtimes and a last-second loss to Alabama.
Auburn had a memorable season in 1997. With virtually no running game, Auburn
still won 10 games. Auburn upset No. 10 LSU, No. 7 Georgia and earned its
first trip to the SEC Championship.
“Two things stick out in 1997,” Bowden said. “One was that our tailback
situation didn’t work out that well. We made the decision that Fred Beasley just
didn’t have the speed to be a tailback. It was sad because it hurt his feelings
to move him to fullback, but we felt that was where he’d be best. The thing
was that we had absolutely no running attack. So we decided, ‘Well we don’t have
a running attack. We’re not going to try to work on it. We’re going to go
out there and win however we can.’”
Little did Bowden know, a loss to Mississippi State would be the beginning of
his undoing at Auburn.
“We’re 6-1 and we’re playing Mississippi State. I am looking at our season and I
know we should beat them at home,” Bowden said. “The only way we will
have a successful season is not just to beat Mississippi State, but we have to
beat Georgia and Alabama. Georgia was very highly ranked, and a top 10 team.
So I plan to go out there against Mississippi State and throw it every down.
Then we would have an off week the next week, and that film would convince
Georgia that we couldn’t run at all. On the off week we would put in an entirely
new offense that had a running attack in it.”
Auburn would have six turnovers in the red zone that prevented them from
scoring. Mississippi State won 20-0.
“Of course I find out later that that was the game (an influential Auburn
Trustee) decided that he was going to get rid of Terry Bowden. That he was
tired of these 8-4 seasons,” Bowden said.
Auburn’s 45-34 upset of Georgia and the 18-17 victory in the Iron Bowl clinched
the SEC West title for Auburn and perhaps saved Bowden’s job for the
moment.
Facing Tennessee in the Georgia Dome, the Tigers jumped to a 20-10 halftime lead
before Peyton Manning and the Volunteers came back to win 30-29.
“We were a team that wasn’t as talented as Tennessee,” Bowden said. “We spent
our entire preparation puting in new stuff and gave them a lot of
different looks they couldn’t prepare for. We jumped on them and we carried the
lead throughout the game, and they scored in the last minute. We played about
as good as we could play.”
Auburn completed the 1997 season with a 10-3 record, an 11th ranked spot in the
AP poll and a 21-17 win over Clemson in the Peach Bowl.
After five seasons, Bowden’s record at Auburn was 46-12-1, with a .780 winning
percentage, one of the best of active Division 1A coaches and second-best
for Auburn football coaches.
Auburn headed into the 1998 season with a new quarterback, Ben Leard, and hopes
of finding the running game absent in 1997, but injuries soon altered
the Tigers’ fate.
“If you coach long enough, some years things just happen. That was a year that
injuries happened to our centers,” Bowden said.
During two-a-day practices in preseason, Auburn’s starting center T.J. Dunigan
quit the team, and Cole Cubelic tore ligaments in his knee the Wednesday
before the home opener against Virginia.
Bowden moved guard Mike Pucillo to center, and on the eighth play of the opening
Virginia game, Pucillo broke his foot, which forced Bowden to replace
him with fifth-year senior Karl Lavine.
Just before halftime in the Tennessee game, Leard went out with an elbow injury
and Lavine tore ligaments in his knee. Tennessee fumbled on its next
possession and Auburn recovered at the Tennessee one-yard line.
“So I’ve got to go with Ben Nowland at center. He’s a true freshman, 235 pounds.
He’s never taken a snap, and not only that, he never got any work in
preseason because he was a fifth team redshirt. Since Ben Leard is in the
dressing room, we go with freshman Gabe Gross at quarterback. He had never taken
a
snap and had a broken hand. I try to run a quarterback sneak just to get closer
and he fumbles the first one and now we’re on the three. So those poor
freshmen can’t even take a snap and that was the most humiliating thing.”
After losing to Tennessee and then to Mississippi State, Auburn fell to 1-4.
Center Nowland tore ligaments in his knee the Thursday before the Florida
game, and Bowden had to go with tackle Colin Sears as the team’s sixth starting
center.
After Florida beat Auburn 24-3, Bowden said athletic director David Housel
informed him that 1998 was to be his last season at Auburn.
Rather than finish the season, Bowden resigned Oct. 23, 1998. Oliver was named
interim head coach for the remainder of the season.
“Now my first five years were, I think, the most successful five years ever of
any coach coming into Auburn,” Bowden said. “In my sixth season where I
have to go through six centers, I am told after the sixth game that I am not
going to be retained. I decided that if they don’t want me there anymore, and
they don’t want me to be the coach, then they might as well go get them another
coach.
“I loved Auburn. I loved being there, but I felt the way in which they handled
that was as badly as the way the Tuberville situation was handled.
