In the big business that is college athletics -- where the generosity of boosters can transform a football program from an afterthought at a basketball school into a Bowl Championship Series contender -- the University of Connecticut is calling a Hail Mary play. Feeling snubbed by UConn, which hired former Syracuse University coach Paul Pasqualoni to replace the departed Randy Edsall, Burton sent a scathing letter to Athletic Director Jeffrey Hathaway severing ties with the school. Right next door to the Burton Family Football Complex, which opened five years ago and houses an academic resource center, team meeting rooms, a team locker room, a state-of-the-art sports medicine area, video facilities, a team dining hall, a student-athlete lounge and an equipment room, is the Harry A. Gampel Pavilion. Never in his right mind would the namesake of the University of Connecticut's vaunted on-campus basketball arena have threatened to yank his name from the building, according to one of his daughters. A $1 million gift from Gampel, a UConn alumnus who made his fortune in the steel business and real estate development before his death in 2003 at the age of 83, provided the seed money for Gampel Pavilion, the 10,027-seat arena. "People are donating a lot of money to the university, then the university should be interested in what they have to say," said Adam Scianna, 26, a UConn civil engineering post-grad from Norwalk who is one of two student members of the Board of Trustees. Latroy Oliver, 31, a former Syracuse cornerback who played with Burton under Pasqualoni, said he never saw any outward signs of a rift between coach and player, as has widely been speculated on Internet message boards.