Kansas University is looking for a new men’s and women’s track and field coach, and no one wants the job more than Steve Rainbolt.
Rainbolt, who just completed his fifth season as head of the track program at Kent State, is believed to be the only former Jayhawk among the finalists to replace Gary Schwartz.
“I’d love to be at KU,” Rainbolt said. “I certainly think of KU as one of the best track and field situations in college athletics.”
Rainbolt, 42, was a high jumper and decathlete while attending Kansas University. He still ranks third on the school’s all-time decathlon chart with 7,598 points a mark he achieved during his senior season at the 1980 Kansas Relays.
A Shawnee Mission East product, Rainbolt once set an NCAA record by clearing 7-03/4 in the decathlon high jump. His career best in the high jump was 7-2.
“I’ve wanted to be a coach ever since I was a freshman there,” Rainbolt said by phone from Kent, Ohio, on Tuesday. “As a little boy, I would visit the campus with my older sisters and I thought what a great place it was. So coming to KU would be a dream come true.”
Rainbolt competed at Kansas during the glory years under coach Bob Timmons. Kansas won six of the eight Big Eight indoor and outdoor titles while Rainbolt wore a KU uniform.
Now Kansas has gone 18 years without winning a men’s conference title. The KU women’s program, started in 1974, has never won a league championship.
On March 1, Kansas University athletics director Bob Frederick announced he would not renew the contract of Schwartz, a former KU shot-putter who had taken over the men’s and women’s programs on Mount Oread in 1988.
Schwartz coached Kansas in 76 conference championship meets in track and cross country, and the Jayhawks finished in the second division in 55 of them.
Although Rainbolt, who interviewed for the KU post two weeks ago, is among the leading candidates to replace Schwartz, he faces stiff competition.
Also believed to be among the finalists are Bob Kitchens, long-time coach at Texas-El Paso, and Dick Booth, a veteran aide at tradition-rich Arkansas who was once an assistant coach at Shawnee Mission South.
Kansas is also believed to have interviewed Stanley Redwine, the former Arkansas standout now coaching at Tulsa U., and Walt Drenth, women’s cross country coach at Arizona State.
Rainbolt did nothing to hurt his chances by leading Kent State to the Mid-American Conference Outdoor men’s championship and the women to a second-place finish last weekend.
Five Kent State athletes have qualified for the NCAA Outdoor championships next week at Duke University.
Prior to taking the Kent State post, Rainbolt spent seven years as an assistant coach at Nebraska under Gary Pepin, a former KU aide who has built the Cornhuskers into a national power.
Rainbolt has a bachelor’s degree in physical education with an emphasis on coaching from Kansas University and a masters degree in educational administration from Nebraska.
Frederick is expected to name Schwartz’s successor soon. The Kansas AD is attending Big 12 Conference meetings this week in Colorado Springs.
