Board quickly renames venue to Mizzou Arena

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- The University of Missouri-Columbia renamed its new sports arena with a school nickname Friday, just days after the original namesake, a 22-year-old Wal-Mart heiress, was accused of academic cheating at another college.

The university's governing Board of Curators voted without dissent to rename Paige Sports Arena during a three-minute conference call.

The Mizzou Arena name will be used immediately for the $75 million basketball venue, although it will take some time to replace signs, programs and other materials, at a cost estimated around $40,000, said Elson Floyd, president of the four-campus university system.

"All of us are happy with Mizzou," Floyd told reporters after the brief meeting. "How can you go wrong when you talk about Mizzou?"

The original name was chosen by Bill and Nancy Laurie, who donated $25 million toward construction of the arena and in return received naming rights and an array of perks and influence over construction.

They named the arena for their daughter, Elizabeth Paige Laurie, who did not attend the school in Columbia.

Paige Laurie received a bachelors degree this year from the University of Southern California. Last week, a former roommate told a television newsmagazine that Paige Laurie paid her thousands of dollars to do academic work for her.

The Laurie family has said Paige Laurie's college record is a private matter.

Nancy Laurie is a daughter of the late Bud Walton, co-founder of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The Lauries own the St. Louis Blues professional hockey team under the corporate umbrella of Paige Sports Entertainment, also named for their daughter.

The quick vote by the curators was intended to help the university move quickly past another embarrassment. The men's basketball program was recently punished by the NCAA for recruiting violations. The football team is having a losing season. And faculty members have criticized a never-filled economics professorship endowed by -- and named for -- former Enron chief Kenneth Lay.

Jonathan Bernstein, a Los Angeles-based expert in crisis public relations, said the Lauries and the university spared themselves festering embarrassment by acting quickly.

"You suffer damage in inverse proportion to the speed of your response. The slower your response, the more damage occurs," said Bernstein, whose clients include universities, although not the University of Missouri.

Curator Don Walsworth, a friend of the Lauries, said the prompt action "brings closure to the university and to a very fine family."

While the university could have resold the naming rights to make money in a time of tight state revenues, Walsworth said the basketball venue carries the right name, "and it should be Mizzou Arena for all time."

Floyd acknowledged that "one option" was to rename the arena for former basketball coach Norm Stewart, whose name is on its basketball court.

The Lauries had stipulated in the original donation contract that the arena couldn't honor any current or former athlete or coach. But they relented and allowed the transfer of the court name honoring Stewart. A bust of Stewart is also in a display case in the arena lobby.

Mark Ziegler, co-president of the Seattle alumni chapter and an outspoken critic of the Paige name, said Friday that the curators should have named the whole building after Stewart.

"I think it's the obvious choice of a vast majority of fans and residents, who, after all, are paying for more than half of this arena," said Ziegler. "If you were to put this on the ballot in the state of Missouri, I guarantee you, two-thirds would support naming it Norm Stewart Arena."

Floyd said Mizzou Arena was a logical choice.

"The University of Missouri-Columbia is referred to in three ways: University of Missouri-Columbia; MU; Mizzou. When we talk about our athletic programs, we typically refer to them as Mizzou. Obviously it's an arena. So putting the two of them together -- Mizzou Arena -- makes a lot of sense," Floyd said.

University officials praised the Lauries for their generosity to the school, and not just the arena donation. They have also given money for athletic department scholarships, and endowed an equine professorship in Paige Laurie's name at the university's veterinary school.

The curators didn't discuss whether Paige Laurie's name should remain on the vet school position, for which her parents donated $550,000.