Maybe it’s nobody’s fault, maybe everyone’s. But throw a batch of factors into a hopper and they reflect that Kansas University’s image currently is showing disturbing tarnish.

The happiest of times these aren’t.

It goes far beyond the fact the athletic department has riled many by trying to boost donations from some basketball season ticket-holders to keep seats most have had a long time. As I understand it, nobody will be tossed out, just relocated so prime spots can go to more “generous” patrons.

The hassle has not been and is not flattering. Will there be expanded “gift” quests to many more in the next year or two with even more displacements? What about new shakedowns to let people with long records of support keep things like preferred football parking spots?

How much is being dumped into a deficit rathole to settle the agreements of deposed football coach Terry Allen? And the ouster of athletic director Al Bohl? Think of payoffs like that. Did Roy Williams get any special largesse when he bolted for North Carolina?

KU is struggling to bring in more money for athletics, academics, everything else. The city, county, state and nation are also hurting, big. Perhaps it’s the war, business failures and rising jobless totals, a sagging economy, inefficiency, incompetence, mismanagement, inflation, deflation, stagnation, take your pick.

The Kansas Legislature is a major villain. It failed dismally to provide the kind of money needed so badly for education at all levels. The lawmakers were so terrified of losing votes that they failed to pass tax increases vital to closing the widening gap.

Somebody bungled. When the late Gloria Timmer of Lawrence was the state budget director, she consistently orchestrated a decent financial picture. Before she left for a job in Washington, she also offered guidelines on how to keep things healthy. Most were ignored. Her untimely death from cancer was a terrible blow to many.

Let’s start with the basketball ticket furor. I hear only 121 people are involved and that even if they have been supporters for eons, they are expected to ante up to remain in prime seats. Most of them can’t muster the alleged $5,000 it will take to retain their rights to single tickets, which run another $1,200 a pair.

I can understand why KU would like to change all this. Yet does anyone up there think massive budget gains will accrue due to a mere 121 loyalists? Hell, let them die, get tired of climbing stairs, parking as far east as Eudora, waiting in lines at rest rooms, all that jazz. Sure, 121 times $5,000, if it could be had, totals $605,000. That could pay the salary of the new athletic director and almost a couple of football assistants.

But must the budget be balanced on the backs of a few blue-hairs, as derisive yuppies lusting after better seats call them?

Then there are other factors drawing a lot of fire from the public. Any wonder so many KU faculty are fed up with taking short shrift? Some of these issues aren’t tied to the athletic department. But in all the confusion, dissatisfaction and ill will they blend into a collective wad of resentment, misplaced or not.

KU just hired a new athletic director at $400,000 per. Then along comes the flap about the ticket surcharges. Suddenly, Chancellor Robert Hemenway gets a huge salary hike, something like 24 percent. Granted, a batch of that new loot is provided through a gift from Charlie Oswald, a Jayhawk Beta who hit it big, enough to bankroll the Kansas State and Wichita State leaders same as Hemenway. But perception?

There isn’t a lot of public confab about it, but folks are still trying to figure what Janet Murguia is doing to justify her $195,000 salary in the university relations field. Non-athletic, sure, but part of the growing tide of unhappiness, on campus and off.

Then along come more tuition increases to make the KU “bargain” a little less glittering. All the while, faculty people here anquish over the fact the average Jayhawk assistant football coach draws about $105,000 a year while the average full professor gets $85,000. At Oklahoma the difference is about $48,000; at Texas U. it’s around $43,000.

That’s not much consolation to an accomplished KU staffer who has the potential to do all sorts of great things while it’s doubtful any coaches ever will find a cure for cancer or AIDS or discover the secrets of Alzheimer’s Disease, ALS and Parkinson’s.

Can’t believe the mass of support, like 5-1, my column drew last week from people upset at what’s happening. Got some nifty zingers, of course.

In trying to see both sides, one veteran fan wrote: “I couldn’t take one of those (121) seats and enjoy the game knowing I’d broken someone’s heart, so I’m not in favor of KU’s new policy at all. But with the pressures associated with hiring top-quality people and running high-quality programs, I can understand their policy: not that I agree with it, but I understand it, along with the removal of emotion and loyalty from the equation. It even makes sense in today’s business environment. We see a lot worse every day (have you seen the golden parachutes Esry and Lemay got?). At least these (121) people get to keep their seats, just not good ones. My friends who were laid off at Sprint didn’t get to keep their seats and they have families and small children to raise, not basketball games to go to. … “

Again, not all this is tied into athletics. Yet emerging layer by layer on the scene it tends to stir resentment. The solution is simple.

All Lew Perkins has to do to earn his $400,000 is get football to win five games or more right away, keep men’s basketball rolling and showing a $4 million profit, boost football to doing that well or better, make women’s basketball stop losing $1 million a year, pay off the loot to the firees, then maybe sidetrack Kansas State and Missouri on the gridiron.

Yep, KU has seen far happier times. As one tree-stump philosopher said, “When they say it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.”

Big salaries, high-dollar seats, prof-coach gaps, tuition hikes, settling deals with the Terry Allens and Al Bohls … after a while they all meld into a frustrating mess that makes many people wonder if Hansel and Gretel will ever escape from this dark, grim forest.