Robert L. Carothers is completing an 18-year term as president at the University of Rhode Island. Carothers has been involved in the athletic program as much as any university president in recent years.

This story is the fifth of six on Carothers’ impact on the URI athletic program.

Thorr Bjorn at the news conference announcing his appointment as URI athletic director, in 2007.

Journal photo / Bill Murphy

SOUTH KINGSTOWN –– The athletic department at the University of Rhode Island faces some major challenges in the coming years, according to Robert L. Carothers, the man who is leaving the school after 18 years as president.

 Money has become a huge issue, as in every other department, because of a reduction in state assistance and the overall economic situation in the state. It is likely to lead, Carothers feels, to a change in conference alignments soon, not because URI is displeased with the Atlantic 10, but because of the need to reduce travel costs.

 The good news for David Dooley, who will take over as president, is that the athletic department is in good hands, Carothers feels.

 “We’ve got a winner there,” Carothers said of Thorr Bjorn, the athletic director for the past two years. “I feel very good about leaving the program in his hands. He’s smart. He makes tough decisions and handles them well. Going through what we did, with cutting some sports, he handled that very well.”

 As part of a detailed review of his time as president, Carothers provided candid evaluations of the athletic directors the school has had since he has been in Kingston. He said he was sorry he only had one year to work with McKinley Boston before Boston left for the University of Minnesota.

 “Mac Boston was a class act,” Carothers said of the former pro football player who currently is athletic director at New Mexico State University. “I always thought Mac cold be a college president. Even after he went to Minnesota I talked to him about that. Very few ADs have a PhD.”

 When Boston left, Carothers selected Ron Petro to replace him. Petro served for 12 years. Petro earned a reputation as a good administrator. He also is the person who did much of the work in deciding on how to build the Ryan Center. That building has received wide acclaim as one of the best facilities of its size in the country. However, he left in 2004 under less than ideal circumstances, an issue Carothers has not discussed until now. Carothers’ comments give some indication of why Petro left sooner than he had hoped.

 “Ron was a good AD when we were small and struggling; I liked him personally. I’m not sure I can say exactly,” Carothers said. In a rarity, he hesitated, obviously searching for the right words to describe a delicate situation.

 “He just wasn’t committed to the degree of excellence I thought we should have,” the president said.

  But Carothers made it clear with his choice of a successor to Petro, that he had higher objectives. He hired Tom McElroy, an administrator who had been involved at the highest level of college athletics. McElroy moved to Rhode Island two decades ago to serve as an associate commissioner of the Big East Conference. He helped develop the Big East into one of the most powerful conferences in the country. He left the conference to join the staff at the University of Connecticut.

 URI’s longtime rival in the Yankee Conference, UConn had become a national power through its Big East membership. McElroy had helped develop the football program from a Division I-AA participant, the level at which URI plays, into a successful Division I program.

 “He’s the most qualified guy we had in here. He knows more about athletics than anybody we’ve had here,” Carothers said.

 But McElroy had a short (two years) and stormy time before leaving under unpleasant circumstances. McElroy had trouble adjusting to URI, where money is much tighter than at the other stops where McElroy worked.

 McElroy expressed frustration with the way the department operated at URI and with the difficulty in getting projects accomplished. He had, according to reports from co-workers, a short fuse that caused problems with relationships with others in the department.

 “I tried to save him,” Carothers said.

 It did not work. McElroy spent a lengthy time on a paid leave of absence before an agreement was reached for him to part ways with the school. Gregg Burke kept the program running, first as acting director and later as interim director, while a search was conducted for a new director. Burke was one of three finalists for the job that Bjorn eventually got.

 The problems McElroy had difficulty dealing with have only grown more severe since he left. However, Bjorn’s experience had been at the University of Massachusetts before coming to Kingston. UMass and URI not only play in the same conference, the Atlantic 10, but have similar operational situations. For him, the situation is pretty much business as usual and, as Carothers suggested, he is having more success dealing with it.

pkenyon@projo.com