AD move was just a matter of time

We knew this day was coming.

Change was inevitable.

It was just a matter of when for athletic director Don Kaverman.

The Southeast Missouri State athletics department was going to get new leadership to execute a plan under close scrutiny from the president and the board of regents.

We knew it was coming, but not with the bombshells that have another black cloud over Southeast Missouri State's women's basketball program, men's basketball coach Scott Edgar on the sidelines and the local university among the poster children for NCAA violators.

Sports fans everywhere now will know Southeast Missouri State, which since its move to Division I back in 1991 has had as many run-ins with the NCAA as it has football winning seasons and men's basketball NCAA tournament appearances combined.

Just scanning the headlines, it's not pretty: Edgar on administrative leave due to allegations of potential major violations and providing false and misleading information, a booster giving money to a former women's basketball player during a stretch when the NCAA still had the program under its microscope, and Kaverman out unceremoniously.

He didn't even get to ride off into the sunset of his contract's end next summer, instead sent packing on 120 days' notice with baggage that includes an allegation of failure to monitor the men's and women's basketball programs on top of the lack of institutional control handed down earlier this year.

Didn't we just go through this mess?

Welcome to the darkest day in Southeast Missouri State athletics -- for now. Because someday down the road, if the allegations turn to violations, penalties will be doled out and Southeast will be infamous again. The Redhawks won't even have an NCAA men's tourney appearance to be taken away, as was the case with the women's basketball program in its penalties just four months ago.

And by that point, Southeast will have tried to begin the rebuilding process with new leadership in athletics.

This is the low point, sports fans.

It may not be as bad as it looks, but it looks bad. It looks like the department that was struggling to raise funds, the department whose major programs (men's basketball and football) were floundering, the department whose most successful program (women's basketball) took flight in renegade style, the department that failed to find leadership to inspire the community, that same department also was not monitoring the activities of its boosters and its coaches.

That's what it looks like.

Some would argue differently, that Southeast is getting tagged because it was proactive about potential violations, that its efforts to monitor and educate fell victim to the same problem that has led to lack of direction and lack of funds: lack of resources.

The excuse wears thin after a while.

This day was coming for Kaverman. The university's board of regents late last year cited athletics as a department requiring urgent attention and requested a review of its challenges. The NCAA was not kind in its penalties for the women's basketball program. The president embarked on a search for one of the department's newly created top administrators without fully including Kaverman in the process.

Kaverman's emerging lame-duck status led him to examine a position lower on the totem pole at a smaller institution back in his home state of Michigan.

He departs with the cloud overshadowing his 9 1/2-year legacy: a program that excelled in academics, was successful primarily in sports that don't draw the revenue and operated capably within comparably tight financial constraints. Many of the good things administrators would have said about an outgoing AD are lost in the "no comment" that accompanies an NCAA investigation.

"Don has done some very fine things," university president Dr. Kenneth Dobbins said, "but we believe it's the time for new leadership."

Soon, Southeast will have its new leadership team -- including a new AD and an associate AD to fill the recently created position related to fundraising and marketing. It will have three people doing the jobs that had been done by two.

Redhawks fans will want those leaders to help produce wins in the high-profile programs.

Believe it or not, after the struggles of the last few years, those leaders also will have to do a lot of work to restore the program's integrity.

Toby Carrig is the editor of the regional Web site Semoball.com.