During Sunday's Freshman Convocation guest speaker Jason Whitlock spoke about his memories as a Ball State University student and football player.
However, while on campus Monday, Whitlock, a columnist for FOX Sports, made comments about the current state of the athletic department that were less positive than his speech.
In an interview, Whitlock said the athletic department is disfunctional and Tom Collins is a horrible athletic director who needs to be fired.
"I do believe we have one of the weakest athletic directors in Division I," he said. "You just expect from a leadership position, it's like being a quarterback or head coach, you have the personality for it or you don't. We have a guy that doesn't have the personality for it."
In addition to writing for FOX Sports, Whitlock is a columnist for the Kansas City Star and was named in 2006 as one of America's top-10 sports columnists. He also has appeared
as a guest host on ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption" and "Jim Rome is Burning."
In his most recent column for FOX Sports, Whitlock wrote Collins was unqualified to be an athletic director and was one of the reasons why Thompson failed as a Ball State coach.
Collins was hired in January 2006. Currently under his administration, investigations are being conducted about five potential NCAA rule violations.
Also, a climate assessment is being conducted to determine if the athletic department's work environment is hostile. That investigation started after notes containing racial slurs were discovered in the offices of then-men's basketball coach Ronny Thompson and his three assistant coaches offices.
Whitlock said he hopes Collins is relieved of his athletic director duties before the 2007-08 school year ends. He said he will not donate any more money to the university until Collins is fired or resigns.
"I don't have any money to give Ball State as long as he is here," he said. "Not that I give a whole lot of money, but he kills my enthusiasm and I don't have any confidence in what we're doing. So, I guess my protest is whatever $2,000 or $3,000 I give, or whatever I've given the last 12 years, I'm withholding until we get a new AD."
Collins had no comment when asked to respond to Whitlock's remarks.
In addition to poor leadership skills, Whitlock said the athletic department struggles because some people who have been in the athletic department longer than Collins want to see him fail.
Collins' deputy athletic director, Ken Brown, and three of his four associate athletic directors were hired before he became the Cardinals' Director of Intercollegiate Athletics.
"When you install a weak leader and the other leaders think they have more qualifications than the leader, I don't blame them for wanting to be the chief," Whitlock said. "That's the problem, everyone wants to be the head guy. They've been here long enough and they should have this job or that job. Unfortunately, we hired a weak leader and we didn't allow him to hire his own people, which probably is a good thing because then we would be stuck with other people that aren't that good."
Whitlock said no Ball State team can live up to its potential if changes aren't made to the athletic department, including men's basketball coach Billy Taylor and his team.
"I think Billy Taylor is a good coach, but at the end of the day every coach is reliant on his athletic director," Whitlock said. "In order to sustain success and retain the people to make it successful we need a good AD."
Whitlock said some people who were hired before Collins also need to be removed for their positions but didn't name anyone specifically.
In addition, he said the dysfunctional athletic department was one of the reasons Thompson failed at Ball State.
"I think there are people, boosters, people in the athletic department that would like to see Tom Collins fail and a good way to see him fail would be to have Ronny Thompson blow up in his face," Whitlock said. "It was like Ronny poured gas all over himself and there were plenty of people with matches."
Thompson, who resigned in July, said in an Aug. 14 Washington Post story he left Ball State because it was a racially hostile work environment and several athletic department officials harassed him.
Whitlock said he initially approached the Thompson family to write a story about why Thompson left Ball State, but decided not to write the story after meeting with Thompson because the information seemed so one sided.
"It's probably half way through that I started suggesting that you guys [Thompson, his father, brother and their lawyer] are turning this into a total racial issue when maybe it's just a by-product of Ronny's immaturity and the immaturity of our head athletic director," Whitlock said.
Whitlock said he thinks the university will eventually have an out-of-court settlement with Thompson and the will be fine in the long run.
"Ball State has been here, 90, 100 years and it will be here for another 90, 100 years," he said. "The school will be fine. I think most people are smart enough to realize the story Ronny is putting out there is out of context."
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