There is a little extra lilt in the chilly air and more spring in the steps of a lot of Lawrence people and Kansas University faithful recently. The KU football team and the men’s and women’s basketball teams deserve considerable credit for creating such a positive atmosphere.

There are countless arguments to be made about the overplaying and overfinancing of university athletic programs, including criticisms about their cost and what their overall educational value might be. But the fact is that when teams are winning and are as productive as this KU trio, the good outweighs the bad. People tend to appreciate winners and can be buoyed by their success.

The Jayhawk football team is completing a season that saw it win more games than any of its predecessors. With its 11-1 record, the team is now set to play Virginia Tech in the Miami Orange Bowl on Thursday. Even if coach Mark Mangino’s athletes don’t win in KU’s third bid for an Orange Bowl victory, the season will have been an outstanding one. Mangino, assistant coaches and players have amassed honor after honor, and the attention such awards have generated has been tremendously beneficial to KU, Lawrence and the state of Kansas. The value of the positive national exposure is immeasurable.

All this trickles down pridefully into the populace. Sometimes they may not be quite sure why, but they are more positive, cheerful and productive and that’s a tremendous benefit, particularly with a new year at hand.

For too many years, KU football has been something of a stepchild to the winning basketball program. By mid-fall, disappointed gridiron followers often resorted to the “wait until basketball” plaint. This year, not only football and men’s basketball are flying high, but the women’s basketball program also is off to an excellent start. Entering the new year, the combined won-lost total of the three teams was 34-3. Now who around here couldn’t get puffed up a bit about that?

Days just seem to dawn a little brighter when popular athletic programs are producing the way the “big three” are at KU this year. Now we can only hope that Friday dawns especially bright in the aftermath of a KU football victory in Miami.