Let's hope Auburn has learned lesson of Lowder era (Herndon)Bobby Lowder spent thousands of dollars in the form of campaign contributions to stay on Auburn's board of trustees for nearly three decades. He once even filed a lawsuit to block then-Gov. Fob James' attempts to remove him. In the end, he went out on his own, without a fight. Less than a month after Gov. Robert Bentley re-appointed Lowder to serve yet another term on the AU board of trustees, the man ESPN once named college sports' most powerful booster withdrew his name from consideration this week -- 28 years after first being appointed by George Wallace in 1983. In the end, the banking crisis may have done what James couldn't, sapping the former Colonial BancGroup CEO of his fortune as federal regulators took over Colonial in the sixth-largest bank failure in U.S. history. Lowder, a 1964 AU graduate who once controlled $21 billion in assets at Colonial, has shown his love for his alma mater by pumping millions into Auburn. But those millions have come with a price. He's a behind-the-scenes man who has repeatedly shunned media attention. But his fingerprints are everywhere on the Plains. His control over the university's football program is legendary, bolstered by Terry Bowden's claims that Lowder was responsible for both his hiring and his firing on the Plains. And while the extent of Lowder's influence has been debated, there's no debating whose plane carried the Auburn braintrust to Louisville in 2003 for a covert meeting with Bobby Petrino. The now-infamous Jetgate episode was followed closely by a threat to the university's accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, which cited Lowder's micromanagement and conflicts of interest among the trustees in placing Auburn on a probation that has since been lifted. One can question what athletic escapades such as Jetgate have to do with a school's accreditation, but Lowder's influence extended to the academic side as well. A university decision to fold the journalism program into the communications department came shortly after the editor of the student newspaper was censured in reaction to stories she wrote about Lowder's influence. With Lowder now out of the picture, Auburn has an opportunity to move forward in a way once unimaginable. His massive donations will be missed, but he is not the only successful and wealthy graduate the university has produced. There are many others, and many who will not demand the level of control that Lowder did. It's time for those voices to be heard. Whether you believe Lowder was a benevolent leader whose only sin was loving Auburn too much or a tyrannical puppet-master who held the university under his thumb, there is one thing his tenure seems to have made painfully clear: No one man should have that much power. As Auburn moves into the post-Lowder era, that's a lesson that should be learned all too well.
http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2011/05/lets_hope_auburn_has_learned_l.html
Do stupid fuckers, like this writer and I'm sure other Auburn fans, not realize that he can still donate money...he's still "the most powerful booster in Alabama."
Maybe even more dangerous now that he doesn't have to be careful with the BOT status.
Now he gets to befriend 9th Graders, like the bammer boosters.
That just sounds wrong.
So close to Put him in a Got 13? T-shirt and put a houndstooth baseball cap on him and put a wad of money in one hand and you have a winner.Damn, I wish I had the time on my hands I used to...
I like this one.
13 Replies
1690 Views