When Don Fambrough addressed a Thursday afternoon press conference, he wasn’t kidding when he said he didn’t know anything about his contract as new Kansas head football coach.
No one had told him the details of it. There wasn’t time.
So when someone asked him about it, Fambrough cracked: “I’ve been working day to day for the last 25 years. I wouldn’t know a contract if I saw one.”
Later it was learned Fambrough received a three-year pact calling for around $20,000 a year. It was a healthy increase from what he’d been making as an aide.
On Jan. 1, Fambrough’s salary had been raised from $15,500 to $16,500.
How did Fambrough learn he would get the KU head job?
“I was sitting in my office about a quarter to five,” he grinned, “I was working overtime – when Wade (Stinson, KU athletic director) came in and said, ‘If Pepper goes to UCLA, you’re the next Kansas football coach.'”
A veteran of 19 years as a Kansas aide, Fambrough conceded he has had other offers during that time.
“there have been offers from small schools,” he concede, “but never anything like this. This is the only job I ever wanted. This is it as far as I’m concerned.”
Later a writer kidded Fambrough, asking him if he were beginning to wonder if he’d ever get a head job.
“It entered my mind,” Don smiled before breaking into a big grin and adding, “I didn’t know what I’d have first, that or social security.”
Just prior to the Allen Fieldhouse press conference, the KU athletic board approved Fambrough’s appointment. Earlier Stinson got approval from Chancellor Laurence Chambers in a telephone call. Chalmers is vacationing in Florida with his family.
