Firing Tang for Cause; Highly Unethical and Cheap

Kansas State didn’t fire Jerome Tang for words — they fired him for losses, and hid behind a clause to dodge $19 million.

What in the living heck is going on in Manhattan?

So Jerome Tang gets fired as the Kansas State Wildcats men’s basketball head coach. Fine. The results on the floor were brutal. No one is arguing that part. When you’re 1–11 in the Big 12 and getting run out of gyms, the pink slip is coming.

But for cause?!

Now we’re in a completely different universe.

According to Pete Thamel, the school is invoking contract language about bringing “public disrepute, embarrassment, or ridicule” to Kansas State. That’s the justification to wipe away a $19 million buyout.

For cause is supposed to be a crime.
A DUI.
NCAA violations.
Something that actually damages the institution.

Not a coach blowing off steam after a loss. A pure basketball rant.

After the Cincinnati game this week, Tang went off — not at the university, not at fans — but at the modern player culture. He talked about effort, accountability, entitlement, and about the frustrations of coaching kids who simply don’t seem to care about the name on their jerseys. It was raw. Emotional.

You know what else it was?

Honest.

And let’s be real: half the coaches in America agree with him, they just don’t say it into a microphone.

Yet now Kansas State is acting like he detonated the reputation of the university.

Athletic director Gene Taylor released the most soul-less statement imaginable:

“Recent public comments and conduct, in addition to the program’s overall direction, have not aligned with K-State’s standards for supporting student-athletes and representing the university.”

And then the classic closer — we wish him and his family the best moving forward.

Nothing says “best wishes” like trying to save nineteen million dollars. How condescending can you be?

Let’s not pretend here.
He wasn’t fired for a rant.

He was fired because the team stinks.

Kansas State is non-competitive, buried in the conference, and the rebuild stalled out. That’s normal sports business. Happens every year.

But dressing it up as moral failure to escape a buyout? That’s where this crosses the line.

Tang voiced frustration about the modern college athlete — something fans, boosters, and frankly administrators complain about every day. Not exactly a revelation. If that now qualifies as “embarrassing the university,” then every honest coach in America better start speaking entirely in press-conference clichés.

This is exactly what turns people off about modern college sports. Contracts don’t mean contracts anymore. Schools want player empowerment, coach accountability, and donor money — but none of the financial responsibility.

Kansas State didn’t fire him for what he said.
They fired him for what the standings say.

And now they’re trying to save money by pretending the microphone mattered more than the scoreboard.

I hope this blows up in their face.

Because if that qualifies as “for cause,” then the term doesn’t mean anything at all anymore.