JANUARY 2010: Turner Gill’s hiring to replace Mark Mangino as the Kansas football coach represents a 360-degree shift in the Jayhawk program.

When nice guy Terry Allen was fired, Mangino was hired in 2001 and he ruled by fear, winning some games, but not exactly winning over the hearts of his players and staff.

It became apparent in mid-November when athletic director Lew Perkins announced an internal investigation of Mangino’s treatment of players that the “Bear’s” eight-year dictatorship was coming to end.

Countless reports surfaced from ex-players complaining of Mangino’s verbal abuse and rushing them back from injuries. While some former players and current Jayhawks supported him, Perkins had had enough.

Mangino was forced to resign after the season, which began with the Jayhawks nationally ranked while picked to win the Big 12 North and ended with a seven-game losing streak. It was time for a gentler, kinder, and compassionate coach after years of Mangino’s tirades on and off the gridiron.

It was time for good guy and players’ coach Gill, who resurrected the once moribund Buffalo program the past four years, to lead Kansas football into the new decade.

In one way, Gill’s hire was similar to when then-KU athletics director Bob Frederick hired Allen out of Division 1-A Northern Iowa to take over the Kansas football program when Glen Mason left Kansas to become head coach at Minnesota in 1996.

Frederick was looking for a nice guy like Allen to replace the surly Mason and help mend fences. Allen, though, was too nice a guy and surely not a disciplinarian and good Division I recruiter. Heck, he even passed on former Olathe North High star running back Darren Sproles, who wanted to come to Kansas, but Allen didn’t think he had the size (5-6) to play major college football. Of course, Sproles became one of the all-time greats at Kansas State and is playing for the San Diego Chargers.

Gill is a nice guy like Allen, but that’s where their similarities end. He has an eye for Division I talent and is a tireless recruiter, so a mistake like overlooking Sproles should not be made. While he’s only been a head coach for four years, Gill comes to Kansas with a much better pedigree than Allen, having played quarterback and coached under the legendary Tom Osborne at Nebraska, and leading Buffalo to a 2008 conference championship and the first bowl game in school history.

Unlike Allen, Gill is a tough disciplinarian who knows how to maximize his players’ potential, while having the unwavering respect of everyone in the program.

Gill is certainly no Terry Allen, and he’s definitely no Mark Mangino, either.

Gill will give his team confidence and lift them up, unlike the way Mangino ripped them apart for eight years. The anti-Mangino, Gill will put his arm around his players and show them some love. He’ll build relationships with them, get input from his team and care about them first as people, then as players. He’ll be a mentor, coach, and fatherly figure who’ll shape kids lives forever.

Above all, he’ll coach from a positive frame of mind, instead of by intimidation and negativity that was Mangino’s calling card. Just as he did at Buffalo, Gill will strive to get his Jayhawks to believe in themselves and become positive members of the community and not get in street fights with the basketball team.

“We have to be able to empower people through encouragement,” Gill said.

Perkins certainly was looking for those positive qualities in a new head coach. Remember, Mangino was not his hire.

“There was no question I wanted somebody who was extremely positive,” Perkins said. “We look for that in any sport, whether it be a basketball coach, or tennis coach or golf coach. I think a positive attitude is something that is very paramount.”

Gill led Nebraska to a 28-2 record and 20-0 record in Big Eight play, three straight conference championships and three consecutive Orange Bowls as the Cornhuskers’ starting quarterback (1981-83). You have to be a competitor to become a Heisman Trophy finalist, to become the quarterback of the Big Eight Conference All-Decade team (1980-89),
to spend 16 years paying your dues as a volunteer (one season at North Texas) and assistant coach.

You certainly have to be a competitor to go to coaching purgatory at Buffalo, where the school had won just 17 games in nine years as Division I-A and win a MAC Championship in 2008 and become a two-time conference coach of the year.

Gill, one of only 11 African American head football coaches in NCAA Division I-A and the only black head football coach in the Big 12, is competitive, positive, passionate, a disciplinarian, and a true motivator. He, quite simply, seems like the perfect package to replace the angry Mangino, who ran the KU program seemingly like he always had a huge chip on his shoulder.

The Jayhawks welcome Gill with open arms.

“He’s a players’ coach, which is something that we haven’t had really,” junior cornerback Chris Harris said. “That will be a big key because we’ll be able to trust our coach a lot more. It’s definitely nice to have a players’ coach around, being able to build a relationship with him. It’s so much nicer to have a players’ coach because you build trust in your coach and you want to go out there and fight for him. It helps out a lot.”

Freshman quarterback Kale Pick echoed Harris’s comments.

“It’s very exciting news that we’re going to have a great relationship with our coaches and we’re fortunate to have a coach like that that wants to know us other than just as football players,” Pick said.

That didn’t seem to be the case with Mangino. He ruled KU football HIS way the previous eight seasons. Allen before him did it the NICE way, and now Gill arrives at Kansas to coach the RIGHT way.

“He left an impression that he is really going to take this program to another direction and gain a lot of support and respect from his athletes,” freshman running back Toben Opurum said.