photo by: Nick Krug

Kansas head coach Charlie Weis walks off the field following the Jayhawks' 23-0 loss to Texas on Saturday, Sept. 27, 2014 at Memorial Stadium.

The news that Charlie Weis was fired as Kansas University football coach early Sunday morning should have come as no surprise to anyone who has watched the Jayhawks this season. The team was simply not competitive with other Division I teams. KU’s game with Texas Saturday was likely its best chance to secure a Big 12 victory this season and the Jayhawks came up 23 points short.

Worse, they failed to score a point. Last time I looked, college football teams that failed to score lost almost all of their games.

That KU owes Weis $7 million on his contract was and is pretty common knowledge as well.

But that fact is still difficult for me to wrap my mind around: Kansas University will be paying Mr. Weis $7 million to not coach its football team. Sorry Charlie. Thanks a lot.

In thinking about this situation, I believe I’ve come up with a way to fund my retirement account and save some college athletic directors and pro GMs a ton of money.

I’ll begin with my alma mater.

Let it be said that I would not coach the KU football team for $1.5 million a year.

Wait, that sentence construction is all over the place. What I meant was I would gladly accept a $1.5 million check from the KU athletic department to not coach the Jayhawks this year and the following two seasons. That’s a savings of $3 million right there.

Heck, if Sheahon Zenger wanted to yank my old college ties, I might even agree to do anything but coach the Jayhawks for a million dollars a year.

Weis’ isn’t the only situation in which I could provide assistance.

Take the Kansas City Royals, who are in the midst of an America League Division Series. In fact, take relief pitcher Aaron Crow. Crow, who started more fires than Zippo this season, made $1.48 million in 2014. I could be a crappy reliever who gets sent down to Double-A for half that much.

And don’t get me started on Billy Butler. Butler made $8.5 million this year. For that amount of cash, he crushed nine home runs. You don’t have to have a degree from MIT to figure out that he was paid nearly $1 million a dinger. But wait, you say, Billy does much more than hit home runs. You’re right, he also clogs up the bases and runs so slowly you could time him with a sun dial.

I could run slowly for a couple of million a year. I’ve done it for far less.

Those two contracts are absolute steals compared to the New York Mets deal with erstwhile outfielder and professional complainer Bobby Bonilla. Bonilla was a six-time All-Star, including three times with the Pirates and a couple with the Mets. He was also a World Series winner with the Marlins in 1997.

During the 1998 offseason the Mets, thinking they needed just one more piece to win a World Series of their own, re-acquired Bonilla. After a lousy 1999 season — by both the team and Bonilla — the Mets gave up on him. When they released Bonilla they still owed him $5.9 million. Still thinking they were on the verge of a World Series title, the Mets looked for ways to defer his salary.

Bonilla’s agent offered the Mets a deal: they would defer payment for a decade but New York would owe him interest on those 10 years.

Apparently, no one in the Mets’ front office understood compound interest because when Bonilla’s payments came due they found they owed him $1,193,248.20 a year for each of the next 25 years.

As with the above examples, I would do the same things (nothing) Bonilla is doing to earn his paycheck for half what he’s getting.

There are a couple of NFL gigs I’d gladly accept. Chief’s backup quarterback Chase Daniel makes $2.35 million a year to hold a clipboard. He also occasionally looks in on a huddle between Andy Reid and Alex Smith. I could hold a clipboard for half his salary, but I wouldn’t take the job if I meant I had to go to Mizzou to get it.

In Daniel’s defense, according to Wikipedia Daniel was a member of National Honor Society and his Texas high school’s student council for three years.

But Daniel’s contract looks positively thrifty compared to that of Titan’s backup QB Charlie Whitehurst. Whitehurst might be best known for being the son of another career backup quarterback, David Whitehurst.

The younger Whitehurst has seen so little regular season action that his nickname is “Clipboard Jesus.”

His dad played for the Chiefs for one season. Well, he was on the roster and presumably on the sideline. He never actually got into a game.

Shoot, I would hold a clipboard on an NFL sideline for a couple hundred thousand, provided I didn’t ever have to go into the game.

Even the NFL has a Bonilla-esque contract. Steve Young, retired from the league since 2000, gets a million dollars a year from the USFL. That will continue until 2027 when Young will be 65.

The NBA? Stupidity strikes there, as well. Amar’e Stoudemire of the New York Knicks makes $23,410,988, mostly to limp around and cause analyst to reminisce about how great he once was. Amar’e (don’t forget the apostrophe!) earned a little over 30,000 bucks a point during the 2013-14 season.

J.R. Smith, also of the Knicks (notice a pattern here?) gets $5.9 million a year to untie opponents shoelaces on free throws and blow into LeBron James’ ear.

Former Wizards knucklehead Gilbert Arenas will make $22.3 million until 2016. He hasn’t been in the league for two full seasons.

Again, half the money for the same amount of work, especially in Arenas’ case.

And, lest we think all this madness occurs only on playing fields, consider that Congress has continued to be paid during each of the dozen government shutdowns since 1981. During the 2013 fiasco, the 535 members of Congress made $4,054,997.95. (Make sure you account for the 95 cents.)

You couldn’t pay me enough to be in Congress.