University of Alabama associate athletics director for media relations Larry White and Tide Pride director Tommy Ford will be reassigned within the athletic department, UA AD Mal Moore said Wednesday.
"(Both) will be undertaking new positions that have been created to address specific areas of need within this department," Moore said in a statement.
White, a 20-year veteran of the school's athletic department, will be working with the department's corporate sponsors through Crimson Tide Sports Marketing and be involved in selling tickets to companies.
Except for a four-year stint at SMU, White has been with the Tide's sports information department since 1982. He was named the school's sports information director in 1988, then took the title of associate AD for media relations in 1997.
Ford will move to the department's advancement division, where he'll work with the school's athletic donors. He, too, joined the department in 1982 and was ticket manager from 1987 to 1993 before joining Tide Pride, the school's arm for cultivating regular donations.
The school also is looking for a ticket-office director after Rhoda Vaughn's retirement last month.
Both moves suggest a concentration of efforts by the department to cultivate big-dollar donations in the final push for the $120 million Crimson Tradition Fund goal.
That fund, $70 million of which will come from private donations, is being used to pay for the massive athletics building projects on the Tuscaloosa campus.
As of December, the university had raised about $58 million of that total.
"Just as we have strengthened our facilities over the past two years through our building and renovations, I feel that these moves will strengthen our department and give special attention to areas we feel are vital to Alabama athletics," Moore said.
Moore didn't specify when the moves will take effect