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IHURSDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2014
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Zenger now sits in hot seat after Beaty hire
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In baseball, a batter gets three strikes before he's out. The same applies to Kansas athletic director Sheahon Zenger.
On Friday, Zenger hired his second football coach since taking over for Lew Perkins in 2011, announcing David Beaty as the school's 38th coach.
Whether the Beaty hire pans out or not in the next five or so years, it will likely be Zenger's last. If things go according to plan, Beaty will lead Kansas to several bowl games and some hardware. Zenger will only have to make another football hire for Kansas in the event Beaty heads for greener pastures.
Football is by no means the athletic director's lone measuring stick. As the face of athletics, Zenger's job is multifaceted and isn't strictly score-related.
But if by year four, Kansas still slogs its way to two-, three- and four-win seasons, a new athletic director will be in charge of rallying up a search committee amid apathy.
Athletics Director Sheahon Zenger speaks before coach David Beatty's introductory press conference on Monday.
To date, Zenger has been exceptional with regard to academics across all sports, and on-field performance in all sports except football. Basketball hums along as usual, although it may be able to run itself, and nonrevenue sports such as volleyball have excelled to unprecedented levels.
not go unnoticed, as Zenger was appraised in 2013 and enjoyed a 33 percent raise, equal to Oklahoma State's athletic director Mike Holder at $600,000 per year.
But for all his good doings, wins on the football field are imperative to keep up in college athletics, and Zenger has not gained much ground on this front.
And these successes did
With more than 90 student athletes on roster, and a majority of them on full-ride scholarships, factoring in all the expenditures for each player, football is the most expensive endeavor Kansas Athletics takes on each year. Kansas dropped $31 million on the Anderson Family Football complex in 2008, and as recently as this summer, it spent $3.64 million to remove the track.
Unfortunately, the high-earning potential of college football has not been tapped into during Zenger's reign. Attendance and interest are waning throughout the program over the worst five-year stretch in school history.
JAMES HOYT/KANSAN
mistake, but Zenger has to be right on this decision, which may ultimately lead to a tough decision from Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Like all athletic directors, Zenger is in the business of making tough decisions. September's firing of two-year head coach Charlie Weis — his own hire — was a prime example of that.
The firing marks the first of many tough decisions Zenger faced in the past months. This time around, he appointed a search committee with an understanding of Kansas football: former players, a former Big 12 commissioner, people who appreciate the challenges KU football presents.
Kansas football does not become better by virtue of the fact that old coaches Turner Gill and Weis are gone. Neither does everyone involved in the program get a free pass.
Strike one was Turner Gill. Unfortunately, Zenger was hosed by the umpire in this instance. He didn't make the hiring, but oversaw a 2-10 season in 2010.
He did learn from his
Strike two was Weis. Zenger swung for the fences with a coach that excelled in various aspects of football, but never at the college level. A rash high-risk, high-reward decision that he missed badly.
Down in the count 0-2.
Zenger needed to learn what it takes to hang in there and get a hit when the count is against him.
With the firing of Weis, Zenger told fans it was his mistake. But at the same time, he may have done himself a favor. If Zenger finds Beaty to be the right coach, someone who understands the challenges of the Kansas head coaching position, in recruiting, in its brand, in a disheartened fanbase. If Zenger finds a coach who is meticulous, vivacious, and is still young enough to relate to his players and their challenges, get players to buy in, win games and not press conferences, then yes, he will have done himself a favor.
The hot seat that Weis vacated is now inherited by Zenger himself.
For the first two years of Weis' time at Kansas, Gill
With a 9-39 record and just two conference victories under his watch since 2011, Zenger needed an answer for his own sake, and with an offense that averaged 16 points per game while Weis was here, a new face on the sideline was necessary.
was the scapegoat. But by year three, Kansas fans grew weary of Weis not taking ownership for the on-field performance. Weis made a habit of pointing to how Kansas hadn't won a conference game, or road game, or against top-25 competition in "an eternity". In other words, he flaunted the fact that he was attempting to make lemonade out of the half-sliced, green, cerebrum-looking lemons.
In dire need of change. Clint Bowen was named interim to change the culture surrounding football and to salvage a senior-heavy roster.
And he did. Bowen's devotion to Kansas football emanated from the podium on a weekly basis. It's been well-documented that he coached an Orange Bowl Champion, but he also played in bowl games for the Jayhawks as well. For a program entrenched in five years of losing, memories of better times have become fuzzy. But there are still people like Bowen around that remember them vividly.
And he did.
Add in the fact that he's also seen the other side of things: Kansas dropping seven straight games in 2009 after starting 5-0, and now this, a program whose worst enemy is itself, the 44-year-old has been a part of both winning and losing Jayhawk cultures. He knows what works; he knows what doesn't.
That's what made Bowen's name so compelling during
this coaching search.
For a program needing a breath of life, Zenger gave Bowen the remainder of 2014 to see what he could do. During that eight-game stretch, Kansas found an offensive identity with Michael Cummings, won a conference game by 20 points nearly knocked off the No. 4 team in the country, and sure, it got whipped a few times - talent was sorely lacking.
Not many people care more about Kansas football or have spent more time around the program than Bowen, but after his press conference on Monday, Beaty is nipping at his heels.
A Beaty/Bowen combo is one Kansas fans can get behind, could resurrect Kansas football, and save an athletic director some embarrassment.
Edited by Drew Parks
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