Show me the money. Check that. Show me where the money is coming from.

About a year ago Kansas University dropped men’s swimming and men’s tennis for financial reasons. Then about the same time, KU athletic director Bob Frederick doomed and gloomed about athletic budgets at universities all over the country, saying the future looked grim, that income couldn’t possibly keep up with expenses.

Today men’s tennis and swimming are still gone, most likely never to return. Frederick is gone, too. He resigned a year ago this month.

Now we no longer hear about the inevitability of red ink. Under Al Bohl, Frederick’s replacement, Kansas University is pressing ahead under the assumption right or wrong that in order to make money you have to spend money.

Or as Bob Marcum, a KU athletic director two decades removed, once said: “You’ve never seen an athletic department go bankrupt, have you?”

Bohl plunked down big bucks for a new head football coach, guaranteeing Mark Mangino at least $300,000 more than predecessor Terry Allen made. At the same time, Bohl is paying Mangino’s aides nearly $400,000 more combined than Allen’s staff earned. Furthermore, he has spent about $150,000 to refurbish the football offices.

Moreover, Bohl may not be done. There is talk of revamping the grass football practice fields south of Anschutz Pavilion a project that could run from a simple regrading to the million-dollar installation of a prescription turf system.

At the same time, Bohl wants a softball stadium KU is one of only two Big 12 Conference schools without one and he wants to improve the soccer facility, build a boathouse for rowing and install a new video board and sound system in Allen Fieldhouse.

Too, with the Alvamar Racquet Club being turned into a school, KU will soon need an indoor tennis facility. Factor also the dramatic tuition hikes on the horizon because scholarship money is a big drain on the budget.

Show me where the money will come from. A bunch of dollars will come from a basic $5 hike in the price of football tickets approved a couple of months ago, but it’s clear Bohl believes donors are the primary source of untapped income.

“We want to concentrate on getting more people donating,” Bohl told me. “We’re high on the list of dollars per donor thanks to Allen Fieldhouse but not in the number of donors.”

Acorns grow into oaks, and Bohl is so convinced fund-raising is the answer he has decided to what else? spend money to upgrade and expand the offices of the Williams Fund, the holding company, so to speak, for every nickel contributed to the KU athletic department.

More staffers in the Williams Fund won’t necessarily mean more people will be soliciting, but it will mean current donors can expect better service. And that goes back to spending money to make money.

In light of recent developments at Fresno State, however, Kansas University alumni and friends may be wary of Bohl’s philosophy of spend, spend, spend.

A couple of months after Bohl left Fresno State, school officials discovered money from a reserve fund had been funneled without the school’s knowledge into the operating fund in order to balance the budget.

No illegalities were involved, but the fact Bohl’s contract called for a bonus if the budget balanced casts a shadow on the current Kansas AD. The Fresno Bee estimates the improper transfers went on for four years and that Bohl’s balanced-budget bonus was at least $30,000 annually.

Kansas University officials have stressed no such creative financing is possible here, that built-in checks and balances prevent book-cooking.

Whatever, Bohl’s stock at Fresno State has plunged. Bohl’s replacement, Scott Johnson, has asked every sport at the school to make cuts. Johnson also talked about slicing personnel and maybe some sports as well.

Two long-time FSU athletic department employees have been placed on leave over the improprieties while Bohl, according to the Fresno newspaper, “is far out of shrapnel range as athletic director at Kansas.”

Bohl may be out of shrapnel range on Mount Oread, but he has definitely been nicked by the improper movement of Fresno State funds.

Still, Bohl will be judged at Kansas by what he does at Kansas, not what happened at Fresno State.

So where IS the money coming from?

“From a whole bunch of individual transactions is where,” Bohl said.

If that sounds vague, well, there you have it.