Ernest Cosmos Quigley (March 22, 1880 – December 10, 1960) was a Canadian-born American sports official who became notable both as a

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

referee A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other title ...

and as an

umpire An umpire is an official in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The term derives from the Old French , , and , : (as evidenced in cricke ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

. He also worked as an

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

coach and official. Born in Canada and raised in Concordia, Kansas, Quigley attended college and law school at the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital ...

. There he played college basketball under the game's inventor,

James Naismith James Naismith (; November 6, 1861November 28, 1939) was a Scottish-Canadian-American physical educator, physician, Christian chaplain, and sports coach, best known as the inventor of the game of basketball. After moving to the United State ...

. He became the head football coach at Kansas Wesleyan University and then the athletic director at the University of Kansas. Quigley refereed college basketball for 40 years and umpired more than 3,000 Major League Baseball games. As a college football official, he worked in several bowl games and served on the Rules Committee of the NCAA for several years. Quigley died in Kansas in 1960.

Early life

Quigley was born in

Newcastle, New Brunswick Newcastle is an urban neighbourhood in the city of Miramichi, New Brunswick, Canada. Prior to municipal amalgamation in 1995, it was an incorporated town and the shire town of Northumberland County. Situated on the north bank of the Miramichi Ri ...

, and was raised in Concordia, Kansas where he was a prominent member of the

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

football team in the 1890s.

Coaching and administrative career

Quigley was a student of basketball inventor

at the

. He also played football at Kansas from

1900 As of March 1 ( O.S. February 17), when the Julian calendar acknowledged a leap day and the Gregorian calendar did not, the Julian calendar fell one day further behind, bringing the difference to 13 days until February 28 ( O.S. February 15 ...

1901 December 13 of this year is the beginning of signed 32-bit Unix time, and is scheduled to end in January 19, 2038. Summary Political and military 1901 started with the unification of multiple British colonies in Australia on January ...

.2014-15 Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball media guide
Retrieved 2015-May-22.

St. Mary's

After graduating, he served as a coach, teacher and

athletic director An athletic director (commonly "athletics director" or "AD") is an administrator at many American clubs or institutions, such as colleges and universities, as well as in larger high schools and middle schools, who oversees the work of coaches a ...

at St. Mary's College in St. Marys, Kansas, from 1903 until 1912, while also attending law school at the University of Kansas.

Kansas

In 1944, Quigley became the

at the University of Kansas, where he hired coaches George Sauer, Jules V. Sikes, and Dick Harp.

Officiating career

Quigley officiated at more than 1,500 collegiate and

Amateur Athletic Union The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) is an amateur sports organization based in the United States. A multi-sport organization, the AAU is dedicated exclusively to the promotion and development of amateur sports and physical fitness programs. It h ...

games during his 40-year career, and supervised the NCAA tournament officials from 1940 to 1942. He also refereed the basketball finals between the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

at the

1936 Summer Olympics The 1936 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XI Olympiad () and officially branded as Berlin 1936, were an international multi-sport event held from 1 to 16 August 1936 in Berlin, then capital of Nazi Germany. Berlin won the bid to ...

in Berlin, played outdoors in the rain, in the first Games at which basketball was a medal sport. Rather than using his whistle, the small-statured Quigley often used his high-pitched voice to command attention in supervising play. In 1944 he became

at Kansas, serving until 1950. He was enshrined in the

Basketball Hall of Fame The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 1000 Hall of Fame Avenue in Springfield, Massachusetts. It serves as basketball's most complete library, in addition to promoting and pres ...

in 1961.

Professional baseball

Quigley was also a

National League National League often refers to: *National League (baseball), one of the two baseball leagues constituting Major League Baseball in the United States and Canada *National League (division), the fifth division of the English football (soccer) system ...

baseball umpire from to , and oversaw six

World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB). It has been contested since between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best- ...

, most notably the notorious

1919 Events January * January 1 ** The Czechoslovak Legions occupy much of the self-proclaimed "free city" of Pressburg (later Bratislava), enforcing its incorporation into the new republic of Czechoslovakia. ** HMY ''Iolaire'' sinks off th ...

Black Sox series, as well as those in

1916 Events Below, the events of the First World War have the "WWI" prefix. January * January 1 – The British Empire, British Royal Army Medical Corps carries out the first successful blood transfusion, using blood that has been stored ...

1921 Events January * January 2 ** The Association football club Cruzeiro Esporte Clube, from Belo Horizonte, is founded as the multi-sports club Palestra Italia by Italian expatriates in First Brazilian Republic, Brazil. ** The Spanish lin ...

1924 Events January * January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after. * January 20–January 30, 30 – Kuomintang in Ch ...

1927 Events January * January 1 – The British Broadcasting ''Company'' becomes the BBC, British Broadcasting ''Corporation'', when its Royal Charter of incorporation takes effect. John Reith, 1st Baron Reith, John Reith becomes the first ...

and

1935 Events January * January 7 – Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval conclude an agreement, in which each power agrees not to oppose the other's colonial claims. * January 12 – Amelia Earhart ...

; he was crew chief for the 1927 Series. On June 1, 1923, he was the home plate umpire for the game in which the

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East division. The ...

, visiting the

Philadelphia Phillies The Philadelphia Phillies are an American professional baseball team based in Philadelphia. The Phillies compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East Division. Since 2004, the team's home stadium has ...

, became the first 20th-century team to score in every inning of a 9-inning game, winning 22–8. He also participated in a baseball tour of

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, and later became an NL supervisor of umpires. After a 1933 game, Quigley was found unconscious by partner George Barr following an electric shock from an exposed wire; he recovered uneventfully. His 3,351 games as an umpire ranked seventh in major league history when he retired; his 1,511 games behind home plate are still the tenth most in history. Quigley Field, the University of Kansas' first baseball stadium, was named after him.

College football

Quigley also served as an official in major college football contests including the

Army–Navy Game The Army–Navy Game is an American college football college rivalry, rivalry game between the Army Black Knights football, Army Black Knights of the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, New York, and the Navy Midshipmen football ...

, five Harvard–Yale games, the

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

–

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

game, three Rose Bowls (1920, 1925, 1927), and the

Cotton Bowl Classic The Cotton Bowl Classic (also known as the Cotton Bowl) is an American college football bowl game played annually in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex since January 1, 1937. The game was originally played at its Cotton Bowl (stadium), namesake ...

. He was a member of the NCAA's Rules Committee from 1946 to 1954.

Personal life and death

Quigley married Marge Darlington in Concordia. The ceremony was held in the home of the bride. Quigley died at age 80 in

Lawrence, Kansas Lawrence is a city in and the county seat of Douglas County, Kansas, United States, and the sixth-largest city in the state. It is in the northeastern sector of the state, astride Interstate 70 in Kansas, Interstate 70, between the Kansas River ...

and was buried at that city's Mt. Calvary Cemetery. He was the brother of Larry Quigley.

References

External links

Retrosheet
{{DEFAULTSORT:Quigley, Ernest C. 1880 births 1960 deaths College men's basketball referees in the United States College football officials Major League Baseball umpires National League umpires Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball players Central Missouri Mules football coaches Kansas Jayhawks athletic directors Saint Louis Billikens football coaches Saint Mary's Knights football coaches Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees People from Concordia, Kansas People from Miramichi, New Brunswick Minor league baseball managers Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame inductees Canadian emigrants to the United States