Hargiss, One of State's Great Athletic Figures
Topeka Daily Capital,  October 18, 1978
By ELON TORRENCE
Associated Press Writer

     LAWRENCE— Homer Woodson "Bill " Hargiss, who died here Sunday at the age of 91, was one of the brightest figures in the history of Kansas sports.
     He had great moments as an athlete at Emporia State University and as football coach at Emporia State and the University of Kansas. Perhaps his brightest achievements came as a track coach at the two schools.
     While at Emporia State, he coached John Kuck, who set a world record in the shot put and won national titles in both the shot put and javelin, and Earl McKown, a two-time national collegiate champion in the pole vault.
     At Kansas, Hargiss coached such world-prominent athletes as Glenn Cunningham, who set a world record in the mile run, and Jim Bausch, football player and a world record holder in the decathlon.
     Both Kuck and Bausch won Olympic Games titles.
     A 1909 graduate of Emporia, Hargiss competed in football, basketball, track and baseball.
     He also sang in the glee club, was in the debating society and took a course in watercolors. He waited tables for $2.25 a week to pay for his meals, and had a laundry route.
     Alfred Hill, who later became a prominent newspaperman, was in Emporia High School while Hargiss was in Emporia State.
     "Bill Hargiss stood out, and still does, in my opinion, as the greatest of all Emporia State athletes," Hill said a few years ago.
     "Fran Welch played at Emporia under Hargiss, became his line coach, and, later succeeded him as Emporia's head coach.
     He said Hargiss had imagination and initiative in abundance.
     "He came up with strategy that other coaches hadn't thought about" said Welch." He was creative. That is probably the biggest reason that Bill was such a successful coach."
     Although claims were made that some eastern coaches were the first to use the huddle for the purpose of calling signals. Hargiss associates said the honor) belongs to him.
     In 12 seasons, Hargiss coached Emporia State football teams to a combined record of 62 victories, 23 defeats and 11 ties. Only one of those teams had al losing record.
     Following two undefeated, conference championship teams at Emporia in 1926 and 1927, Hargiss was summoned to the University of Kansas to be head football coach.
     In his third year at KU; the team won the Big Six championship. It was the school's only football title in a span of 23 years, from 1923 to 1946,
     That team averaged about 200 pounds per man in both the line and the backfield, a rarity for that day.
     Standouts included Bausch, Ormond Beach and Forrest "Frosty" Cox in the backfield; Earl Foy and Charles Smoot in the line.
     Kansas was penalized by the conference because an alumnus allegedly provided some football players jobs in which compensation was not directly related to the work performed, and in 1931 KU won only one conference game.
     Pressure by some disgruntled alumni led to replacement of Hargiss as head football coach after two games of the 1932 season. However, he stayed on at Kansas as scout and freshman football coach and as head track coach. He left he Lawrence school following the 1943 track season to become an overseas recreation director for the armed forces.
     He was executive secretary for the Kansas Athletic Commission from 1952 to 1962.
     In 1961 he became one of the charter members inducted into the Kansas All-Sports Hall of Fame.