Lifelong Wichita State fan Brent Lane was stunned when news spread that WSU had fired athletic director Darron Boatright on Wednesday.
It came less than two days after Lane had created a stir in Wichita by using funds from the $3,200 he had crowd-sourced from a GoFundMe he advertised as “Save Shocker Sports” to rent space on two digital billboards to display Boatright’s picture and a hashtag calling for him to be fired.
What surprised Lane was that WSU’s decision to fire Boatright came less than 24 hours after Lane said the billboard company recommended taking down the billboards to avoid legal action following a conversation with WSU. Lane said both billboards came down on Wednesday but with plans of going back up with a redesigned layout, until Boatright’s firing became official.
Neither WSU or the billboard company returned messages seeking a statement from The Eagle on Wednesday.
“It was definitely surprising given the initial pushback from the university, but it gives us a lot of hope for the future,” Lane said. “It feels really good that our voices were heard as fans and we hope the future holds a more transparent, open line of communication so this is never needed again.”
Lane, who said he is a former season ticket-holder in men’s basketball, baseball and volleyball, said his Save Shocker Sports project, which has its own website, didn’t begin as a “witch hunt” for Boatright’s job. Since the billboards went up on Monday, Lane said the website generated more than 4,000 visits in the last two days.
But Boatright soon became the group’s target when the fans made it clear they weren’t happy with the direction WSU athletics was trending.
“We’re just Shocker fans who love Wichita State and we’re trying to make a difference,” Lane said. “You hear all the time about people canceling their season tickets. Fan interest seems to be down across the board. There just seems to be more questions and controversies that we don’t have the answers to.”
On the group’s website, Lane lists several common gripes that have developed the past few years in segments of the WSU fan base about Boatright: criticism centering around WSU’s lack of an NIL collective until recently, his secretive contract extension signed in 2020, the direction of the men’s basketball program under new hire Isaac Brown and lack of transparency following controversies.
Boatright admitted to taking a cautious approach to NIL last summer, but pointed out WSU fell behind because the NCAA was unable and unwilling to uphold the regulations it put forth in last summer’s initial NIL policy.
Both of his major hires as athletic director, Brown and baseball coach Eric Wedge, were widely praised at the time. But both of WSU’s money-making programs have struggled this year, as men’s basketball finished off a disappointing 15-13 campaign and the baseball team is in the midst of a 15-30 season.
As for the two-year contract extension signed in October 2020 that included a hefty 37.5% raise amid the early stages of the pandemic and was never publicized by the university, sources have told The Eagle that Boatright tried to decline the raise, but was overruled by president Rick Muma, and that the decision not to publicize the contract extension was also out of his control.
Boatright was also in command through the Gregg Marshall controversy in the fall of 2020 when verbal and physical abuse allegations were made against the program’s career victory leader. Ultimately, Marshall reached a $7.75 million settlement to resign on Nov. 17, 2020, while Boatright remained in power and signed a contract extension weeks before Marshall’s resignation.
Fans were frustrated by the lack of transparency, as the university completed an independent investigation without publishing what was found. All parties in the Marshall settlement signed non-disclosure agreements.
“There just seems like there’s no transparency anymore within the athletic department,” Lane said. “We can complain about on-field results, but really, this was about more than that. This was about the level of communication and the lack of really anything. It seems like ever since the move to the American Athletic Conference, the athletic department has kind of felt accomplished and thought the fans would be happy for just that.”
Lane admitted there was much the fans don’t see about Boatright’s job behind the scenes, but the outside perception was that there was a change needed to be made from his point of view.
“Wichita State has a very passionate group of fans and we all just want to see the Shockers succeed,” Lane said. “We know as fans that there is only so much we can see. We don’t know if Boatright is making calls every day, working behind the scenes trying to make things happen and we just didn’t see it. But from our perspective, that’s not what it looks like what is happening from the outside. We just wanted some answers to our questions and some accountability.”
This story was originally published May 04, 2022 5:43 PM.
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