He also thinks Phil Knight’s birthday should be a state holiday.
Kilkenny is the Duck booster who in his brief reign as Dave Frohnmayer’s AD created a new baseball program that he swore would make money and set up the creative funding plan for Knight Arena, which the academic side is still subsidizing. Not to mention the Jock Box. From Andrew Greif in the Oregonian:
A report by ESPN’s Darren Rovell that Knight sought to lure a top coach to Eugene with a $10 million salary, the highest in the country, “made me throw up,” Kilkenny said, calling it out of line with UO’s desire to keep its athletic department financially self-sufficient and “irresponsible journalism.”
Knight, according to Kilkenny, has never told anyone “living or dead” that he’d offer a sum of $10 million for a coach.
“That just creates real problems for (AD Rob Mullens) and makes Mark Helfrich’s job that’s already difficult more difficult, and it’s not fair to Phil and Penny Knight,” Kilkenny said.
Kilkenny, who behind Knight is UO second most-influential donor, defended the Nike creator’s contributions to UO, saying the state of Oregon should have a holiday on his birthday.
FWIW, I doubt cousin Jim would move for a mere $10M a year. And the Ducks would have to buy out his Michigan contract for maybe $50M, plus $11M for Helfrich’s contract. But too bad Pat – you made this mess, time to pony up the money to fix it.
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