After less than 6 weeks since John Currie announced he was leaving. Kansas State announced they have a new Athletic Director.
Kansas State decided to replace Currie with someone from the Big 10 Conference to run the Athletic Department.
Gene Taylor is 58. He did a nice job at North Dakota State and spent the past three years doing a lot of administrative things at Iowa.
The bio released from Kansas State Athletics said,
"“Taylor also has oversight of the football and men’s and women’s basketball programs daily operations, which included postseason and bowl travel coordination.”"
I’m not sure those duties qualify as someone who is ready to take over Kansas State Athletics.
Only time will tell if this is a good hire.
While at North Dakota State he helped the athletics budget triple from $5 million $15 million.
Those are nice numbers. John Currie, like him or not, was very good at big numbers. Taylor will have big shoes to fill in this area.
I do wonder why the university hinted at this announcement on a Friday after noon? It was also a Friday afternoon of a holiday weekend.
When you want to bury news, you release it on Friday afternoon.
Now, Kansas State has no desire to bury this story. However, someone did a poor job of planning this announcement. If the Wildcats had been fortunate enough to steal Kirby Hocutt from Texas Tech, they might have made the announcement on a Tuesday morning instead of a Friday?
Maybe not? I hoped Kansas State would lure Hocutt back to Manhattan.
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I was told they couldn’t afford to hire him. Maybe Kansas State needed to find the money. In the ever-changing world of college athletics, you need someone special running the athletic department.
The last guy Kansas State hired from Iowa was very special. I hope Taylor is too.