Like Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino, who used state funds to construct quite the fiefdom for himself, Wheeling Jesuit University’s Davitt McAteer has built an empire – though McAteer used federal, rather than state, funds.
An expert in mine safety, McAteer attracted tens of government millions to Wheeling, but seems to have had a different take on the money from that of the government, which started accumulating evidence of his mining of the federal purse a couple of years ago. As with all such stories, he had plenty of help from various campus personnel – allegedly, in this case, the university’s trustees.