Kansas Decides On Illinois State’s Zenger As Next A.D.

The Kansas Jayhawks have a new athletic director. Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little confirmed over the weekend that Sheahon Zenger will be the next athletic director at Kansas. 

“With his experience and leadership skills, Sheahon Zenger is the best choice to lead Kansas Athletics into the future. He is exactly who we need as athletics director, working to ensure that every Jayhawk team succeeds on the field and in the classroom, as well as making sure our programs operate with the utmost integrity,” said Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little in a statement.

If he were the best choice he would have been offered the job first but that’s simply not accurate. A search committee originally targeted Bubba Cunningham before he decided to change his mind at the last minute and stay with Tulsa. So at best Zenger is the second choice.

But that’s OK. he has a solid history in the area and was even a football coach at one point. Here’s part of his resumebefore Illinois State, where he is athletic director.

Prior to joining ISU, Zenger was the associate athletics director for development at Kansas State from 2002-05. Before that, he spent two years as KSU’s assistant athletics director for major gifts and also spent a year with the KSU College of Business as director of development.    

Kansas originally had middle of the spring semester as a target date to hire someone and thought they had Cunningham earlier this month when we was offered the job before he turned it down.