Jensen: Temple football stadium still on track despite shake-up

Thursday's private board of trustees session ended, and the board walked out and announced the deed was done. Neil D. Theobald had agreed to resign as Temple's president, no terms of a settlement announced.

Afterward, several board members, including board chair Patrick J. O'Connor, made it clear that the building of a campus football stadium remained a front-burner issue, still moving forward.

"Nothing. Nada," O'Connor said when asked what will change about the stadium drive with Theobald out.

O'Connor termed the economics "pretty simple" as far as building a new place or continuing to pay rent to the Eagles.

If money going to the Eagles in rent money goes toward a bond to build a stadium, what about future operating costs?

"There will be, but trust me . . . the metrics . . . side-by-side," O'Connor said. "We get no parking. We get 10 percent of the concessions. We pay game-day expenses."

Another board member walked by.

"Here he is, Joe Coradino. Talk to him," O'Connor said.

Joseph Coradino, chief executive officer of PREIT, is in charge of a board of trustees committee specifically on the stadium. Coradino wasn't ambushed by O'Connor. He expected this conversation. He sat down in the public board room for a couple of minutes.

"I don't think anything really changes on the stadium front," Coradino said of the change in leadership. Richard Englert, a longtime university administrator, is taking over as Temple's acting president as he had done once previously, before Theobald was hired.

Talking strictly about the stadium project, Coradino said, "It's business as usual, if you will. We're going through a process. And that process is going to involve a good deal of study and a good deal of working with the community."

A dozen or so members of that community were outside on the sidewalk on Broad Street protesting the stadium proposal. Such protests aren't new. And in many ways the public protests are aimed more toward city officials who will need to approve the project.

"Whenever you do something like this, one needs to get buy-in not just from how the university feels but how the community feels, how City Council feels. We're going to need to do work as far as transportation analysis, traffic impact, environmental impact," Coradino said. "All the things one should take into consideration as you think about a development of this scale in this community."

Coradino's words weren't as important as his message. Behind those closed doors, the board was still talking about how to proceed on this specific project.

Procedurally, would Coradino be more involved now?

"I've had this role for a while," Coradino said. "Probably more quiet. I think nothing changes. I'm clear that I'm a trustee. Role of trustee, I learned a long time ago, is nose in, hands out. That will continue to be my role, to challenge it, to provide direction where appropriate. But I don't anticipate being involved in the day-to-day."

While acknowledging the school is still in the early stages of the process, Coradino said, "I also don't believe it's a very long process to get through."

Asked about the fund-raising end of it, "I think there is support for it," he said. But he added that wasn't something he was specifically charged with.

There is no word on how long Englert might serve and when a search might start for the next president. This is all too new. But any potential next president obviously has to realize, in addition to Temple's now having a track record of letting presidents go in short order, that he or she will be entering a stadium project in midstream. His or her opinion may - or may not - end up mattering.

Until a week ago, when it came to sports, Theobald's legacy as Temple's president was shaping up to be one of the more consequential in recent local history.

Theobald was the guy who cut sports. He also looked like the guy who was going to build a campus football stadium.

Now? He gets only half that. Baseball and softball and men's gymnastics and men's track and field are gone, and a new minor sports complex for other sports that used to be on the Ambler campus is being built just down Broad Street at the old site of William Penn High School.

Theobald gets last season's football success and enthusiasm and publicity on his ledger, too, although the guess is that any new president would have approved the recommendation to hire coach Matt Rhule, which happened just as Theobald started. He endorsed it, though, and clearly was enthusiastically supportive of football, for which the costs grow with success and a payday in a league that pays all the bills remains elusive.

As for the stadium, whichever way it goes down (or up) between 15th and 16th Streets, that's on Temple's board now, all body parts in.

mjensen@phillynews.com

@jensenoffcampus