Bohl finished as an AD
Al Bohl is done in Kansas, where athletic directors who tick off longtime basketball coach Roy Williams are as expendable as half-used tubes of rubbing liniment.
But Fresno isn’t done with Bohl, who left Fresno State before the light was shone on an athletic accounting scandal and before the NCAA posse showed up on the doorstep of the Bulldogs’ basketball program.
Bohl’s firing Wednesday was another reminder that he and Fresno State never have said whether Bohl returned his bonuses for balancing the athletic department budget from 1998 to 2000 — years that actually produced a deficit in excess of $1 million.
What goes around comes around — even for those who figure they can ride out the uproar by saying the matter has been resolved, but never you mind the messy details.
Isn’t that a fine way for Fresno State to conduct business, especially when Bulldog Foundation boosters are gearing up for their annual fund drive?
Bohl is finished as a big-time athletic director. If there was any doubt, in the wake of the mess he left behind at Fresno State and his inability to make nice with Williams, it was removed when Bohl left the premises in Kansas kicking and screaming.
That’s a no-no in the big leagues, where it’s OK to get fired, but a mortal sin to embarrass your former bosses. Suddenly a dedicated truth-seeker, Bohl wanted to tell his side of the story.
He played the integrity card. He said he was mistreated. He said he was a “dove” whom Williams chose to crush instead of letting take flight.
Makes you wonder how this same innocent songbird found the savvy to negotiate a hush-hush disposal of his Fresno State problem. If Williams crushed him, Bohl surely bled red ink.
Bohl, 54, got the Kansas job because the school wanted to turn around one of the nation’s worst football programs and wanted to ward off money problems.
But when Fresno State’s financial troubles and allegations of academic fraud during the Jerry Tarkanian era bubbled to the surface, Bohl’s employers weren’t pleased. They thought they had gotten a squeaky clean overseer who would find them the next Pat Hill.
Sad to say, that wasn’t enough to get Bohl fired. It’s one thing to blow off the truth in Fresno, quite another to upset Williams, who had led Kansas to four Final Fours.
Now Bohl, the dove, is just another dodo bird — as extinct as the dusty notion that athletics are supposed to teach the importance of integrity.
6Sports video: Coach Williams cannot decide without offer
Chat transcript with the J-W’s Chuck Woodling and 6News’ Kevin Romary on Roy Williams and Al Bohl