Kansas AD leaves in fallout
The University of Kansas announced the departure of athletics director Jeff Long on Wednesday, saying it was necessary for the school to move in “a different direction.”
The move comes less than 48 hours after the school parted ways with football coach Les Miles in the wake of investigative reports detailing sexual misconduct allegations against him while he was at LSU.
“It is clear that my continued service as the Director of Athletics would only serve as a distraction to the nearly 500 incredible young men and women in our athletics department, as well as to the outstanding coaches and staff who support them,” Long said in a statement released by Kansas. “Though this is extremely difficult for me, this is what is best for KU, for me and for my family, and I am at peace with this decision.”
Long had a five-year contract that paid him $1.5 million annually and was set to run through July 31, 2023.
“I respect his selfless decision to step down so that we can move Kansas Athletics in a different direction,” Kansas chancellor Douglas A. Girod said.
Long had hired Miles shortly after arriving at Kansas in 2018, leaning on a long personal relationship they had going back to the 1980s when they both worked at Michigan.
But after LSU released two reports last week detailing the 2013 investigation of Miles, the amount of due diligence Long had done on Miles was called into question.
LSU “chronicled significant alleged misconduct” by Miles from 2009 on, according to a report released Friday by Husch Blackwell, an outside law firm the school hired to review its handling of sexual misconduct cases. That included Miles’ attempts to sexualize the staff of students working for the LSU football team in 2012. A report on the Taylor Porter investigation in 2013, released last Thursday, found Miles had been issued a letter of reprimand after investigators determined his behavior was inappropriate. Husch Blackwell found that then-AD Joe Alleva was so concerned after the Taylor Porter investigation that he urged LSU to fire Miles in 2013. Instead, Miles remained at LSU until 2016, when he was fired after a 2-2 start.