LAWRENCE — Kansas is turning to a native son to usher the Jayhawks through the rest of the season.
In fact, it’s hard to get more Kansas than Clint Bowen, who grew up in Lawrence, played for the Jayhawks and has spent many years as an assistant coach on two very different staffs.
Now, after Sunday’s firing of Charlie Weis, he’s the school’s interim coach.
“I’ve never known a day in my life when I wasn’t a KU football fan,” Bowen said in his first public comments Monday. “I grew up a Lawrence guy, grew up coming to KU football games, so to be standing here today is truly one of the greatest honors I’ve ever had in my life.”
Bowen has officially been part of the Jayhawk family for 24 years, playing for Glen Mason and coaching under Mark Mangino during two periods of relative success. But that same success has been hard to find the past five years, as Turner Gill and Weis struggled to put up wins.
Bowen certainly seems ready to hit the ground running, exuding energy in his first news conference. He said there are specific cornerstones that he holds, and he wants to instill those core elements into the players that he’s coaching.
“I have tremendous respect and admiration for the people that came before me,” Bowen said. “I have respect for the traditions of Kansas, respect for the values that this University and football program represent. I’m going to spend every day of the next nine weeks trying to instill in our players the value of what that means.”
Those nine weeks, which could amount to a job audition, started with the first practice of Sunday. Weis had just been dismissed by athletic director Sheahon Zenger. But rather than players arriving in shock, they arrived with a high level of energy, ready to start fresh.
“They were smiling,” Bowen said. “They had fun. We had energy. We flew around that thing and felt like the kids were ready to move on. I loved the tempo of practice, which is something that we’re going to continue.”