Last weekend marked the final official event for a KU team of the 2025-26 school year, with members of the men’s and women’s track and field team competing at Outdoor Nationals in Oregon.
Emmah Jemutai and Anthony Meacham delivered memorable performances and claimed spots on the podium, putting an end to both a successful track season and a memorable year in the Kansas athletic department.
Like with any year, there were ups and downs throughout the last 10 or so months and several individuals who made major news.
With that in mind, let’s take a look back at the Top 10 biggest things that happened in Kansas Athletics from August of 2025 through June of 2026.
We’ll break this into two parts for easier digesting, starting with Nos. 10 through 6 first. Be sure to check back tomorrow for the Top 5.
Most of this stuff you’ll probably remember. But some of it — or at least some of the details — may have slipped your mind, and early summer is the perfect time to remind you of the year that was before we start to look ahead to what comes next.
In case you missed Part 1, here's a look at the first five entries in our Top 10 biggest things to happen in KU sports during the 2025-26 school year.
Now, let the list continue!
5 - Pole Vault mania
A case could be made that the KU pole vaulting squad — men and women — has been the most consistently dominant team at KU in recent years, and the 2025-26 indoor season and 2026 outdoor season certainly didn’t do anything to dispel that claim.
Ashton Barkdull won an indoor national title in March. Anthony Meacham won a Big 12 indoor title (Barkdull finished 2nd), took 3rd at Outdoor Nationals and turned in the second highest vault in KU history, while becoming just the 21st athlete in college history to clear 19 feet.
Barkdull, a few weeks earlier, was the 20th, making KU the first college program in history to have two vaulters clear 5.8 meters (19 feet, .25 inches). Not just at the same time or on the same team. But ever.
Both vaulters continued to push each other and inspire their teammates and that extended to the female side of things, where Mason Meinershagen, a two-time national qualifier last season alone and three-time KU record holder, earned Second Team All-American honors with a 13th-place finish at Outdoor Nationals.
There are other athletes in the program who are striving to join them and even more coming to KU because of what they’ve done here — not to mention the elite coaching they receive from vertical jumps coach Tom Hays — and all three said at one point this season that the closeness of the group, along with the way Hays coaches them and treats them, has played a huge role in their success.
That’s been true for years now, but even by Kansas standards, 2025-26 was special in terms of what these vaulters accomplished.
4 - Darryn Peterson saga
You might remember how Peterson’s season played out. Honestly, how could you forget?
After months of hearing all kinds of hype about this generational talent, the version the Jayhawks got during DP’s lone season at Kansas was a far cry from what people, including him, expected.
Multiple injuries, debilitating cramping and difficulty getting going made Peterson a daily headline, as much for what he wasn’t doing as for what he was or at least was capable of.
He had plenty of good moments, moments where you saw flashes of his true self and found yourself thinking, “Yes, please. More of that.” But those flashes were inconsistent and the fear of him having to sit lingered for most of the season.
Peterson was able to push past it and finished the year strong (playing in and starting 14 of KU’s final 15 games), both in terms of his production and his availability. But he never truly got going, leaving Kansas fans to forever wonder, ‘What if?’
One of the wildest things about the whole Peterson experience was how torn Kansas fans were about the situation. Some felt for DP and believed he just needed time and a bit of good luck. Others trashed him, his agent, his family and anyone else they could think of — even KU coach Bill Self was not safe — for the way things were playing out and how little was being said about what was “really” going on.
And then there were people at various levels in between those two extremes.
Through it all, Peterson did his best to enjoy his KU experience and carried a good attitude, was well-liked and supported by his teammates and, in many ways, conveyed how much he missed the game he loved and playing it like only he can.
Despite the odd ordeal, which forced DP to miss 11 of KU’s 35 games, the talented KU guard who is vying to become the No. 1 pick in next week’s NBA draft, finished as a second-team all-Big 12 selection after averaging 20.2 points per game in 29.1 minutes per outing.
It wasn’t quite what anybody hoped for or expected, but it also wasn’t total trash either.
3 - New "Booth" opens
In late August, after watching construction play out over a 20-month period that started at the end of the 2023 season, forced KU to take a pit stop at Arrowhead Stadium in 2024, and ended just a week before kickoff on the 2025 season, the new Booth opened for KU fans to see and enjoy.
This wasn’t just about a fancy new stadium with all kinds of cool amenities, fresh scenery and a new feel. This was something that thousands of KU football fans never thought they’d see.
