Jim Kane

For other people named Jim Kane, see Jim Kane Kane led the Knights to two state championships while es(disambiguation).
tablishing a career record of 117-97, while Kane coached
two state champion teams in cross country and another in
Jim Kane (February 2, 1937 January 28, 2003) was a track.
Nebraska high school football, basketball, track and cross
country coach, and was named the states Coach of the
Year in 1983, and was posthumously named to the states
High School Hall of Fame.

In 1983, the Omaha World-Herald named Kane its

Coach of the Year, after his Mount Michael football
and basketball teams won state championships that school
year.

Jim Killer Kane was born in West Point, Nebraska;

but he grew up in Wisner, Nebraska, where Jim became
an athlete. He remains the Wisner High School all-time
leader in points scored in basketball, and led the schools
baseball team to a state championship. In 1980, Nebraska
sports historian Jerry Mathers named Kane as Wisners
best all around athlete ever.

Kane coached and taught at Mount Michael from 1964 to

2003, where he was legendary for his discipline and intensity. His teams were always well prepared and he was
known for getting the most out of his players, who were
usually outnumbered and overmatched physically. For instance, his 1990 state championship football team, which
nished 11-1, started the year unranked and was picked
to lose 8 times by the Omaha World Herald newspaper.
Sadly, his early raucous lifestyle caught up with him as he
was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver, from which he
died on January 28, 2003 at the age of 65. Kanes funeral
was in Mount Michaels gymnasium, and he was buried
in the monasterys cemetery.

After graduating in 1954, he attended the University of

Nebraska and played for the Cornhuskers baseball team.
He earned All-Big Seven Conference recognition as a
catcher in 1957 and 1958 before signing with the New
York Yankees. Kane played three years in their farm system, but failed to make it to the major leagues because
of the presence of Yogi Berra and Elston Howard on the Kane was named to the Nebraska High School Sports Hall
parent squad.
of Fame in 2003.
Kane was part of a successful pitcher/catcher combination with childhood friend Charles Ziegenbein. They
played together through grade school, high school (it was
their battery combination that led Wisner High to its only
state high school baseball championship) and through
college at Nebraska (Ziegenbein would also earn all-Big
Seven honors as a pitcher in 1957-58). Ziegenbein, too,
was signed by the Yankees in 1958, but did not remain
with the organization, opting to pursue a business career
instead. Ziegenbein died of cancer in 1972.

1 External links
Jim Kanes Nebraska Sports Hall Fame Page
Jim Kanes Obituary
Jim Kanes Minor League Statistics

2 References

Well known for his carousing ways, Kane was released by

the Yankees Columbus farm team in 1960 after the parent club felt he was an unwanted inuence on his roommates, including future American League rookie of the
year Tom Tresh, Joe Pepitone and Tony Kubek. Kane
never played professional baseball again.

Mathers, Jerry. A History of Nebraska High

School Sports (1980).
Wisner News-Chronicle. A Great PastA Greater
Future: A Centennial History Of Wisner, Nebraska
(1971).

With his professional career over, Kane returned to Nebraska and began teaching at Waterloo (NE) High School.
After teaching there for two years, he was hired to create
from scratch the athletic programs at St. Johns Seminary,
a small parochial school outside of Elkhorn, Nebraska.
Eventually, Kane would coach St. Johns (later renamed
Mount Michael Benedictine Abbey and High School) to
two state titles and three runner-up titles in basketball,
while achieving a career record of 547-263. In football,
1

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