Jon Wefald may be retiring after 23 years as president of Kansas State University, but he’s apparently ready to try something new before stepping down.
For the first time, Wefald will speak at KSU’s swine profitability conference…
Earlier Wefald posts here.
… about the continued hagiography coming out of Kansas State University as its revered leader Jon Wefald finally retires. The saint of KSU is a panting jocksniffer who has handed much of KSU’s money to a dirtily run football program. He has also engaged in nepotism and conflict of interest.
Wefald is your basic long-running banana republic leader. Power went to his head. The Topeka Capital-Journal provides details of his conflict of interest. [Note: I got the newspaper wrong originally; I’ve corrected that, and I thank my readers for the correction. I can’t get the link to work at the moment, however. I’m working on it.]
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And here’s the renaissance.
She has never studied anthropology. She has never done field work. She does not understand the people of Kansas and environs, and she never will. If you can make sense of this Kansas City Star commentary, which presents itself as a tribute to outgoing Kansas State president Jon Wefald, you’re a better man than I.
[A recently disclosed Kansas State University audit] paints Wefald, Krause and Snyder [background on these people here] as shady, clueless and drunk on power.
… My impression is that Wefald, Krause, Snyder and anyone connected to Kansas State athletics during the school’s “football powerhouse era” cashed in on the record and off. [Dump the quotation marks.]
Even Tim Weiser, who had little to do with the golden era, received a no-questions-asked $500,000 loan. Thirteen payments to Krause, Snyder, Weiser and others totaling close to $1 million cannot be accounted for or explained.
The $3 million secret buyout Krause agreed to give Ron Prince seems to be part of a pattern of financial mismanagement at K-State under Wefald’s presidency.
… “The Miracle in Manhattan” now has an enlightening postscript, “The Madoff in Manhattan.”
… My opinions of Jon Wefald and Bill Snyder have not changed. I respect them immensely. I’m astonished by their accomplishments. But I always regarded them as human and therefore flawed. Greed, arrogance and a sense of entitlement can invade their mind-set as easily as yours. [Yeah well. Here’s where I start getting all confused. I don’t claim to have an unimpregnable mind-set, but – as God is my witness! – my mind-set is set at an entirely different frequency from Bernard Madoff’s… So point one, if you’re saying any of us could do with money and power what Wefald and the others did, you can kiss my royal Irish arse. Point two, if you retain immense respect for mad arrogant fools who steal your tax money and make your university a national joke, you are pathetic.]
… I suspect the audit would’ve remained private had Wefald and Krause not renamed Snyder as head football coach on their way out the door. Re-installing Snyder as the unofficial president of the university was/is a serious impediment to Schulz. [Let’s pause right there. Did you get that? Did you get the point that at KSU the football coach is the real president of the university?]
… K-State’s athletic department has been completely out of control for years… [But so are you, Kansasfolk, so are you. At least the people of Romania finally found it in themselves to get rid of the Ceausescus. And, you know, you don’t see Romanians running around today still worshipping them and finding themselves astonished by their accomplishments…]
… for the past few days.
1.) The botched-robbery murder inside a dormitory at Harvard University. This seems to have been a planned attack, organized perhaps by a senior at Harvard, the girlfriend of the shooter.
2.) Kansas State president John Wefald‘s (put it all together, it spells FLAWED) parting fiasco as he retires. That fine middle linebacker Sigmund Freud (The Sigmeister to his fans) would have plenty to say about a long-serving leader expressing his accumulated resentments, and his conviction that the school will fall apart without him, by arranging for it to fall apart. Oh! I didn’t know that the crony I appointed AD would do secret deals that would embarrass the school around the world and bankrupt us! Whooooops….
These are strange stories, a kind of Extreme College Sports. They represent a deepening of campus tendencies everyone knows are already there — widespread student drug use, filthy athletic programs.
Kansas State’s president, much in the news of late, puts his son (UD assumes it’s his son) on the faculty (scroll down to the last name).
UD thanks a reader for pointing this out to her.
The Leadership Institute or whatever [Find it yourself. UD doesn’t link to porn.] at Kansas State has released this fellatial book about the university’s president. It’s certainly true that his leadership style is much in the news. You can read dozens of articles about it this morning. Here’s one.
Wefald regrets error in pact
K-State president says mistake was giving ex-AD lengthy deal
MANHATTAN — Kansas State athletic director Bob Krause once spoke with optimism about the groundbreaking contract extension awarded to his predecessor, Tim Weiser.
… Weiser’s K-State career ended less than three years later, a separation that will cost the university $1.9 million. In light of those events, Krause and university president Jon Wefald now view the 10-year contract as a mistake.
“I can’t over-emphasize the fact that we just made a mistake,” Wefald said Wednesday, a day before details of Weiser’s $1.9 million separation agreement became public. “I’ll openly tell you that.” [We. Note the president’s willingness to take responsibility for what he and he alone has done.]
Wefald said K-State “got caught up in the BCS arms race” when other big-budget schools began expressing interest in Weiser. [Note the president’s lie. Weiser left because Wefald – against his advice – gave tons of money to keep a coach who crapped out on them.]
… “I don’t think we’ll be paying ADs here at Kansas State $700,000 again,” said Wefald, who will retire at the end of the academic year. “Who knows. I’m only going to be the president for another (few months). I’m just speculating about the future, (but) I don’t think you have to pay an AD $700,000 to have a good one.” [Note the president’s continued accountability: I’m outta here! Note the president’s self-alienation: I TOLD you not to pay him that much!]
… At K-State, one of Krause’s first major moves as athletic director was to give football coach Ron Prince a new contract with a larger buyout. That move backfired when the school fired Prince three months later, triggering the $1.2 million buyout clause…
“When you turn staff over, you budget it as a one-time expense,” said Krause, who estimated the school would pay $1.7 million in buyouts to Prince and his coaching staff. “That’s what you’ve got reserves for.” [Hey fuck you. We got a reserve.]
… One K-State donor said he stopped making financial contributions because of the instability within the athletic department, expressing frustrations echoed by K-State student Anika Bergh.
“It angers me because I pay so much money a year to be here and get the education that I want,” said Bergh, a season ticketholder in football and basketball. “To have them throwing away money like that, it just makes me feel like it’s money coming out of my pocket.”
Wefald viewed the settlement as the first step toward a more fiscally responsible strategy, one he said will not include long-term contracts like Weiser’s.
“Sometimes partnerships can’t last that long,” Wefald said. [Note the president lecturing us on how to run a university so that you don’t run it into the ground the way the president did.]