Records are indeed made to be broken. Even 43-year-old records the record-setter can’t remember.

Up in Suite 601 at Memorial Stadium, former Kansas University football All-American John Hadl watched with delight Saturday night as red-shirt freshman Greg Heaggans returned four kickoffs for 195 yards, including a 100-yard TD gallop with the opening kickoff.

“It was a great run,” said Hadl, now the athletic department’s director of development. “I’m really happy. Obviously, we needed that.”

Way back in 1959, Hadl had returned four Syracuse kickoffs for 153 yards, and that number has been in the KU record books ever since. Four decades plus. A long, long time. So long, in fact, that Hadl confessed he couldn’t recall the game.

“Not really,” he said, smiling. “That was a hundred years ago.”

Hadl preferred to talk about the future and what the 44-24 win over Southwest Missouri State meant to a program that sometimes seems to have gone a century without a winning season.

“It’s a true indication of what’s coming,” Hadl said. “Coach Mangino is doing a great job.”

You gotta believe, even if Saturday night’s victory was over an NCAA Div. I-AA school. Forget that SMS ran more offensive plays than Kansas. Forget that KU’s defense surrendered 24 points. Forget that quarterback Bill Whittemore threw two glaring interceptions.

A win is a win is a win, and nobody put it better than Whittemore.

“Winning is a whole lot funner than losing,” said the junior college transfer who played in Memorial Stadium for the first time.

OK, so “funner” isn’t really a word. On a night like this, on a night after two straight road losses, malaprops can be forgiven.

So happy were the players that they raced over to the student section on the east side and saluted those who had remained. The sea of blue “KU First” T-shirts was at low tide by the time the fourth quarter rolled around, and those who stayed deserved the recognition.

“We’re playing for them,” linebacker Leo Etienne said. “They cheer us win or lose.”

Joining in the euphoria was Chancellor Robert Hemenway. Buffeted by budget cuts and a slight drop in KU’s rating by U.S. News and World Report, Hemenway was looking for a reason to smile and he found it. Hemenway was the first to greet coach Mark Mangino as he left the locker room following the post-game meeting with his players.

U.S. News and World Report may have ranked KU as the 41st best public university in the country, but winning a football game was so feel-good that the Jayhawks virtually erased the 4 and left only the 1, as in “We’re No. (4)1.”

Still, Mangino was a voice of reason amid the euphoria. He knew Bowling Green had throttled Missouri, 51-28, on Saturday night and he knew SMS had defeated Hampton by just two points last weekend.

“We know who we played,” Mangino said. “We know the caliber of the opponent. We weren’t in the locker room jumping up and down on our heads. We were expected to win.”

As I was walking down the stadium steps to the field prior to the game’s conclusion, I overhead one fan say to another: “How do you spell juggernaut?”

That was sarcasm, of course. No way Kansas will become a juggernaut this season and probably not next season or the season after that.

So you have to enjoy the moment and, as Etienne said, the Jayhawks were all “scratching the middle of our palms for this one.”

Scratching the middle of their palms?

“Yeah, my mom always said that if you do that somebody will give you some money,” Etienne said, grinning.

No money this time. Just a victory one that in this case may have been better than cash.