photo by: Mike Yoder

Charlie Weis, 55, waves to media members at the Lawrence Airport on Thursday night around 8:30 p.m. after arriving in town with Kansas athletic director Sheahon Zenger, at right. Weis has agreed to become the 37th head football coach in KU history.

I learned in my years of covering baseball that umpires often had keen insights into players and managers. They saw them perform up close, under pressure, night after night. Many umpires, in off-the-record conversations, would share opinions on what impressed them about players and managers.

Based on his ability to hire successful football coaches at Kansas, not an easy thing to do, Ernest Cosmos Quigley must have been one of those umps who knew what made successful men tick. Born in Canada in 1880 and reared in Concordia, Quigley played basketball for James Naismith at Kansas. Quigley was a college basketball referee and Major League Baseball umpire for decades. He also served as AD at KU, where he hired George Sauer and J.V. Sikes, two winning football coaches.

Quigley might not have been as good at keeping a coach happy as he was at identifying the right one to hire. After going 15-3-3 in two seasons at KU, Sauer bolted for Navy, where he went 3-13-2 in two seasons. From there, he went to Baylor and posted a 78-55-9 record.

Of the 14 men to hire a KU football coach or coaches, Quigley ranks first with a .636 winning percentage compiled by his hires. Current AD Sheahon Zenger ranks last with a .154 winning percentage. The good news for Zenger is that if the Jayhawks can finish the season strong enough to become bowl eligible, he could tie or even pass Lew Perkins to move into 13th place. If KU goes 5-2 the rest of the way, Perkins and Zenger will be tied with a .208 winning percentage. If KU goes 6-1 or 7-0, Zenger drops Perkins into last place, but a 4-3 mark the rest of the way would still leave Zenger behind Perkins.

By cross-referencing the list of athletic directors and football coaches, here is what I came up with for the combined records of each AD’s football hires at Kansas.