K-State AD Gene Taylor details decision to fire Jerome Tang for cause
- Toby Hammes
- 21 hours ago
- 2 min read
Kansas State athletics director Gene Taylor confirmed late Sunday that Jerome Tang has been terminated for cause, citing language in the coach’s contract and the fallout from recent public comments about his players.
“He’s been terminated for cause,” Taylor said. “When you get into it, there’s language in his contract that addresses certain things that could potentially bring embarrassment. Basically, his comments about the student-athletes and the negative reaction to those comments from a lot of sources, both nationally and locally, is where I thought we needed to make the decision.”
Taylor said the process unfolded quickly over the last 24 hours.
“It’s just been a long day,” he said. “It kind of started yesterday when I came to the final decision in my brain. I ran it by the president — he approved. And then today’s just been a lot of conversation about how to finalize things.”
The decision followed Tang’s postgame remarks after a home loss to Cincinnati, when he said, “These dudes do not deserve to wear this uniform; there will be very few of them in it next year,” and questioned whether his players “love this place.”
Taylor acknowledged that expectations following K-State’s Elite Eight run in Tang’s first season played a role in his broader evaluation of the program.
“Every year I kind of do an evaluation of the year,” Taylor said. “The last couple of years, we just haven’t been doing what we kind of expected we’d do after the Elite Eight. I thought this year we started out really well, and it just — the last couple years haven’t gone where I thought we should have been going.”
Tang was allowed to address the team before Taylor met with players and staff on Sunday morning. He said players went through “all the standard emotions” and described the meeting as emotional.
“They’re shocked, they’re sad, they’re angry,” he said. “I just asked them, if they’re angry, to be angry at me. I asked them to finish the year strong for the program, for Coach Tang, for the staff, and to focus their anger on me if they’re mad at anybody.”
Taylor confirmed that associate head coach Matthew Driscoll will serve as interim head coach for the remainder of the season.
Following Tang’s dismissal, ESPN reported that Tang plans to challenge the for-cause termination. Asked about the potential legal fight, Taylor declined to speculate.
“I’m not an attorney, so I guess at this point it lands in their hands, and we’ll see where it goes,” he said.
When asked how the program went from an Elite Eight appearance to its current state, Taylor offered a simple response.
“If I had that answer,” he said, “we probably wouldn’t be sitting here today."
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