Ned Seaton
nseaton@themercury.com
K-State is taking out a loan to pay off Jerome Tang.
Athletics Director Gene Taylor confirmed to The Mercury Monday that his department will borrow the money in a traditional bank loan, so as to get Tang the $12 million he is owed under the terms of a settlement over his firing.
The Mercury reported last Thursday that both sides had agreed to that figure; the K-State Athletics board of directors formally approved it Monday.
Taylor said K-State doesn’t have $12 million in cash lying around.
“If we had to come up with that out of cash, it would’ve hurt us,” he said. The university itself also doesn’t subsidize the athletics operation, so using university money here wasn’t an option as it is in some other universities around the country.
Asking donors to pony up for the buyout was also not an appealing option, he said, “because of everything else we’re asking from them.”
