Interim replacement Jennings popular fit
A. Drue Jennings lettered only one season during his football career at Kansas University. He returned 11 punts during his senior season in 1967.
Jennings will be busier as KU’s new interim athletic director — the man assigned to run the ship until a replacement for the fired Al Bohl can be found.
“It’s kind of a dream come true for an ex-jock, and not too good a one at that,” Jennings said Wednesday during a news conference with KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway.
Jennings will not be a candidate for the permanent job, but he won’t be a hands-off manager, either.
“I won’t be a baby-sitter,” he said.
His first duty: Persuade men’s basketball coach Roy Williams to stay in the Jayhawk fold instead of leaving to coach at North Carolina.
“I think I’ve got a good (relationship) with him,” Jennings said of Williams. “We’re not close friends — we don’t golf together. But that’s because I don’t golf. I actually admire his golf game.”
The relationship with Williams could be crucial. Bohl’s friction with Williams contributed to Bohl’s dismissal, and Hemenway went out of his way to say Jennings’ selection had been approved by Williams.
Dana Anderson, the benefactor who publicly urged KU to fire Bohl and keep Williams, said he approved of Jennings’ selection.
“If the staff is happy with it, I’m happy with it,” Anderson said. “If the staff is happy, and apparently they are, I’m tickled to death. I think it’s fine.”
Jennings, 56, Leawood, is former CEO of Kansas City Power and Light Company. He is a member of the KU Endowment Association Executive Committee and the KU Alumni Association Board.
“I’m extremely devoted to the university and this chancellor,” Jennings said.
Staff writer Mark Fagan contributed to this story.
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