Change the name of the University and the sports being cut, and this columnist could be describing UAB cutting football. This Temple story has many of the same elements: The president of the university and powerful BOT members secretly preparing to execute a predetermined decision to cut sports without allowing the sports' supporters the opportunity to work out other means of handling the financial problems involved. It even has the administration actively disputing that other options were feasible.
And right in the middle all of this was our future AD who at the time was in charge of rounding up contributions for the Temple sports programs: "This assertion is supported by a statement to me by Mark Ingram, a Temple athletics official, that no amount of private donations — and no amount of potentially withdrawn gifts — would result in reversal of the decision." Sounds real familiar doesn't it.
No wonder Watts chose Ingram for the AD job despite the fact that the selection committee rated him as the 4th best candidate. He was already used to be the mouthpiece for an administration and BOT members who acted exactly acted in the manner as their counterparts at UAB.
The only difference in the Temple situation was that the sports cut did not enjoy the popular support which football enjoys at UAB and therefore no one fought very hard for to keep them or bring them back.
(This post was last modified: 09-09-2015 04:16 PM by CajunBlazer.)
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For What It's Worth : Ingram article from Temple, 2014
