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Tuesday, 09 January 2007 16:28 |
FLAT ROCK ÇƒÓ Under fire, the head baseball coach at Blue Ridge Community College recently announced plans to resign at the end of the upcoming season.
Coach Damon Toweës decision followed the stateës recent order for BRCC to repay money improperly used for the baseball team.
Towe said in a Dec. 23 e-mail message that his resignation announcement would be his "first and only statement about the situation."
In addition, Towe reportedly stated that he has accepted another job, but declined to specify where.
"I am sorry for
the mistakes that were made, but I have always had the best of
intentions for the college and the baseball program and, in no way,
intentionally made these mistakes," his e-mail message stated.
Following an
investigation by state auditors, the state Board of Community Colleges
on Dec. 13 ordered BRCC to repay the state money used for the team.
The state board
also ordered BRCC to stop spending state money on baseball and recover
costs from Toweës use of college facilities to run a private camp. The
use of state money by community colleges on athletics is forbidden by
state law.
While BRCC has
agreed that Towe should repay state funds, the amount of the
reimbursement had not been determined yet as of late December.
The college paid
baseball players $35,000 from September 2002 to May 2005 for
work-study, according to state auditors. Towe deposited $7,298 in
work-study checks into his personal checking account, the auditors
noted.
However, Towe
did not profit from the situation because he used the money to house
his players, an internal investigation by BRCC found.
In a resolution
released on Dec. 18, the BRCC trustees criticized the state board for
acting "irresponsibly in its handling of the matter," including
"failing to recognize the extensive corrective measures taken by the
trustees."
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