Zenger has been fired.
http://www.kansascity.com/sports/col...211582259.html
KU fires athletic director Sheahon Zenger: 'Progress in key areas has been elusive'
By Jesse Newell
jnewell@kcstar.com
May 21, 2018 10:31 AM
Updated 5 minutes ago
University of Kansas athletic director Sheahon Zenger has been fired after seven years with the department, KU chancellor Douglas Girod announced Monday morning.
In an email sent to KU faculty and staff, Girod credited Zenger for his loyalty before saying, "Athletics continues to face a number of challenges, and progress in key areas has been elusive. To achieve the level of success we need and expect, I have determined a change in leadership is necessary."
KU assistant athletic director Sean Lester will be interim AD, while Drue Jennings — who was interim AD in 2003 when KU hired basketball coach Bill Self — will lead the search committee.
Girod also said he spoke with KU football coach David Beaty earlier Monday and "shared my expectation that he will continue recruiting hard and getting his team ready for the season."
Zenger's biggest failure with KU was football. As a former football assistant coach, he was hired in 2011 to help revive the program, though his hiring of Charlie Weis set the team back scholarships-wise before Zenger chose David Beaty as his replacement. Through three seasons, Beaty has compiled a 3-33 record with just one FBS victory.
Among Zenger's greatest accomplishments, though, was improving the facilities outside football. That included construction of Rock Chalk Park, which houses track and field, softball, soccer and tennis. KU Athletics also constructed McCarthy Hall — a dorm used primarily for the men's basketball players — and the DeBruce Center, a building adjacent to Allen Fieldhouse that houses James Naismith's original rules of basketball.
Per a contract extension signed in summer 2017, Zenger would be owed two years' salary — or $1.4 million — for termination without cause.