The Men Who Killed Birmingham-Southern College, Part II

Birmingham-Southern College (BSC) needed money to finance its expensive capital projects, adorning its “hilltop in the hood,” as some have occasionally called it.

Where was BSC going to find the money to expand its campus, attract prospective students, and sustain enrollment? His campus was already mortgaged; his tuition was employed to secure his income bonds. With the exception of a line of credit with Regions Bank, endowment assets were the only funds available.

The BSC board decided to gamble the funds from the endowment. This decision, as we all know now, turned out to be the most acute.

Many of the capital expenditures made by BSC between 2004 and 2010 turned out to be misleading detritus. The lake turned out to be an exorbitant mistake. Cost overruns were incurred in building the football stadium. Ironically, Regions Bank never followed through on Dowd Ritter’s promise to pay the bill for the construction of the football stadium in exchange for the stadium’s naming rights.

The financial crisis of 2008 saw a loss of $25 million in the value of the endowment’s assets invested in securities. By 2010, the fund’s unrestricted funds were close to being exhausted.

The BSC’s annual budgets under Pollick were the fateful vehicles that completely drained the endowment. The Pollick administration was depleting the endowment with its eyes wide open, knowing full well what it was doing. Unfortunately, there were no alarms to inform the council of this, showing us once again the disastrous effects of autonomous presidents acting with few checks to prevent catastrophe.

In 2010, the board approved a budget with a deficit of about $14 million. Then Regions Bank called, informing the college that it had maxed out its line of credit.

The credit line agreement with Regions Bank required two signatures from BSC officials to draw funds. Without anyone’s consent or knowledge, the CFO drew funds from the line of credit, representing on the green sheets that the drawn debt was income in an unethical attempt to offset the loss of tuition from excessive athletic cuts. These unscrupulous actions increased BSC’s annual budget deficit from $14 million to $18 million.

The board never sued Regions for the improper payments. At the time, Ritter was the CEO of Regions Bank. Ritter also served as chairman of the board of BSC. Conflict of interest or mere coincidence?

Pollick took the fall and was immediately fired, but his contract called for a large buyout. The board wanted out of this purchase and investigated whether Pollick had committed a crime or misappropriated funds. But when a lawyer was hired to do a forensic audit, he concluded there was no intentional wrongdoing on Pollick’s part. Pollick left with a substantial reward that many administrators and members of the BSC community still feel today.

After Pollick, the BSC has witnessed a host of presidents on their way to their deathbeds. Each tried (and ultimately failed) to steady the sinking ship. Not even Marine Commander General Charles Krulak and Wall Street financial guru Daniel Coleman could save the day.

Enrollment was already low when COVID hit, but federal government relief funds kept BSC afloat for a while longer. However, when BSC asked the state of Alabama for more COVID relief funds, the request was denied — the state’s first strike against BSC.

BSC then applied for a loan from the state, and with the help of State Senator Jabo Wagoner (R-Vestavia Hills), a BSC alumnus, BSC was able to obtain the Alabama “Distressed Institutions of Higher Education Revolving Loan Program” . Legislature, providing loans of up to $30 million to educational institutions in financial difficulty.

But this lifeboat had a fatal flaw: it left the final decision to grant/deny the loan to the state treasurer.

Again, we see complete power in the hands of one man, with little or nothing in the way of checks and balances. Men killed the BSC, not public sentiment, not policies, not faceless impersonal institutional forces.

Enter Young Boozer III, a vile and callous figure now publicly reviled by many for denying BSC the loan of the lifeboat, the last man to kill BSC.

Berte and Pollick systematically crippled the BSC (perhaps past the point of repair), but Boozer actually pulled the trigger, the last one to keep the gun smoking.

A mercy killing or a murder?

After running BSC for months, assuring the college that it would receive the loan designed specifically for BSC’s desperate situation, Boozer rejected the loan application based on his opinion that BSC did not offer sufficient security for the loan and did not have a viable repayment plan. . Boozer considered BSC “a terrible credit risk”.

Blindsided and betrayed, BSC sued Boozer to force him to disperse the loan, but the court held that he could not force the state treasurer to make the loan because the Act gave Boozer full discretion to grant or deny loan applications. Trying, BSC then tried to revise the Act to give the Alabama Department of Education the power to grant/deny the loan application rather than the state treasurer. That revision passed the Senate but died in the House.

BSC, pronounced dead, was now DNR (do not resuscitate).

With no other options on the horizon, the BSC board voted to close the college on May 31, 2024.

In the case of the BSC apocalypse, there were three, not four, horsemen. Dr. Neal Berte was clearly the first man to throw BSC on its horrendous accidental course in the late 1970s. Dr. David Pollick sealed BSC’s fate in the 2000s. But Boozer pulled the trigger in 2023.

Money, as we all know, always has a paper trail.

Justice may never be served to the crooks, criminals and fools who led BSC to its long, slow and suffocating death. We may never get the chance to hold these people’s feet to the fire so they can pay for their crimes.

It may be that even if we follow the paper trail of damning decisions, financial abuses and fraud, we will never really understand how such a historic, precious and important place like BSC could be cursed and thrown away.

The situation is surreal for everyone close to BSC. Birmingham’s brightest light has been snuffed out of existence. But we – the proud and grieving graduates of this magnificent little college – will not go quietly. We will “steal, rage against the dying of the light.”

We will continue to demand answers. We will never forget or forgive this crime. We will hold those responsible accountable.

Conner (CR) Hayes is a small business owner based in Nashville, Tennessee. He is a 2017 graduate of Birmingham-Southern College and a screenwriter, novelist and poet. CR Hayes is published in a variety of media, including academic articles, journalism, prose and poetry.

The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please email your name and contact information to [email protected].

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