By Bill Mayer and Lou Engel ? Kansas University is seeking a new football coach after the Athletic Board and head coach Jack Mitchell Saturday evening reached a “mutually satisfactory” agreement on settlement of a 10-year contract that was due to expire June 30, 1971.
Mitchell will be paid $14,000 a year, for a total of $56,000 for the final four years of the contract. This is about 70 per cent of what would constitute full payment. He will be paid through June 30 of 1967 at his current $20,300-a-year salary.
Saturday night’s action came on the heels of a 2-8 and 2-7-1 records at KU. Mitchell, who was 43 on Saturday, had a 44-42-5 record at Kansas and his total head coaching record at Wichita, Arkansas and KU is 74-59-7. The settlement also followed Athletic Department internal difficulties in which Mitchell has figured the past 2 years.
Today, Mitchell told the Journal-World:
“It was strictly a matter of incompatibility on both sides between myself and Chancellor (Clarke) Wescoe.”
Mitchell said he, his wife and two sons, Jack and Jud, will stay in Lawrence through the spring term and maybe longer than that. he indicated they may move to Wellington after that, where he is owner and publisher of the Wellington Daily News.
Athletic director Wade Stinson, who announced the result of the Athletic Board-Mitchell negotiation at halftime of the Kansas-Xavier basketball game Saturday, said today that a search is under way for a new head coach. More than 15 persons, including two members of the Mitchell staff, already have applied for the job and one application was made by telephone as early as 7 this morning.
“We’re seeking the best man we possibly can get,” Stinson said. “There is no salary limitation. We are looking for a man, the best man we can get, to give us the best football program possible. While we want to get a decision made as soon as possible, we want to make sure we do not hurry and overlook any good prospect. We feel we have a highly attractive position here and response already has indicated that a lot of good people want it.”
The new coach, the 29th in the history of KU, will be allowed to name his own staff, some of whom might be holdovers from the current staff if the new man so chooses.
Stinson said his office will not identify any candidates for the job but that individuals themselves are quite free to declare their intentions. A candidate screening committee of staff members, mainly Athletic Board members, will be appointed but Stinson said their names probably will not be made public.
The seven Mitchell assistants will be paid through June 30 of the coming year at their present salaries, on e of the requests by Mitchell in agreeing to the settlement. Floyd Temple will be retained on the staff as baseball coach. Two – Don Fambrough and Bennie Lee – already have applied for the KU head job.
Saturday night’s announcement, followed an all-afternoon Athletic Board session that began with a luncheon. The meeting was a regularly scheduled session that had been set for some time, but most of the discussion centered on the football situation at KU and how to improve it.
After the board and Mitchell reached agreement on terms, Stinson called a press conference in his office at the half-time of the KU-Xavier game and read a short statement in handwriting from a piece of legal stationery. The message said:
“Prof. Charles Oldfather, the chairman of the Athletic Board at the University of Kansas, announced today that the Board and head football coach Jack Mitchell had agreed to cancel coach Mitchell’s contract with the Athletic Corporation on terms mutually satisfactory to both Coach Mitchell and the Board.”
Asked if the action was taken on Stinson’s recommendation, he replied: “It was the board’s recommendation. The board acted as a unit.” He said the board recommendation had been approved by Chancellor Wescoe, who had signed the agreement only a few minutes before.
Asked for background reasons the departure of Mitchell, Stinson said, “That has no bearing on it. The reasons basically are to improve our football program.”
Chancellor Wescoe said, “I accepted the recommendation of the Athletic Board which was unanimous.”
The settlement to Mitchell will be paid out of Athletic Corporation funds and not from any “outside” sources.
It was during the 1966 season that concern arose in many quarters on how to resolve what appeared to have become a dead-end, an impasse, in the football program. Near the end of the season, Chancellor Wescoe and coach Mitchell visited on the matter but no decision or conclusion was reached.
Then Wescoe had to leave town for trips to Washington and to New Delhi, India, and the matter was left unsettled. Wescoe arrived back on the campus last week and he and Mitchell conferred Friday afternoon, on the eve of the Athletic Board meeting.
During the Saturday afternoon discussions, Gene Morgan of Kansas City, a board member and a close friend of Mitchell, was asked to talk to the coach and to relay the views of the board members and how they felt the matter could best be resolved. Morgan made the contacts and then reported back.
