Rick Bay learned a valuable lesson Thursday: Management has the right to be wrong.

It cost him his job as athletic director at San Diego State University.

University president Stephen L. Weber announced Thursday that Bay had resigned. At a press conference, Weber indicated that Bay was asked to resign.

Bottom line: He was fired.

Some will say there was justification to remove Bay, the school's athletic director for more than seven years.

The school's football team is on two-year probation for holding illegal practices. A California State University audit of the athletic department found numerous problems, including missing state property in the form of shoes, mismanagement of financial record keeping, possible academic fraud and lack of communication among employees.

It took 11 months to complete this audit, which seems excessive.

Yes, San Diego State did some things wrong. But in the audit you won't find anyone taking tests to get athletes into school, like Jim Harrick Jr. did at Georgia. You won't find any athletes taking money under the table from boosters.

Bay, who has doubled the school's fund raising from $1.6 million to $3.2 million in five years, deserved better from Weber.

San Diego State's athletic department is worse off today because of Weber's decision.

Bay said from the start that he did not feel that the entire audit was accurate, especially the part about poor communication within his department and improper admissions.

And that is the crux of the disagreement between Bay and his boss ---- a disagreement that will cost Bay his $162,097 yearly salary from the state.

"The university's position was this was a legitimate report," Weber said.

The Prez told the athletic department, "I don't want any whining about it."

Bay wanted to challenge part of the report and asked for evidence of the allegations. None came from the auditor or from Weber's office.

"Frankly, Rick and I had a professional disagreement about how to purse," Weber said. "I don't mean to speak for Rick, I don't think Rick has the same opinion I do as to the legitimacy of the audit or the scope of the implications."

Weber is correct in this one. Bay wanted the CSU auditor to name names so he could explain what might have happened; the auditor refused.

"It's utter frustration not to be able to defend ourselves before allegations were released publicly," Bay said.

He certainly didn't receive due process before Weber made up his mind to oust him.

"The university said in the audit, 'We concur,' on every point even though I'm sitting there as their athletic director and I have pretty good reason to believe this is not true," Bay said. "The audit should at least be investigated before we concur. That is where President Weber and I got into some head-knocking.

"He felt obligated to accept the audit on its face, given his responsibility to the Chancellor and CSU. On the other hand, I felt a real obligation in terms of loyalty to my staff to do everything possible to make sure those allegations were credible before they became public."

Weber said that everything in the audit would be addressed. But he also said that he could not ask Bay to do that job, knowing that Bay did not fully believe the report.

"I think Rick Bay came to a place where he simply could not, as a professional, acknowledge the findings of the auditor's report," Weber said.

That is an accurate statement. Weber obviously bought into the idea that Rick Bay was running an outlaw program, or he would have stood by his employee.

Instead, he refused to believe Bay. That is a wrong decision, because Bay has done much for the university, and his ability to raise funds will be greatly missed.

"As I look back, when I started, we didn't have Cox Arena," Bay said. "We didn't have Tony Gwynn Stadium. We didn't have the (athletic) building. Our fund raising was less than half of what it is now.

"Our student-athlete graduation rate is higher than it has ever been. Our team grade-point-average remains consistent with the student body. I think there are a lot of good things."

It's too bad he wasn't allowed to continue his good work.

Steve Scholfield is senior sports columnist for the North County Times. He can be reached at (760) 740-3509 or sports@nctimes.com.