College’s water crisis leaves team homeless

Among the ripple effects of Morris Brown College’s financial problems, add another: the displacement of a junior college basketball team.

After the city of Atlanta cut off water to the historically black college on Dec. 12 for failure to pay, Atlanta Metropolitan College relocated 12 players who had been living in a Morris Brown dormitory.

Morris Brown, which had a $36,000 annual contract to house the team for the southwest Atlanta commuter college, scrambled to get the water turned back on in time for the team’s arrival back from winter break. The school paid the city $100,000 on Friday, but it was too late for the Red-Eyed Panthers.

“We were forced to make some alternative arrangements,” Atlanta Metropolitan President Gary McGaha said Monday. He would not say where the team relocated.

McGaha said the arrangement with Morris Brown had worked well and could resume in the fall semester if the private school can stay open.

That’s now in doubt, even with a surge in donations from alumni and other benefactors that school officials say has reached about $150,000 during fund-raising rallies the past two Saturdays. Acting President Stanley J. Pritchett Sr. said last week that Morris Brown’s total debt is $30 million.

Most immediately, the school faces two challenges:

> Today, one of the school’s buildings, Jordan Hall, is scheduled to be auctioned on the Fulton County Courthouse steps. The school is in default on $13.1 million in bonds issued in 1996 to construct the building.

> Under a court order, Morris Brown must pay the city another $214,000 for past-due water bills by Feb. 17, or the water will be shut off again.

In the midst of the financial implosion, Morris Brown turned 128 years old on Monday. On Jan. 5, 1881, former slaves gathered for the North Georgia Annual Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and voted to establish the school.