Colleges

Assistants of outgoing AD intend to leave Florida St.

Two of Hart's longtime assistants are planning to leave by Oct. 1.

By BRIAN LANDMAN
Published July 14, 2007

Not only is Florida State athletic director Dave Hart on his way out, but two of his longtime assistants - Charlie Carr and Pam Overton - are planning to leave by Oct. 1.

In letters dated May 9, Carr, a senior associate athletic director who worked for Hart for four years at East Carolina before joining him at FSU in 1995, and Overton, an associate director/senior woman administrator who also worked for Hart at East Carolina, wrote that they were or were planning to seek "employment outside" of the university.

Ever since word leaked out that FSU president T.K. Wetherell told Hart in a terse note that he didn't intend to renew his contract when it expires in January 2009, it has been speculated that Wetherell has wanted a shakeup of the athletic department staff and Hart was reluctant to act.

The letters from Carr and Overton were dated 20 days before Wetherell's to Hart, according to public records obtained by the St. Petersburg Times.

In Wetherell's most recent performance evaluation of Hart in 2004, he rated the athletic director excellent overall and noted that athletic department staff "morale has improved dramatically and the program has become the envy of the nation."

Man sentenced in scam that cheated Bowden

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - A judge sentenced a man to five months in prison and ordered him to repay $5.6-million for his role in an investment scam whose victims included FSU coach Bobby Bowden.

Richard E. Busch Jr., 64, had sought to avoid prison time, but U.S. District Judge Karon Bowdre imposed the term during a hearing Thursday.

Busch pleaded guilty in May. He was prosecuted as part of a conspiracy to sell unregistered securities that cost investors $10-million. Bowden's son Stephen was among those prosecuted in the scheme, which prosecutors said began in 1996.

UTEP: Coach Mike Price was released from an El Paso, Texas, hospital Friday after doctors implanted a stent to relieve a blocked artery in his heart. Price, 61, was having routine tests Thursday when doctors discovered a significant blockage in one of his arteries.

Times wires contributed to this report. Brian Landman can be reached at landman@sptimes.com or 813 226-3347.

[Last modified July 14, 2007, 00:49:08]