By JERRY CARINO
Courier-News

The first domino has fallen in the Seton Hall University athletics department.

Jeff Fogelson, who has been director of athletics since 1998, will resign effective Sept. 30, university president Msgr. Robert Sheeran informed alumni in an e-mail Friday morning.

Fogelson, who is vacationing and unavailable for comment, had been under fire since the winter, when the men's basketball team plummeted to a 12-16 record just one year after appearing in the NCAA Tournament. Aside from success in softball and men's soccer, the athletic program has been floundering and alumni support has been waning.

"Jeff met with our president last week about the future of the athletic program and other things," university spokesman Thomas White said. "As a result of those discussions, monsignor and Jeff decided that in the best interests of the university, Jeff should resign."

Seton Hall insiders say his resignation is the first step toward an overhaul of the athletic department and leaves the future of men's basketball coach Louis Orr in doubt. Fogelson hired Orr, who is believed to be in the final year of his contract, and has been his strongest supporter.

"My job doesn't change. My job is still to teach, educate and coach these young men," Orr said on Friday. "My god is an awesome god. He's provided for me all my life. He won't stop now."

Orr added that he and Fogelson will remain friends.

"He's been a friend and a supporter to me for a long time," Orr said. "I'll miss him because he's done a great job. He's got a big heart. He's somebody I could always go and talk to."

A search committee for Fogelson's successor will be formed next week, with Seton Hall Law School dean Patrick Hobbs as chairman. While no official short list of candidates exists yet, one name that has been prominently mentioned by insiders is former Pirate men's basketball assistant and associate athletic director Patrick Elliott.

Elliott, who hails from Middletown, graduated from Seton Hall in 1989 and served as an assistant under P.J. Carlesimo from 1989-1994. He became assistant athletic director for facilities in 1994 and was associate athletics director for finance/operations from 1998-2002. He currently is the senior associate athletics director for planning and internal operations at St. John's, where he oversees marketing, finances, facilities and recreation.

One thing the search committee will be looking for is a person willing to operate with greater visibility, "a rainmaker," as one member of the athletic department put it.

Fogelson, who came to Seton Hall after running Xavier University's athletic department for 15 years, achieved successes in upgrading facilities and was a key player in brokering the Big East Conference's expansion. But he was less active in cultivating alumni support and communicating with Pirate fans.

The disconnect grew to the point where he posted an unusual letter on the athletics department's Web site June 1, urging fans to be patient and assuring them of "brighter days ahead."

Alumni criticism became withering as the basketball program struggled through a disappointing year that included several conduct-related player suspensions and the eventual defections of junior swingman J.R. Morris, who declared for the NBA Draft in March, and freshman point guard Justin Cerasoli, who put in for a transfer in April.

White said it is unlikely that a new athletics director will be in place by Sept. 30.

"Hopefully by the end of the fall we'll have a candidate," he said.