Editor’s Note: Friday marked the six-month anniversary of Kansas University athletics director Al Bohl’s first official day on the job with the Jayhawks.

Journal-World sports writer Robert Sinclair recently sat down with Bohl, who reflected on the past six months, discussed the highs and lows, addressed the KU football coaching situation and looked ahead to the future.

J-W: Can you believe it’s already been six months?

Bohl: “With all the things that have been going on, it’s amazing six months already have transpired. It’s been a rapid pace, but (wife) Sherry and I have really enjoyed those six months. We’re looking forward to the rest of the year and helping the athletic program advance.”

J-W: How hard was it to have to fire football coach Terry Allen and then find his replacement, Mark Mangino?

Bohl: “With coach Allen nobody likes to go through tasks like that, but I do know we’d had six losing seasons five with Terry and it was something that was for the betterment of the University of Kansas. It’s never easy, but I knew it was the right thing to do and we needed to move on with it. When you get into a football search, it becomes a second job because it’s so time consuming all the phone calls and all the people you have to talk to. I’m really happy to put that behind us, but I also know it’s a great process to go through.”

J-W: There was such a big deal made about the difference of opinion between you and basketball coach Roy Williams following Allen’s dismissal. How are things between you and Williams?

Bohl: “It’s been such a pleasure working with Roy Williams. If you were to look in the dictionary for the ideal head coach, it would say, ‘See: Roy Williams.’ Roy is one of the things that really helped me with the football search because as I tried to analyze what makes Roy be successful because he’s just an outstanding coach and he’s been successful it’s his traits, like his really outstanding organizational skills and his ability to recruit.”

J-W: What has been the most enjoyable part of your job?

Bohl: “I think some of the most enjoyable things are what I’ve always believed why people get into coaching and people get into athletics administration, and that’s being around our student-athletes. We’ve got some great young people here.”

J-W: What do you think needs the most improvement?

Bohl: “When you get to the competition level, that’s the area that we have tremendous opportunities for improvement. Roy is the benchmark. We want everybody to either you’re in the top 25 or you’re going to be, to have that type of attitude. But Roy is so far past that with what we do with our basketball program. We were ranked (No.) 1 at one time and at the present time we’re ranked (No.) 2.

“What we want to do is figure out how we can help our coaches be able to compete at that level.”

J-W: The women’s basketball team has struggled. What are your thoughts about that situation?

Bohl: “That’s a very tough one for coach (Marian) Washington right now because last year she had a losing record and this year she’s having probably one of the toughest seasons she’s ever had. We’re right in the middle of the season and you’re looking at a lot of data, but you also can’t forget, other than these last two years, the last 11 years our women’s basketball program under Marian’s leadership has won 20-plus games and we were in nine straight NCAA Tournaments.

“You cannot deny what happened last year and what’s happened this year and we have to figure out how to get women’s basketball back on target because it is one of our premier sports and we want it to be one of our premier sports.”

J-W: What have been your most memorable experiences here?

Bohl: “The thing that I remember most would be I loved the opening ceremonies of that Oklahoma football game and I really enjoyed even though there was red in that stadium that we had that stadium filled up for the first time in a long time for that Nebraska game.

“I loved my first time in Allen Fieldhouse with Midnight Madness and all the people in there and my first, what I would call, real game which was Wake Forest because it was special.”

J-W: How would you grade yourself on the job you’ve done so far?

Bohl: “That’s not my responsibility to grade. You’d have to ask my coaches, the fans and the community. They’re the ones who are going to be responsible for judging that. All I can tell you is you can measure whether or not I’m doing a good job by how our student-athletes are performing in the classroom and how they’re performing on the court or field and when the day is done whether you’re very proud of the Jayhawks.

“And if you’re very proud of the Jayhawks, then I’ve done a good job.”