Clint Bowen for President! Weis Redeemed...

jaybate 1.0 · Nov 13, 2014, 4:06 AM

Oh, my, as George Takei, used to say.

You are a sensy.

Breath deeply, then count to ten.

Then try again.

Kip_McSmithers · Nov 13, 2014, 4:14 AM

I stumbled upon this when looking for a photo of Bowen in his playing days… Has anyone brought up the fact that KUFBHC Bowen is obviously a great salesman/recruiter??? How else did he get Miss Kansas in 2001 and Mrs Kansas in 2014 to marry him?? Congrats on that Coach Bowen!

KU interim coach Clint Bowen ready to bring enthusiasm to job

Bowen savors match made in Kansas

Crimsonorblue22 · Nov 13, 2014, 4:19 AM

@Kip_McSmithers think he could win over a few moms on the recruiting trail. Kids love him!

jaybate 1.0 · Nov 13, 2014, 4:29 AM

@JayHawkFanToo

Gee, it seems like after all that you did not answer my question. Why?

JayhawkRock78 · Nov 13, 2014, 4:34 AM

My first experience in the Jayhawk towers was the summer before my senior Year in an athletic sports camp. That was followed by multiple frat rush parties in different houses and they were all a down grade, and the KU dorms were a drop below that.

I lived in the towers and loved them as a frosh. Loved the training table (athletes cafeteria) even more. But the jock life in the 70s verses the Greek life/system meant a welcome change. The drop off in food and lodging were huge in that regard. but my college experience was greatly enhanced by joining a frat and serving in leadership roles there. (Not for everyone and I’ve kept my son away from it.)

So. I haven’t been inside the towers for decades, but I have been in a frat house and a KU & KSU dorm and little.is changed including pricey Naismith Hall. At worst, the dorms are not dumps, they are dorms.

Last spring and this summer I toured ALL the KU athletic facilities. They are very nice. The football stadium is low end but so what. So was KSU. The program and money at KSU rose in a cycle as did the stadium. A Two weeks ago I was in Kyle Stadium for an A&M game. 100,000 plus. We will never be there, and since they have 40,000 students and billions in endowments and are located in one of the top three populated states in the country I don’t care. It’s apples and oranges.

But we can do what KSU did in time.

I for one don’t believe our facilities are the problem. We have what we need for starters. Let’s build it like Snyder and KSU did. RCJH

JayhawkRock78 · Nov 13, 2014, 4:54 AM

I will add something more we need to remember. The south belt has no winter to freeze out training, think how many people live in Florida and Texas. With just three small states between them. The summers suck but there are SO MANY kids down here playing football. In our school district outside Houston EVERY school had THREE freshman football teams with two and three strings each. Think of the talent pool the SEC has (and I hate them).

jaybate 1.0 · Nov 13, 2014, 6:18 AM

People forget that KSU spent huge money on football in the late 60s when it S-Canned kindly, intelligent Doug Weaver, and hired UTenn assistant Vince Gibson and built him a brand new small, but state of the art stadium and athletic dorms that allowed him to out recruit KU and steal some recruits from OU and Nebraska. That massive infusion of capital in the guns and butter 60s, when KU let football greatness of 1968 under Pepper Rogers transition into Terry Donahues inability to recruit. And KU football went down in drugs and flames as the campus did too. KU preoccupied with Civil Rights and the Vietnam war, and convulsed in violence was actually how KSU laid the foundation necessary to eclipse KU in football. Gibson was discovered to be a minor monster and forced out after turning the program around to 6-4 or something incomprehensible to a KSU program that had set the record for winless streaks a couple of times and had not fielded competitive teams in 30-40 years.

But again, just as the 60s ended in the early 70s, and Gibson was replaced, and the fires at KU died down, longtime Jayhawk Don Fambrough got hold of the program, much as Clint Bowen might now, and briefly got it rolling only to have it implode from drugs and Fammer’s loose supervision. KSU labored through a bleak period of a couple of incompetent hires, while KU muddled through the same and recycled Fammer once in their.

But the difference between KU and KSU was that KSU’s big money became increasingly focused on finding a way to pay the huge nut on the KSU football stadium, something KU did not have to worry about nearly as much. KU only had to pay for additions and some really bad Astroturf fields. KSU had a huge stadium nut sucking it dry and had no choice but to keep trying to commit to building a successful program. Also, KSU, after a long run of being super at basketball but never quite closing the gap on KU’s basketball tradition, finally decided football had to come first. They paid Bill Snyder a lot of money back at that time to move from Hayden Fry’s assistant at Iowa to KSU head coach. People forget that Snyder would likely have been the heir apparent at Iowa, and would never have come to KSU, had not Frye and Iowa run into improprieties that ended the Frye regime at Iowa and terminated Snyder’s shot at being a Big Ten head coach. The point here is that Snyder actually walked into a much better situation than what is generally remembered. The facilities were among the best of the second tier programs. The big debt made KSU leaders and donors willing to to be absolutely compliant to a guy like Snyder. He had a ton of talent in the pipeline that he could redirect to KSU after the Iowa implosion. Snyder, like a lot of great coaches, looks like a cross between a saint and a business executive, and he was no saint, but he was a helluva an executive type. The key was that KSU was way more cohesively committed to football success than KU has ever been able to sustain. They had superior facilities to KU and as good or better than every Big Eight/Twelve school but NU and OU. And they were willing to spend more for whatever Snyder asked for almost from the beginning, even though he was losing. Let’s put it this way. When Snyder wanted to completely junk the old school logo there was no debate. What Snyder wanted, Snyder got. KU has never been that way with any football coach. To the contrary, KU had either been indifferent to, or out right ungrateful to every successful football coach it has ever had.

KU has to take the facilities another step up in this day and age. KU’s facilities are reputedly inferior to quite a few Texas high schools, even thought hey are as good or better than some Big 12 schools’ football facilities.

KU does not necessarily have to improve the facilities BEFORE it hires its big time coach. But it has to have the cash needed to take them up another level in a bank account they can show a big time coach. They have to be able to prove to a big time coach that WHATEVER he wants, he not only can have, but can have it in the ground and ready to go ASAP. He has to know there will be unqualified support. This is what KU has never been able to give big time prospective coaches. Why is complicated. But KU is feeling incredible pain about the nut it carries from the last round of upgrades. And when a university feels enough pain, sooner or later it forces cohesion, or collapse. KU is probably about ready to become cohesive.

bskeet · Nov 13, 2014, 6:59 AM

@Crimsonorblue22

Love the stories on Bowen. The locals who know the Bowen family - and know what a winner he has been his whole life - are thrilled with his success. Here’s hoping he can shock the world this weekend and solidify his tenure.

Crimsonorblue22 · Nov 13, 2014, 7:10 AM

@bskeet I was just reading the sr stories, their favorite moment. My son played on a horrible team, horrible coach, it takes pretty special kids to go thru that. Something good will come of it. Sometimes you might not know it for awhile! I do appreciate their hard work and they have represented KU well.