Mitchell was at his home near 15th and Learnard all afternoon during the discussion and all negotiations between the board and coach were conducted by telephone. While a final settlement was not reached until about 6 p.m. Saturday, apparently Mitchell and attorney John Brand Sr. Had been considering such a move previously since a good deal of the legal work involved was completed beforehand.
Brand has been the attorney for a number of local sports personalit8ies in the past, including former KU star Curtis McClinton in his negotiations with the professional Kansas City Chiefs. Brand is also considered a personal friend of Mitchell. Understandably, negotiations were designed to get the best possible settlement for the coach, and the $56,000 package was the final arrangement.
Part of the agreement also involved paying the members of the staff up to June 30 of this year and paying their expenses to the NCAA coaching meeting in January where they can look for jobs. The NCAA meetings are traditionally regarded as “shopping centers” for coaches in the market for jobs and Stinson plans to contact a number of individuals at the session.
Meanwhile, the KU staff will go ahead with its recruiting duties with the goal of signing the best possible in-state and out-state prospects to be found.
Although it is known Mitchell and Chancellor Wescoe have not enjoyed good rapport for some time, Wescoe did not figure in any of the Athletic Board discussions the past Saturday, even though he had met with Mitchell the afternoon before. Wescoe was called from his seat at the basketball game a few minutes before halftime Saturday to survey the final agreement and to sign it. He accepted the recommendation of the Athletic Board and signed the agreement just about 10 minutes before the press conference.
Present during the proceedings was Wichita attorney John Eberhardt, a devoted KU sports fan who attends nearly all basketball games. Eberhardt is a member of the Kansas Board of Regents but took no role in the proceedings as a Regent.
Upon reaching the agreement, Mitchell summoned his assistants during the dinner hour and informed them of the situation. While there was understandable regret, most had been expecting something of this nature. With Mitchell no longer head coach, assistant Fambrough has been appointed to represent KU football staff at the Big Eight meetings this week in Kansas City.
When Stinson was appointed KU athletic director in the spring of 1964, succeeding the retiring Dutch Lonborg, Mitchell had hopes of getting the job and was outwardly displeased when he did not. Friends of the coach said that when he had been hired in November of 1957 he had been given the idea that he someday would be athletic director.
While some friends of the coach have indicated there was such a promise, it is known that nobody in an official administrative capacity at Kansas ever told Mitchell that he was being hired as coach with the idea he eventually would become director.
The relationship between Mitchell and Stinson was cool from the outset and has never been strong. Stinson has had several big problems, mostly inherited, in a relatively sort period of time.
When he took the job the basketball situation was deteriorating. He hired assistant Ted Owens after Dick Harp had resigned, and Owens responded by giving KU a Big Eight title in his second year and building a team that is a top prospect to repeat this year. Then Stinson was forced to fire the controversial Bill Easton and replace the super-successful coach with Assistant Bob Timmons.
Throughout Stinson’s tenure, there has been resentment from some Mitchell followers over the athletic director matter and the Mitchell-Stinson relationship has never been solid because of this. Charges that Stinson, with the blessing of the chancellor, has undercut the football program do not appear soundly based when it is known that KU has 142 football scholarships at present. It may be the high for the Big Eight Conference, and it is on a par with the best from the standpoint of anyone available for the sport.
Veteran KU sports observers stress that official out-in-the-open financial support for KU football probably is not exceeded by any other school in the conference.
Stinson was to meet this afternoon with members of the KU football squad to discuss the future and the coaching situation.
During the past season, when the KU football situation appeared to be steadily deteriorating, about seven friends of Mitchell were considering meeting with the coach to see what steps could be taken to improve things but they never could get together and the meeting never materialized.
At another point in the season, Mitchell is known to have said he would gladly resign without any cash settlement of any kind if KU would assure him that everything possible would be done, including stronger administration support to bolster the KU grid program.
One suggestion by Mitchell was that the school name a “football director” who would be answerable only to the chancellor and Athletic Board and who would have complete charge of such matters as scheduling, scholarships, the training table, an athletic dorm and recruiting. The athletic director would have been eliminated as the liaison man. But this suggestion never received serious consideration.