Because if you don’t have chemistry on your staff, and when you have trustees or
people over top of you going directly to your assistants and giving them
instructions, it’s not going to work. You just can’t stay under those kinds of
situations. You have to move on.
“I find out later that a trustee had contacted my defensive coordinator and told
him to be ready (because) he was going to be the next head coach,”
Bowden said.
Though Oliver served as interim head coach and expected to get the permanent
position, it was Ole Miss head coach Tommy Tuberville who became Auburn’s
25th head coach to begin the 1999 season. Oliver sued Auburn, Housel and Bobby
Lowder for, among other things, misleading him about the head coaching
position. The case was later settled out of court.
While his coaching career ended five years ago, Bowden is satisfied with the
accomplishments he has amassed in 16 years.
“I have been fortunate enough to have coached at every level of college football
as a head coach. I have been fortunate enough to coach a lot of great
guys, have a National Coach of the Year Award and all that stuff. So it’s not
like I haven’t experienced a lot,” Bowden said.
Though Bowden has no plans to return to the sidelines, he doesn’t rule out a
possible return.
Bowden was disappointed he wasn’t invited back to Auburn during the 2003 season
and the festivities that honored the ‘83 and ‘93 teams.
“It was sad that this was the 10th anniversary of the 11-0, ‘93 team and none of
the coaches were called and asked back to the game with that team.
Hopefully, sometime, the problem will pass where there won’t be the rub that
there is between the leadership and the coaches of that team.”
Bowden said he hopes his legacy at Auburn is one remembered by Auburn fans as a
period of fun and success.
“For five years, every time we went on that field we had a chance to win,”
Bowden said. “They were exciting times and I’d like people to remember how
much fun the football games were.”
No foul play in Tuskegee fire
Fire marshal releases report on blaze that destroyed
historic buildings
Top
Associated Press and Mitch Sneed
Opelika-Auburn News
Thursday, March 25, 2004
TUSKEGEE -- The Alabama state fire marshal found no evidence
of foul play or arson in the Feb. 10 fire that destroyed
three historic buildings in downtown Tuskegee.
A report on the fire was released Wednesday, but no cause
was determined in the blaze that destroyed offices of
prominent civil rights attorney Fred Gray, The Tuskegee News
and others.
"I had hoped that when the report came that we'd know what
caused it and we'd have some closure," Tuskegee News
Publisher Paul Davis said. "I guess we still don't know. It
just blows my mind."
The report notes that a few interviews still need to be
completed, but officials said the status of the case is not
likely to change.
"I don't think there's going to be anything that will affect
the bottom line of the report, unless there's something out
there that has not been made available to us at this point,"
said Ragan Ingram, a spokesman for the state fire marshal's
office.
The five-page report indicates the three buildings were
unoccupied for hours leading up to the early morning fire.
The buildings, estimated to be between 125 and 150 years
old, had old wiring in places, and at least one of them had
a window heater unit, the report said.
The fire destroyed many historical documents from the civil
rights movement that were stored in the office of Gray, who
represented Rosa Parks in her landmark bus desegregation
case and later the victims of the infamous Tuskegee syphilis
study.
Gray said he and his staff are trying to move forward,
regardless of the fire's cause.
"We are up and running and we contemplate rebuilding," he
said from a temporary office.
Also destroyed were the offices of the community action
center and The Tuskegee News, which once featured columns by
famed black educators Booker T. Washington and George
Washington Carver.
Davis said the staff has set up in temporary offices just
behind the old building and has offices for production in
Auburn as well.
"We're doing fine and things are moving on," Davis said. "I
just wish they had some idea of what caused it. We heard so
many things. We may never know now."
<a href="http://www.aldoi.gov/pdf/misc/StateFireMarshalReport.pdf">Tuskegee Fire
- State Fire Marshall's Report</A>
No foul play in Tuskegee fire
Fire marshal releases report on blaze that destroyed
historic buildings
Top
Questions Raised About Firing of DeMent
By Jacqueline Kochak
Mar 18, 2004, 10:57
'I Want to Know Why'
March 18 - Auburn Alumni Association head Betty DeMent is out, effective
immediately and without a severance package. She will be paid through April, but
no
longer has an office in the alumni association building on South College,
catercorner across the street from Samford Hall.
“I would like to know why Betty was abruptly dismissed,” said Alonza Caldwell, a
1951 AU graduate and retired Army officer who lives on the East Coast.
“As a life member of the Auburn Alumni Association, I believe the alumni deserve
an explanation,” he said. “There is a lot of intrigue here.”
University officials declined to give a reason for DeMent’s firing, but Interim
President Ed Richardson told alumni association employees yesterday that he
needed to have a team with whom he could work.
