C. JEMAL HORTON
The Indianapolis Star

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - It's bad enough to be a maverick athletic director. It is much, much worse to be a maverick athletic director whose department is drastically in the red.

That's where Michael McNeely failed miserably in his 16 months on campus. He ran a department with a $3.2 million deficit, and he ostracized many longtime employees and followers of the athletic programs as he did it.

That has to be the biggest reason McNeely wound up resigning as Indiana University's athletic director Friday.

From the day McNeely walked into his office at Assembly Hall, he became a college version of Washington Redskins rebel owner Daniel Snyder. McNeely instantly and defiantly made changes and rocked boats at an institution that had achieved greatness, in large part, because of its continuity and dexterity with those associated with it.

McNeely's management style offended many of the school's coaches. That's not uncommon in any workplace when there is new leadership. But whatever McNeely was doing seemed to create a divisiveness that had become irreparable much too quickly.

Starting with football coach Cam Cameron last December, McNeely fired four coaches in his brief stay. I can understand wanting to send a message that mediocrity will not be tolerated. But four firings in 16 months?

You can understand why morale in the building would be low.

"There's always a healing process that's important when there's change," said IU vice president and chief administrative officer Terry Clapacs, who will be the interim athletic director until a new one is hired.

"There's a lot of feelings that have been hurt ... It's just something that needs to be addressed and something that's high on my list of things to pay attention to."

And then there was the money issue.

Some of the changes McNeely brought about probably were made with sincere intentions of improving the athletic department's profile, if not the university's. But because of McNeely's iron-fist approach, some of the moves wound up looking frivolous and selfish without remorse.

- McNeely spent more than $200,000 on renovations for the athletic director's suite in Memorial Stadium.

That renovation is something that needed to be done. But now? When McNeely knew the department was teetering near the red? No way.

- McNeely spent $140,000 for a California firm to develop a new logo and color scheme for the IU athletic teams.

First of all, changing the colors, particularly with the basketball team, was a smack in the nostrils to many longtime fans. Secondly, $140,000 is a whole lot of money, especially when someone in IU's esteemed School of Fine Arts might have done it for free and with pride.

- McNeely's brother, Brian, wound up getting a job as recruiting coordinator and receivers coach with the IU football team, and he received a higher salary than any of the other assistants, including the offensive and defensive coordinators.

Brian McNeely is respected in the coaching ranks, but his hiring and salary, at least the timing of them, reeked the ugly stench of nepotism. And let's face it: This wasn't basketball and this wasn't Bob and Pat Knight. Therefore, many people were perturbed.

No one's saying McNeely had to be a "yes" man, however.

Had McNeely remained true to his eccentric self yet shown some signs of upward movement in revenue and morale in this athletic department, there is little doubt he would still be here.

There's a part of me that has to admire McNeely, though. He leaves here on his own terms, not to mention with over $1 million for 16 months work.

But he also leaves with an important lesson:

If you're going to rule a department with an iron fist, that fist had better be full of money.

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C. Jemal Horton is a sports columnist for The Indianapolis Star. Contact him at (317) 444-6514 or via e-mail at jemal.Horton@indystar.com.