(05-19-2021 06:36 PM)Almadenmike Wrote:  According to this Charlotte Observer article posted today, JK was in the field of candidates vying to become Duke's new athletic director ... a search that ended today with the promotion of Nina King, who will be "the first woman and first person of color to head Duke’s athletic department."

King has "been on Duke’s staff since 2008, most recently as senior deputy athletics director overseeing football and women’s basketball among other duties." She also "joined the NCAA women’s basketball selection committee in 2018, becoming vice-chair for the 2019-20 school year and chairing the group that selects teams for the tournament last spring." In April, a one-year extension was approved for King to chair the committee for a second consecutive year for 2021-22.

Also said to have been considered for the Blue Devils' job were "Villanova athletics director Mark Jackson ... (and) Florida executive associate athletics director Lynda Tealer, among others."

So within the last month JK has been a finalist for AD at Northwestern and Duke.

What that says to me (besides the obvious, which is that he wants out) is that, contra much unreasonable fan sentiment, he very likely is regarded within the industry as doing as good a job as can be expected given the horrendous structural situation that the industry is well aware exists at Rice. First and foremost this includes the fact that Rice is literally unique amongst all FBS schools in belonging to a conference with no peers or natural rivals. It cannot be overstated how toxic this is to the revenue sports, which makes it clearly impressive to the industry for Rice to have managed to get the nonrevenue sports where we have. They also know that this conference debacle was neither JK's doing nor is it fixable by him or any mere athletic director, so its persistence is not being held against him.

Unfortunately both for him and for those who naively think simply changing the AD will be a cure-all, he's 0 for 2 and he's running out of places he could logically be a candidate at . . .