George McGowan, the leading receiver on Kansas University’s 1968 Orange Bowl team, has become the second former Jayhawk selected to the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.

McGowan, who played for the Edmonton Eskimos from 1971 to 1978, was one of five former players added to the Canadian shrine Thursday.

Hal Patterson is the only other former Jayhawk among the 209 Canadian enshrinees. Patterson, who played at Kansas in 1952 and 1953, and McGowan had two things in common.

Both were wide receivers and both spent their first two seasons in junior college — Patterson at Garden City CC and McGowan at Glendale, Calif., CC.

In 1968, his first year at Kansas, McGowan led the Jayhawks with 32 receptions for 592 yards and five touchdowns. However, the 6-foot-2, 190-pounder spent his senior year in 1969 as a defensive back. Then, after failing to hook on with the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons in 1970, McGowan signed with the CFL’s Edmonton Eskimos in 1971.

In 1973 and 1975, McGowan led the CFL in pass receptions with 81 and 98. The latter mark was a CFL record at the time. He was a CFL All-Star three times and was voted the league’s most outstanding player in 1973. McGowan retired in 1978.

“He was the first receiver to be a go-to guy,” Hugh Campbell, the Eskimos’ former coach, told the Edmonton Sun. “The year he caught the 98 passes convinced other coaches in the league that using a receiver as a go-to guy might be possible. I think the freeze-frame of George is making big plays with people all over him.”

McGowan — who missed most of the 1974 season because of a hamstring injury and was in and out of the lineup because of a torn ACL in his last two years — made the Canadian shrine in his last year of eligibility. Players remain eligible for 25 years after their careers end.

“I’m quite surprised,” McGowan, now 54, told the Edmonton newspaper. “I really did not expect anything like this at all. I had kind of a short career. This is pretty awesome. I’m quite surprised and thrilled.”

McGowan will be enshrined this September in Calgary, Alberta.

McGowan and Patterson almost certainly will be joined in the Canadian Hall of Fame by Willie Pless when he becomes eligible for the first time in 2004.

Pless, who retired after the 2000 season, is the CFL’s all-time leading tackler, an 11-time CFL All-Star and winner of the defensive player of the year award five times.