Former Oklahoma State Head Coach Les Miles Parts Ways with Kansas and Football

STILLWATER – The sad news was finally confirmed at just after 10 p.m. on Monday as I had been following the roller coaster of emotion and turns in the final hours of Les Miles tenure as head coach at Kansas and likely his involvement in college football period. Former Oklahoma State defensive tackle Stacey Satterwhite’s son Jack is a red-shirt freshman offensive tackle at Kansas. I’ve known Stacey since he came to Oklahoma State from eight-man school Welch as I watched him develop into an All-Big Eight defensive lineman and then get his shot playing in the NFL with the Denver Broncos. We re-acquainted when my son, Zach, went up to Miami, Okla. and was coaching at NEO A&M Junior College. Stacey became a great friend and mentor of my son. I’ve taken an active interest in Stacey’s son in high school and now at KU. The text messages informing me of called meetings for the players and staff and workouts being cancelled was finally followed by a simple message.

“They fired him.”

I feel for Jack and for Stacey as a father, but this I know. Kansas has a great school and they will go hire a good coach and work to get the ball rolling again. Jack will get his chance to play college football at a high level and will get an excellent education that Kansas offers.

For Les Miles, this is it. The mutual agreement to part ways with the school will put a cap on Miles’ coaching career. The former Oklahoma State head coach will always be a bright spot of the turnaround in football in Stillwater.

Rod Adelotte

Miles helped educate Mike Gundy on what it was like as to be head coach.

Miles got it started as he took talent that had been recruited by Bob Simmons and pointed it in the right direction. He hired a good staff that included offensive coordinator and assistant head coach Mike Gundy. He let Gundy have more than a glimpse into the head coach’s office. He told Gundy that someday that would be his office and he needed to know what went on. All Oklahoma State fans should be grateful to Miles for helping finish Gundy’s preparation to be head coach.

Gundy had to clean the house some his first season after Miles left for LSU and left him his “New York Yankees” job, but after dismissing some 16 players Gundy regrouped the program and the 15-year bowl streak began in Gundy’s second season.

Meanwhile at LSU Miles coached the Tigers to a National Championship and some other opportunities to play for a championship. Unfortunately, allegations surfaced last week after a USA Today newspaper investigation into Miles’ time at LSU that the coach sexually harassed female student workers in the LSU football program.

Miles was placed on administrative leave on Friday after a report of an investigation conducted by the law firm Husch Blackwell was released.

The report alleges that, Miles, then the head coach at LSU, “attempted to sexualize the staff of student workers in the football program by, for instance, allegedly demanding that he wanted ‘blondes with the big boobs’ and ‘pretty girls.’” The coach also exchanged numbers with a female student, offering to help her with her career and suggesting to that same woman that they meet up at a hotel or his condo, the report said. The female student alleges that he kissed her twice; Miles denied the allegations.

The report was damning enough that Kansas apparently felt they needed to let Miles go. He was hired by former Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long. Long and Miles had first crossed paths when both were at Miles’ alma mater Michigan, Miles as an assistant coach and Long in athletic administration.

“I am extremely disappointed for our university, fans and everyone involved with our football program," Kansas director of athletics Jeff Long said in a statement Monday. "There is a lot of young talent on this football team, and I have no doubt we will identify the right individual to lead this program. We will begin the search for a new head coach immediately with an outside firm to assist in this process."

I feel sorry for Miles’ wife Kathy, his daughter Smacker, sons Manny, who played quarterback for him at Kansas, and Ben, who was currently a fullback on the KU team. I’ve known this family since the days that Miles was an offensive coordinator for Simmons in 1995-97. They are good people, but I have to admit Miles had me fooled. I never saw any of this.

I wonder about Miles in the future because he loves football, he loves coaching. He has said that he is never as happy as he is on the practice field coaching his football team. Now, there will not be another team to coach.

Iowa State Athletics

Golesh is a promising future head coach.

For Kansas, for Jack Satterwhite, I hope Jeff Long will break the trend of hiring retreads in the coaching business. I challenge Jeff Long to go out and find a young buck assistant coach that is smart, has energy, and connections. The KU program needs energy, needs new blood. I even have a suggestion. Alex Golesh used to help beat Kansas teams as both a graduate assistant at Oklahoma State and a full-time assistant at Iowa State. He is now on his second stop with Josh Heupel as the offensive coordinator at Tennessee. He has both a Mike Gundy and a Matt Campbell pedigree. Somebody like that would make sense to me.

Right now, I’m just sad for a family I’ve known and cared about for a long time and how they are going to find a way to heal from all of this.