And then it arrived. And boy was it glorious. The game. The day. The stadium. The scene. All of it.
After years of playing in one of the most outdated stadiums in college football, the Jayhawks suddenly found themselves playing in one of the nicest venues in college sports. As KU AD Travis Goff liked to say, the new stadium told a story. And that story was about more than what happened between the lines and in the locker rooms.
That story honored Kansas’ past — both the program and the state. It honored some of the all-time greats to wear a Kansas helmet and paid homage to all of the accomplishments, old and new, while also positioning KU to make good on its campaign claim of reaching for the stars in the new venue.
Here’s the cool part: The stadium, though glorious in vibes and view, was still just half complete.
The full project won’t be done until the 2027 season. And if the finished version matches or even enhances what Phase 1 brought to town, the new Booth is going to be as incredible as one can imagine for years to come.
2 - Fitzgerald goes crazy
He’d deflect all of the praise and credit to his players. And they’d tell you that they could’ve never done it without his leadership style, personal touch and program-building skills.
Such is the magic of Kansas baseball these days. And it really has the feel of something that’s still just getting started.
In just his fourth season in charge of the program, KU coach Dan Fitzgerald took the Jayhawks to the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive season and even outdid himself there, staging the first Hoglund Ballpark Regional in program history and making an appearance in the first Super Regional in KU history.
The 2026 Jayhawks set a handful of program records, including most team home runs in a single season (112) and tied the 1993 College World Series team for the most wins in a single season with 45.
No matter how you slice it, this was one of the most successful seasons in Kansas baseball history, and the buzz it brought to Lawrence, which packed Hoglund Ballpark for back-to-back postseason weekends, necessitating clever construction in and around the park to increase the capacity from 2,500 on a normal day to close to 4,500.
Tailgates, food trucks, a rowdy student section and all kinds of love and support — even of the financial and fundraising kind — made this a year to remember, with plenty of shirts and hats to collect.
Big 12 champs. Big 12 tourney champs. Regional champs. Super Regional hosts. Simply put: The Jayhawks went crazy. And everybody that got caught up in it, from the players, coaches and KU staffers to Kansas fans near and far, reveled in the joy of Kansas acting and looking like a real baseball school for a while.
The Jayhawks' 2026 run was not only fun for fans, but it also brought generations of KU baseball alums together in ways that no one could have ever predicted or seen coming.
The bar has been set pretty high now, but don’t bet against Fitz and company finding a way to keep hopping over it.
1 - Bill Self announces plan to return for Year 24
For more than 20 years, Kansas basketball fans never really had to worry about their Hall of Fame head coach going anywhere.
And then 2026 arrived and Bill Self actually considered calling it a career.
He said as much after the Jayhawks’ 2nd-round NCAA Tournament loss to St. John’s in San Diego and that set off a week-long worry fest for Kansas fans, some of whom weren’t actually all that sad to see Self go but still were worried about who KU might get to replace him.
Self, meanwhile, spent that time with family, getting their opinion on the matter and talking to doctors about his heart issues and whether it would be safe or smart for him to keep coaching.
On, of all days, April 1st, nine days after the Jayhawks’ loss to St. John’s, Self officially announced that he would return to the KU bench for the 2026-27 season.
How long he goes beyond that is still anyone’s guess and we may be looking at a year-to-year tradition at this point.
There’s little doubt that Kansas would have found a worthy successor to Self if he had decided that he was done. That wasn’t so much the issue. Instead, people spent those eight or nine days grappling with the fact that the one constant for the past two decades, a man who had won so many games and helped deliver so many of their favorite sports memories, might no longer be coaching their favorite team.
Even those who were OK with moving on to the next chapter struggled with the mere thought of Self no longer leading the KU program.
In the end, that inevitability was pushed off for at least one more year. But the week of wondering and the subsequent announcement of his return were among the biggest things to happen at KU not only in the past year but also in the past couple of decades.
Self and his coaching staff corralled another top-tier recruiting class, led by Class of 2026 No. 1 prep prospect Tyran Stokes. And the Jayhawks found a few pieces they really like in the transfer portal, too, while losing almost everyone from last year’s roster either to graduation or the portal, as well.
We’ll see how that all works out in the months to come.
What we don’t have to wait to see, though, is how the coaching is going to look and what the press conferences and postgame media sessions will sound like.
At least not yet.
— For tickets to all KU athletic events, visit kuathletics.com
