How is Kansas State handling the fallout from last week's revelation that the university will still owe Ron Prince $3.2 million in deferred compensation more than a decade after his termination as a result of a super-secret, super-crazy backroom deal between Prince and then-athletic director Bob Krause? Let the Associated Press put the situation into perspective (emphasis added):

Many Kansas State donors are so disgusted over the secret agreement to funnel more than $3 million to fired football coach Ron Prince they're closing their checkbooks and vowing, "No more."

When Jon Wefald revealed the shocking news to the state Board of Regents on Wednesday, the longtime Kansas State president actually teared up.

As shamed and humiliated as the Wildcats were in the late 1970s when NCAA sleuths caught them hiding 30 football players who weren't supposed to be on scholarship, this may be worse. Now they're reeling over what appears to be a secret sweetheart agreement that former athletic director and longtime Wefald sidekick Bob Krause entered into with Prince.

Here's the situation K-State finds itself in after Kraus' 10-month run as AD from April 2008 to January 2009: As university vice president for institutional advancement, Kraus signed off on a $1.9 million "consulting" deal with then-AD Tim Weiser in January '08, exactly one week before Weiser resigned to become the Big 12 conference's deputy commissioner; in August, Kraus agreed to a five-year extension with Prince, then 12-13 in two seasons, which included a very visible $1.2 million buyout on top of the secret deal for $3.2 million; less than three months later, Krause fired Prince with three games to go in the season and hired 69-year-old Wildcat legend Bill Snyder for $1.8 million a year through 2013, claiming he didn't talk to any other coaches in the process; a $70 million expansion to athletic facilities is "stalled," according to the Kansas City Star; and finally, according to the same Star report:

Under Weiser, there was a multimillion-dollar reserve and a yearly budget in the black. According to sources who declined to be identified, the reserve is exhausted and the budget is in the red.

Former AD Max Urick told the Star he "wasn't surprised" by any of the above, citing "a recent pattern of recklessness, selfishness and a disregard for the university." New AD John Currie is taking a few deep breaths while his new underlings jockey for legal position in their pending suit to invalidate the Prince-Krause pact. K-State fans are calling Wefald's legacy "kaput," just weeks before he was scheduled to retire after 23 years as president. Season ticket sales are down for the fifth straight year -- directly corresponding with the prospects of the team, appropriately enough, with little hope for the foreseeable future: Of the 19-man junior college class Prince inked in a risky bid for instant impact in 2008, all of three were still listed on the spring roster, and Snyder's first incoming class in the transition was rated as the worst in the Big 12 by a fairly wide margin in February.

Snyder has resurrected K-State from the lowest depths before, but when he decided to hang up his putter to keep things in some rough semblance of order for (presumably) a long-term successor, I doubt he bargained for another boulder like this.