Boatright Stealth Extended?

[WstateU]

Muma:

”I am Ozzzzzzz!”
”Don’t pay attention to the man behind the curtain!”

(teeing up WStateU for a gif)

[BostonWu]

If their plan is silence then this looks a lot worse. I didn't have an opinion on muma up til now.

[Kung Wu]

There should probably be an FOIA request to find out who decided to make the FOIA requests no longer public.

[Dan]

If their plan is silence then this looks a lot worse. I didn't have an opinion on muma up til now.

sounds like Muma and DB were made for each other

[SubGod22]

If their plan is silence then this looks a lot worse. I didn't have an opinion on muma up til now.

I was pretty much in the same boat. I remembered his name, and positively so, from some articles over the years involving WSU and the Innovation Campus I believe. I know he popped up in some articles, maybe in the WBJ. But I knew little else about him. I was willing to wait and see, mostly with how he was going to handle DB's contract expiring. But since we've found out over a year after the secret extension and that neither Muma or anyone else at WSU is going to address it speaks volumes. This whole thing is a stain upon the University and is really going to handcuff the athletic department. Donations are already down. Attendance is already down. I don't see either picking up with the current leadership or the product on the court. Why support such an inept department? I feel bad for the kids who've done nothing wrong as far as any of this goes, but the leadership obviously doesn't care what we think as I'm guessing they assumed they'd just get all of our money no matter what because Shocker fans love their basketball.

I kind of hate to say it, but I hope donations go down even more and attendance continues to be very poor. I'm not sure it'll make a difference, but it will force them to address things or continue to hide, which will only make things worse. If this is how Muma is going to run things, I don't see his tenure at the top lasting long. At some point, there's going to be enough pressure, either from donors with pull or the financial burden that's going to hit, that he'll get ousted. Unfortunately, that will drag out longer than we would hope and a lot of damage will have been done. But if this continues to be how he chooses to operate, the KBOR can only ignore it for so long. Yes, I know WSU isn't a top priority for most of them, but it will only be able to be ignored for so long.

Maybe Muma is as smart as I once thought he was and he figures out that this isn't going to work and changes course. Maybe things do improve in a couple of years and he starts being a better decision maker. We can hope, because that would be better than waiting for the KBOR to finally do something if this kind of secrecy and poor decision making continues.

[Shockm]

Speculation, Schmeculation,

People saving their own skin?

Lawyers saving the University's skin?

Could be why Rolph didn't attend the meeting to confirm President Muma?

Who knows? People who do aren't talking.

If they were good, I'd still support them

I still plan to attend when possible but no season ticket support

[MikeKennedyRulZ]

[Shockm]

Some day there will be a Clean up on Isle 9

[MikeKennedyRulZ]

There should probably be an FOIA request to find out who decided to make the FOIA requests no longer public.

This is yet another piece of this sh!t show that needs to be explained. So not only are they covering it up with silence, they are deliberately suppressing information that could become public AT A PUBLIC INSTITUTION. Maddening.

[SHOCKvalue]

There should probably be an FOIA request to find out who decided to make the FOIA requests no longer public.

Wait... what? Point me in the direction to what you are referring to. I've guess I've completely missed that they are declining FOIA requests. I see they are declining comment, but how do you decline an FOIA?

[Stickboy46]

Wait... what? Point me in the direction to what you are referring to. I've guess I've completely missed that they are declining FOIA requests. I see they are declining comment, but how do you decline an FOIA?

I believe they are fulfilling them (unless they can come up with an excuse why it's prohibited) but they are no longer updating the public website with those requests.

[wheathead]

Taylor, if you read this thread...........please oh please don't let this die. This is unacceptable behavior from a public institution. When our tax dollars are indirectly supporting a Kansas public institution, we have a right to know the details.

I'm a firm believer in rip off the band aid and let everyone know the truth. Let the chips land where they may. I'll be more forgiving knowing the truth.........but this "let's wait them out until they get bored, forget about it, and move on..." PR approach is disgusting of the institution I have loved so much.

[SHOCKvalue]

I believe they are fulfilling them (unless they can come up with an excuse why it's prohibited) but they are no longer updating the public website with those requests.

Ah... okay. Thanks!

