Whiddon's 35-year tenure as the president of the University of South Alabama was marked by dramatic growth.
One of those, the College of Medicine, opened in 1972 as the state's second medical school and re-established Mobile as a center of physician training in Alabama, a position it held as a monopoly until the early 20th century, when Alabama's original medical school (located in Mobile) closed.
The foundation amassed a huge endowment by the 1990s, primarily by depositing federal and state reimbursements to the university for medical services performed at its hospitals.
After this technique became the subject of a lawsuit, the university and the USA Foundation agreed to spend the medical reimbursements only for medical-related purposes and to refrain from further diversion of medical reimbursements into the foundation.
A lawsuit was settled out-of-court in 2001; the settlement required the foundation to add new members to its board, including the president of the University of South Alabama, but it did not require the foundation to alter its asset allocation, management, or disbursements.