Jags arena now at $22 million:
Cost of construction may hit $25 million before it's over,
Moulton says
By RONNI PATRIQUIN CLARK, Staff Reporter, Mobile Register, Aug. 8, 1998.
Section 1A, 4A
The cost of the 10,100-seat arena under construction
at the
University of South Alabama is now $22 million, and the price is
expected to go up at least another $3 million before it's completed, USA
interim President Gordon Moulton said Monday.
Moulton, who took control of the university
last week after
longtime President Fred Whiddon resigned, also said he doesn't
expect the facility known as The Mitchell Center to
be ready for
Jaguar basketball games until late January or early February at
the earliest.
Whiddon originally put the arena's price tag
at $8.5 million. In December,
he estimated it would be a little more than $16 million.
The Jaguars first 1998-99 home conference game
is Jan. 14 against
Florida International University the Sun Belt's newest member.
Meanwhile, the university's new president is
moving quickly
to fill high-level positions that the former USA administration
let go unstaffed. He said Tuesday that he plans to fill no
fewer than
three posts governmental affairs, alumni affairs and
dean of nursing
this week.
Moulton confirmed that he is trying to convince
William J. Happy''
Fulford to take back the governmental and alumni affairs posts
he handled for 11 years before moving to the governmental affairs
job with University of Alabama System last year.
Happy is the best lobbyist in the state,''
Moulton said. He
has not yet told me that he will accept the position.''
Fulford could not be reached for comment Tuesday
afternoon.
Moulton would not say who he is considering
for the university's
top Nursing School position, but he said he hopes to announce
his
appointments at a news conference Friday.
In addition to the governmental, alumni and
nursing positions,
the university has vacancies in public relations, development,
academic affairs, medical affairs, dean of the college of
medicine
and the chairman of the medical school department that handles
the training of doctors trained in internal medicine.
When an organization gets to be the size of
the University
of South Alabama with 5,800 employees, the primary role of
the chief
executive officer is to find the best qualified persons and
let
them do their jobs,'' Moulton said.
Moulton said that filling all of the major
vacancies, except
academic affairs, is his immediate priority. In the academic
area,
he said he has full faith in Patsy Covey, the interim academic
vice
president.
Patsy is very familiar with some of the issues
that need immediate
attention, and an experienced administrator who has the confidence
of all the academic deans,'' Moulton said.
He said he has already named Jean Tucker, a
lawyer who has been
handling legal affairs for the university's hospitals, as university
attorney, replacing Maxey Roberts who accompanied Whiddon when
he left.
The university has been paying Ms. Tucker around
$62,000 a year
under contract. I'll have to up that a bit,'' Moulton said.
Ms. Roberts was paid more than $145,000 annually
when she resigned.
Moulton said he and the trustees also will
be working over the
next few weeks to hire a new vice president for medical affairs, a new medical
school dean and a new chairman for the Department of Medicine.
We need to get some stability in the medical
area,'' Moulton
said.
The last medical affairs vice president and
medical school
dean left 18 months ago. Since that time, Dr. William Gardner
has
handled those duties on an interim basis.
Filling vacant positions and dealing with athletics
have taken
up much of his time since assuming the presidency last week, Moulton
said.
A top priority is settling any problems the
university has with
the NCAA, Moulton said.
He said he and the trustees already terminated
the services
of the Atlanta law firm and consultant Whiddon hired to investigate
his athletic department.
The probe, which Moulton characterized as unfortunate,''
cost the university $221,000 and apparently uncovered only
minor,
secondary violations.
None of those violations were intentional,
and they did not
give USA any advantage in recruiting athletes, Moulton said.
He said he and a special committee he appointed
are working with
the NCAA to find the easiest and quickest way to correct mistakes
USA made in its payments to athletes.
Concerning the unfinished arena, Moulton said
he expects the
Jaguars to have to play all of their early season home basketball
games in the university gymnasium.
He said he is contacting Sun Belt Conference
Commissioner Craig
Thompson and the presidents of all other Sun Belt Conference schools
to see if he can convince them not to levy sanctions against the Jaguars
because the arena probably will not be completed in time for the
first conference home games.
I hope they will understand what we're going
through,'' he
said.
He said that despite the problems and criticism
that the arena
has generated, he is convinced it will be a fine facility that the
university got at a bargain price.
And, he said, there will be plenty of nice
space for the university's
booster club to use during Jaguar athletic events, Moulton said.
I am very optimistic that when we're finished
we are going
to have a nice facility, and we are definitely going to provide
the
space needed for the Jaguar booster club to meet,'' Moulton
said.
Jaguar Athletic Club officials had been concerned
recently
that the space they had been promised in the arena had been
re-allocated
to other uses, but Moulton said he is going to make sure
that the booster
club is taken care of.
Moulton also said he believes that good athletics
and good academics
can complement each other. It is going to be his job to bring the two
sides together, he said.
I fully believe that our faculty are not anti-football
or
anti-athletics, but they are suspicious,'' he said.
New USA chief hits ground running PHOTO BILL
STARLING /Staff
Photographer The University of South Alabama's interim president,
Gordon
Moulton, talks about construction cost overruns and about how he'll soon fill
at least three top vacancies in the university's administration director
of
governmental affairs, director of alumni affairs and dean of nursing.
This article reproduced with special permission
from the Mobile Register.
