In 2001, Kansas University hired a consulting firm to help find a new athletic director. The result was Al Bohl.
The university will try a different method this time.
KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway said Wednesday that he will take a stronger hand in the search for Bohl’s replacement than he did two years ago. No outside firm will be used in the search, he said.
But he stopped short of saying the process that led to Bohl’s hiring was flawed.
“Whenever you repeat something, you try to do it better,” Hemenway said.
KU softball coach Tracy Bunge was on the 16-person search committee in 2001. She said Hemenway was right to take a different approach.
“The last search was not thorough enough in that we did not have all the facts in front of us as a committee,” she said. “I’m excited to hear that the chancellor is going to take a different approach with this search.”
In 2001, the university hired Heidrick and Struggles, an Atlanta-based consulting firm, to lead the search for an athletic director to replace outgoing Bob Frederick. KU officials never said how much the firm was paid, but various news outlets reported it was in the neighborhood of $75,000.
“If you look at the famous search firm that did such a job for us, you look at the history of what’s happened to the four candidates that were named finalists and they haven’t fared very well,” said men’s golf coach Ross Randall, noting Bohl’s troubles and the firing of Kathleen DeBoer, another finalist, from her job at Kentucky. “So I don’t think their search did a very good job.
Mike Reiff was Heidrick and Struggles’ representative in the search. He defended the hiring process Wednesday, saying the situation of KU’s athletics department in 2001 — a moribund football program, a “bleeding” budget situation and poor teams in most sports except men’s basketball — made it hard to attract a top-flight candidate for the job.
“In the time Al’s been there, I’ve seen things turn around,” Reiff said, citing increased giving, increased football ticket sales and an improved baseball team. “This time around it’s a lot easier search.”
And Reiff said Bohl had Roy Williams’ approval in 2001. Friction between Williams and Bohl helped lead to Bohl’s ouster.
“There was nothing on the radar screen that said (Bohl) wouldn’t be able to get along with his basketball coach,” Reiff said.
Still, members of the 2001 committee were glad a different approach would be used this time.
“I think (Hemenway) is doing it the right way now,” said Lawrence businessman Laird Noller, who served on the earlier committee.
Hemenway said he would announce plans for the new search later.
Internal candidates — including senior associate athletic director Richard Konzem and associate athletic director/development John Hadl — will be considered.
There appears to be support for Konzem among coaches.
“Richard has been nothing but supportive of all our programs at the University of Kansas,” said first-year women’s golf coach Megan Menzel. “If that was the best fit for our programs, that would be great. But I also feel very confident in the chancellor’s ability to do a national search.”
Randall, who has coached golf at Kansas since 1980, also voiced support for Konzem, who supervises football, men’s and women’s basketball, the Williams Fund, ticket office and events and facilities staff.
“He’s done everything a person needs to do to be ready to be an athletic director,” Randall said. “He’s done it all. He’s been in every area of the athletic department.”
Sports writers David Mitchell and Ryan Wood contributed to this story.