Richardson is a former trustee by virtue of his last position as Alabama
superintendent of schools. He was named interim president in January, and DeMent
had
her first one-on-one meeting with him yesterday.
Richardson warned Auburn Alumni Association board members a week and a half ago
to expect changes in his upper administration, and noted that some people
would be unhappy.
“Housel Tuesday, DeMent Wednesday, Ellis Thursday – who’s next?” asked one local
alumnus who asked not to be named. “If you don’t have a contract, watch
out.”
Basketball coach Cliff Ellis was fired today after meeting with Richardson (see
related story).
When Richardson took office, he voiced two priorities. He said he wanted to get
AU off probation with its accrediting agency, and deal with an NCAA
investigation that could result in AU’s basketball program being placed on
probation.
“Neither issue is resolved, and he eliminated DeMent,” the alumnus said. “It
looks like Richardson came to AU with an agenda, and he’s marching right along.
What’s wrong with this picture?”
No golden parachute this time
Both Athletic Director David Housel and former Auburn University President
William Walker recently resigned under pressure – much of it from alumni - but
walked away with deals ensuring them a comfortable living for years to come.
Elllis is also expected to receive a $750,000 buy-out.
DeMent has been under fire for years, but from a different quarter. As long ago
as the tenure of former AU president Dr. William Muse, trustees lobbied for
her dismissal. Muse refused, saying that firing AU’s top female administrator
without good cause would leave the university open for a lawsuit.
According to press reports, DeMent retained prominent Montgomery attorney Jere
Beasley several months ago. Beasley would not comment on the possibility of a
wrongful termination lawsuit for a story in today’s Opelika-Auburn News.
Earlier this week, Housel announced he would step down as athletics director in
January 2005 and stay on until early 2006 to help with the transition and the
university’s new fund-raising campaign. Housel will retain his $181,280 salary.
Walker resigned in January, and likewise remains on AU’s payroll without a
definite position at this point. His salary tops $270,000.
Housel benefited from the fact that he was under contract with AU, unusual for
university employees. Neither DeMent nor Walker enjoyed the security of a
contract.
“I believe the firing is patently unfair,” said AU alumnus Jack Johnson of
Auburn.
“Consider, if you will, that bumbling Bill Walker gets paid over $1,000 per day
to sit on his gluteus maximum doing nothing, holds onto a job at the
university, and retains his perks while Betty is told to get lost and is paid
only through April,” he said. “Where is the justice in that?”
‘Fine leadership’
Deborah Shaw, assistant vice president for alumni affairs since last August,
will act as interim vice president. Shaw had been director of Foy Student Union
for the past five years.
Sources say that alumni association president Owen Brown, a California venture
capitalist, was informed ahead of time about Richardson’s action. The alumni
association board of directors, however, was caught by surprise and met by
conference call last night.
The board met almost two weeks ago, and at that time prepared a statement of
support for Richardson. The statement mentioned DeMent’s “fine leadership.”
As a university employee, however, DeMent is hired and fired by the university’s
president, not the association’s board.
The association is a separate 501(c)3 corporation for tax purposes, with its own
governing board. Although the association is quasi-independent, employees
are paid by AU and work under contract for the association.
At yesterday’s meeting with association staffers, Richardson reminded them that
they, like DeMent, are university employees.
A history of conflict
The Auburn Alumni Association has a history of conflict with the board of
trustees, going back several years. When DeMent was named vice president for
alumni
and development in 1995, the association was funded in large part by a Colonial
Bank credit card. Colonial Bank is headed by AU trustee Bobby Lowder.
DeMent insisted the card be put out for bid, and Colonial declined to bid.
Numerous sources say Lowder was outraged by DeMent’s action.
Trustees are also said to be bothered by the alumni association’s policy of
printing a sampling of letters, whether positive or negative. After former
football coach Terry Bowden’s unceremonious departure in 1997, letters critical
of the board of trustees proliferated..
In January, a group calling itself “Auburn First” wrote a letter criticizing the
magazine’s policy of allowing dissenting views in the magazine.
“It seems the Alumnews, published by your department, is regularly used by some
disgruntled faculty members to trumpet their criticisms and a message of
division aimed at the administration and the board of trustees,” the letter
reads.
The group was formed by Ruel Russell, 80, of Birmingham. Russell is closely
allied with Lowder and in the past has cautioned DeMent she had better “get on
board.”
The letter incorrectly identified Auburn Magazine as Alumnews, a title abandoned
in 1994. The letter also incorrectly identified dissenters as “disgruntled
faculty members,” when in fact a perusal of several issues shows critical
letters from a broad range of alumni.
Criticism printed on the magazine’s pages has been limited to letters. The
decision to allow a representative range of views was made by the association’s
board of director |
