Incoming Fiesta Bowl Exec Dir ROBERT SHELTON yesterday “vowed to restore the image of the troubled organization and improve its charitable giving,” according to Craig Harris of the ARIZONA REPUBLIC. But Fiesta Bowl Chair DUANE WOODS said that “no major overhauls were planned when the departing University of Arizona president officially takes the bowl's helm Aug. 1.” Shelton is being “brought in to rehabilitate an organization rocked by an internal investigation that found widespread corruption and mismanagement of funds.” He will receive “a $455,000 base salary plus about $30,000 for his retirement account.” He has the “potential to earn another $135,000 in incentives, bringing his total annual compensation to $620,000.” If Shelton reaches incentives he could “become the highest-paid executive among the four major” BCS games. Shelton said that he is “open to finding a new outside auditor to have ‘new eyes take new looks at things.’” He “declined to speculate on the future of ALAN YOUNG, the bowl's former chairman who was hired earlier this year as chief of staff when" former Fiesta Bowl President & CEO JOHN JUNKER was placed on administrative leave (ARIZONA REPUBLIC, 6/15).
FINDING THE RIGHT FIT: FS ARIZONA’s Craig Morgan wrote Woods in hiring Shelton “may have made another in a recent series of sage moves that help distance the Fiesta Bowl from the recently revealed details of its sordid past.” Shelton is “not really an outsider, as some have characterized him.” He “already sat on the BCS presidential oversight committee, a body that approves BCS-related governing decisions.” Woods “knew the hire would fall under scrutiny, no matter the person’s background.” Morgan: “Choosing a university president for this position is certainly a departure from the past” (FSARIZONA.com, 6/14). Woods said that Shelton “seemed like a perfect fit.” Woods: “You think about everything we were looking for. And he’s from here. And he has a passion for it” (ARIZONA DAILY STAR, 6/15).
