Schools aim to bring Dad Vail back to Phila.

Local colleges will take some time to consider how they will handle the 2010 Dad Vail Regatta's move out of town, with an eye toward bringing the premier rowing event back to the city in 2011, city and school officials said yesterday.

Nutter and U.S. Rep. Bob Brady spoke via conference call yesterday morning with officials from Drexel, St. Joseph's, La Salle, Temple, and Villanova Universities about options now that the Dad Vail, a Philadelphia tradition since 1953, has announced that it will be held in Rumson, N.J., in 2010.

Rumson lured the event by pledging $250,000 to Dad Vail organizers.

Nutter's spokesman, Douglas Oliver, said that no consensus had been reached on holding an alternate event to the Dad Vail and that the colleges wanted to talk among themselves before taking up the issue with government officials. Some fret about the cost - Temple says it would have to pay up to $15,000 - of putting up rowers and transporting shells to Rumson.

Temple athletic director Bill Bradshaw said he would meet next week with other athletic directors. He said that a boycott of the 2010 Dad Vail was not discussed yesterday but that the schools and the mayor were committed to bringing the event back for 2011, regardless of what happens in 2010.

"I'm not certain there's a solution that will allow us all to do the same thing," Bradshaw said.

Oliver said all parties were "committed to continuing these conversations."