HIGH FIVE FOR THE BIG MAN ON CAMPUS

posted by Michael Chihak

Can a straight-laced, seemingly mild-mannered physics professor find love and happiness in the high-fiving, good-old-boy world of big-time sports?

We’ll soon find out.

Robert Shelton will leave his perch as president of the University of Arizona this summer to become executive director of the Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix, his hometown.

That someone of Shelton’s stature is taking the lead of this scandal-tainted organization will put an even brighter spotlight on what had until this spring been a sports organization with a record of phenomenal success.

Shelton will be responsible for seeing that the success resumes after this year’s pause to get rid of a CEO who played fast and loose with the organization’s money. He handed it out in the form of questionable if not illegal political contributions, spent big chunks on high-roller entertaining and even threw himself a $30,000 birthday party.

Shelton at his introductory press conference this week didn’t want to dwell on all that, understandably, but rather insisted more than once that the Fiesta Bowl needs to move forward.

And move forward is what he is doing, from his situation of the last five years, caught between the Legislature and the regents on one side and the university community on the other during unprecedented budget cuts, academic program consolidations and record tuition increases.

Considering that scenario, this Fiesta Bowl gig should be as much fun as a Saturday night fraternity kegger.

And for it, he’ll get paid about the same as being a university president – nearly a half-million dollars a year.

But when one looks at the repairs needed to bring the Fiesta Bowl to back respectability among prudent people, maybe Shelton is getting short-changed.