LSU, Kansas woes serve as cautionary tales

Les Miles was accused of sexual misconduct in 2013, and an investigation began that took more than eight years to be released.

Are you kidding? Where was the LSU Board of Supervisors, fishing in the most remote bayou?

Miles was fired three years later in 2016, but that was for losing football games.

He landed on his feet at Kansas, where starry-eyed Athletic Director Jeff Long finally got his coach. Long had tried to hire Miles at Arkansas, but Miles was just playing his old friend to get a raise, which he did.

They were united at Kansas, and Long tried to get out of paying former coach David Beaty.

That went to court, where allegations of Long making inappropriate remarks about women surfaced in a deposition.

Where was the Kansas Board of Regents, having long steak dinners in Denver?

If any of this had happened at the University of Arkansas, the Board of Trustees would have tried to help.

Most likely trustees would have been told by UA System President Donald Bobbitt and UA Chancellor Joe Steinmetz to butt out.

That’s what they usually do when anything connected to athletics comes up. Making sense of isolating your governing body is ridiculous.

It goes back about 20 years when the late, great Frank Broyles started to show signs of early dementia.

A couple of guys on the BOT had his back and got involved in a few things. They were not doing anything to hurt the UA, only help the UA and a friend.

During an inquiry, the NCAA said the board might be too involved with athletics.

It was not an official reprimand, but ever since that has been the excuse used to neutralize the board that is appointed to help.

However, trustees are expected to unilaterally handstamp everything Bobbitt and Steinmetz want.

That’s how the UA athletic department ended up with a $159 million football addition. Just recently money had to be borrowed to pay on the bond debt.

That’s a lose-lose situation, and there were two board members who refused to approve the expansion, which included nothing for the students. More might have if they felt they could.

Every trustee went to school there, or the law school or medical school.

It isn’t like they don’t have an investment.

There are 10 trustees, and one rotates off every year, or is supposed to.

Being on the board is considered one of the highest appointments in the state. The job includes great seats at athletic events, sometimes great lodging, and a lot of nice wine and cheese parties.

Over the years there have been a few who got fed up with the restrictions and quit, good people such as Johnny Tyson, Sandy Ledbetter and Jay Dickey, who was the second generation of his family to serve on the board and now his son, Ted Dickey, is the third generation.

One board member spent his own time and money to show Long was hurting the university, and that got Long fired and the board member practically censured.

All the board members are intelligent people who make strong decisions daily. Most are very successful.

What they should be is an asset to the University of Arkansas, not treated like children.

A year ago the board gave Bobbitt and Steinmetz threeyear contract extensions and both are now hinting there is more work to do.

Of course there is more work to do. We are living through a pandemic and an up-and-down economy.

Now is the time to have people running the flagship university who understand the need for transparency.

No one wants to be the next LSU or Kansas.