[Ted Lasso's Neighbor]

Here's WSU's web site for open records request - https://openrecords.wichita.edu/ - and they have the following on the home page - "Additionally, all requests are logged and posted publicly on this website. Once a request is complete, the log will be updated to reflect the status."

Until last fall, you could go to this page to see all the requests - https://openrecords.wichita.edu/view-request-log/ - and it would show you who made the request, what the request was, and any documents. But now when you go to the page, all you get is an 'Under Construction' page. However, they do have a Search button at the top of the page and that will let you search the openrecords sub-domain and you can do the following searches:

https://openrecords.wichita.edu/?s= - clicking the search button but not entering anything. Gives you a list of log entries. As of today, the last one entered was February 11. But it doesn't have anything and none of the entries do until you get back to November 2021. But they don't update them until they've closed the request, however, that means they either haven't closed any requests since November or they have but aren't making them public. When you finally get to those entries, they don't have any attachments or tell who made the request.

https://openrecords.wichita.edu/?s=boatright - if you search on boatright, you can see past requests. Interestingly someone requested a copy of any contract amendment back in November 2020, but the university said nothing existed according to the request criteria. If the person had put in October instead of November in the request, or left out November altogether, then the amendment signed in October 2020 would have had meet the criteria.

https://openrecords.wichita.edu/?s=ad - a search on AD, although some results may see it as ad like in advertisement. There was a request last spring for something I mentioned in another post that could actually get WSU in trouble for not abiding by open request laws. I'm going to mention it in another post instead of this one. Stay tuned :)

[Ted Lasso's Neighbor]

I was afraid there might be an extension - I posted the following on the Open Records Request thread last summer - https://shockernet.net/forum/miscell...23#post1301923

"There was an interesting log entry added recently regarding the employment of the AD - https://openrecords.wichita.edu/view...og/entry/1638/ - it requested contracts for coaches and the AD and WSU ended up posting that the coaches contracts could be found in other requests, but they did post a couple new agreements for the AD. One is dated 12/15/2020 and states it's an amendment to an agreement on 7/1/2020. It mentions specific sections of the agreement, but I've looked through the logs and searched online, and the only mention of a contract for the AD was back in 2019 (https://www.kansas.com/sports/colleg...225944750.html) and that contract is at https://openrecords.wichita.edu/view...log/entry/144/ and it runs through 6/30/2022. So I'm not sure if the 7/1/2020 was a new contract or an extension of that one. The request also has an amendment dated 6/24/2021 that states a $72,000 increase in salary for 20-21 would be deferred and paid no later than 6/30/2024. So given all that, it's possible the AD's contract was extended from 2022 to 2024 last year - I'm not sure if that's the case though because there's no mention in the news about an extension."


Unfortunately none of the links above to the openrecords.wichita.edu produce anything these days. WSU for some reason decided to make the open records requests less transparent since October 2021. Too bad Taylor or someone at the Sunflower doesn't look into why that happened.

I posted the above a few days ago, and I went back and found original request from June 10, 2021, out on WSU's site at https://openrecords.wichita.edu/athl...ment-contract/ (the old url had the request number 1638 in it, but the new one doesn't but the description mentions it's 1638):
"Wichita State University conducted a search of the records in WSU’s possession and control consistent with your request below:

1. contracts (and any extensions/amendments) for the head men’s basketball coach and his 3 assistant coaches, the head football coach, his 10 assistants, and any analysts, and the athletic director. If any assistant coaches do not have contracts, their letters of employment and/or salary figures will be sufficient

Attached are records responsive to your request. Additional records responsive to this request can be found on the University’s request log here. All fees for this request have been waived. The University now considers request #1638 closed."

WSU gets a lot of requests for coaches contracts, so they just post it once and then in future requests say it already exists and can be found out in the log. They do the same for the AD contract. When they posted the above I looked around and the only AD contract they had posted was the 2019 one. The items that were attached were some amendments I mentioned in my post up above, but the 14 page amendment that the Wichita Eagle shared last week wasn't one of them. That amendment should have existed back in June 2021 when the request above was made but they didn't release it. By Kansas law, they should have released it - https://www.wichita.edu/about/policy/ch_20/ch20_01.php - and there should be some disciplinary action involved for not releasing it.