The sports world is not unique to it but they are, perhaps, the best practitioners of it. I’m talking about recycling. The practice of recycling old coaches, old administrators, athletes too. Fire a coach here and he pops up as the head man somewhere else. Kick a general manager out and he becomes the brains somewhere else. The sports world is a very small fraternity. The latest example of this is the naming of Lew Perkins to the Board of Directors of USA Boxing, the governing body that oversees amateur boxing, including Gold Gloves and USA Olympic boxing.

We can only hope that Perkins doesn’t do for boxing what he did for/to football in the state of Kansas. This is the same Perkins who was the athletic director that ended football at Wichita State in 1987. He essentially did the same thing to Kansas football, as the Jayhawks haven’t come close to being respectable since Perkins chased Mark Mangino out of Lawrence after he resurrected a moribund football program.

After bringing Kansas football to its knees Perkins was forced to “retire” at KU following the infamous ticket scandals involving Kansas basketball that had his fingerprints all over it. He was accused of giving tickets away in exchange for merchandise which he later paid for and for not providing better overseeing of assistants under him who were skimming a fortune from basketball tickets.
While athletic director at Maryland from 1987-1990, a scandal hit the basketball program and Perkins moved on to Connecticut. The guy has been involved in more “scandals” than the Clintons!
Now Perkins has a new gig, overseeing amateur boxing in the United States. When asked to characterize his knowledge of the sport, Perkins said, “Zero. I know nothing about boxing.” That matches his knowledge of football.

Let’s all hope that boxing in the USA fares better than football did in Kansas under Perkins’ watch.

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