Mark Mangino: Apparently Kind of a Jackass

by mojavereject on Nov 19, 2009 3:15 PM CST

Kansas' football program is, to put it mildly, not doing great. Despite coming into the season with relatively high expectations, and a roster stacked with talented guys like Reesing, Meier, and Briscoe, Kansas is staring into the abyss. 5-5, with a 1-5 record in conference play, and facing Texas and Mizzou to round out their schedule, the Jayhawks must face the very real possibility of not only missing out on a bowl, but ending the season below .500. With this lack of success, murmurs of discontent and controversry in the KU have quickly sparked into a full-scale firestorm centered on Mark Mangino's alleged anger management issues in general, and specifically instances of inappropriate contact with, and inappropriate comments toward Jayhawk football players. Now, Mangino has never had a great reputation as a particularly easy-going or happy guy, but it seems like KU's Athletic Director, Lew Perkins, has taken the team's current skid as an opportunity to sharpen the long knives. He has initiated an investigation into Mangino's running of the team, convened the team with the coach present to allow players to air their grievances, and now former players are coming forward to tell their own stories about Mangino, and they are pretty o_0.

One story involved former Kansas wide receiver Raymond Brown during preseason practices. Brown's brother had recently been shot and was recovering in St. Louis. When players were asked during a meeting to describe their commitment to the team, Brown stood up and told his teammates and coaches about the incident. Brown said he was trying to get the message across that life was too short to waste. Shortly after in practice, Mangino and Brown got into a confrontation on the practice field.
"Don't yes sir me, or I will send you back to St. Louis so you can get shot with your homies," Brown remembers Mangino saying.
Brown said he looked around at other players and coaches, all shocked at what Mangino had just said.

"We tell him all that as personal stuff, but he uses that to break down his players," Brown said. "It's not a motivational tool, it makes you not even want to play for him."

So, what do you guys think? I fully understand there's a place for so-called 'tough love' in competitive football coaching, but Mangino seems to have forgotten the love component, and is using his position of authority to heap abuse on the people beneath him. I'm not going to try and psychoanalyze the guy, but a person displaying behavior like this to anyone, let alone a group of highly-motivated kids who chose to play for your team, is probably not very well-adjusted, and could do with some counseling, and maybe a switch into a less intense, less stressful career.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Double-T Nation's writers or editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of Double-T Nation's writers or editors.

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I think he is just hangry...

by TTUMAR on Nov 19, 2009 3:37 PM CST reply actions

LOL

Haha… you read all this serious text and offensive quotes and the first comment you read is “I think he is just hungry”… lol

by Red_Raider on Nov 20, 2009 8:51 AM CST up reply actions

I thought

hangry was hungry-angry. I go from hungry to hangry in about an hour. Make that 10 minutes if I am at the mall shopping with my wife.

by Quatroux on Nov 21, 2009 11:02 AM CST up reply actions

http://www.ncaa.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/011808aac.html

Didn’t he win coach of the year for the 2007 season? I know that he’s kind of old school but if these things are true we will probably see a new coach at KU next year.

by Remington870 on Nov 19, 2009 4:21 PM CST reply actions

Yeah, the craziest part is that he's taken Kansas football to a level they have never achieved before

2007 was their most successful season in history by miles. Apparently he hasn’t done anything past winning to endear himself to the administration, however, because he is getting backstabbed with a vengeance by his AD.

As far as his coaching methods go, I think it’s a bit misleading to label him as “old-school” and be done with it. Coaches like Lombardi and Bryant, the all-time great hardasses, still incorporated a level of respect and affection for their players into their attitudes. Even though they were harder on their players, if you were to try to assassinate either one’s character, you would have former players and employees lined up around the block to defend them, because their harsh methods grew out of their desire to make players better, not a desire to tear them down. You don’t see that line with Mangino, it seems like most people were only barely putting up with him when he was a meteoric success, and now they’d be just fine with him moving on.

by mojavereject on Nov 19, 2009 4:28 PM CST up reply actions

Supporter

Not everybody though has a negative opinion of Mangino. Former linebacker Nick Reid, who won the Big 12 defensive player of the year award in 2005, had no problems with Mangino’s approach.

“He will bring the best out of you and if you do the right things for him then he will do right by you,” Reid said. “We know how the program was not that long ago. Mangino’s first year and my first year, it was horrible. We were 2-10 and got blown out every game so us older guys can really see the progress and how far KU football has really come.”

Reid said players just have to know how to handle Mangino’s more aggressive style of coaching.

“You just got to have thick skin and just know that he is trying to get you to be the best that you are going to be for the team and yourself,” Reid said. “We respected our coaches and he respected us. We didn’t take his yelling as a bad thing or a personal grudge.”

Count former safety Tony Stubbs as another player who is in Mangino’s corner. Stubbs was brought in by former Kansas coach Terry Allen, and remembers the days when the players ran the program before Mangino arrived.

“I knew the first couple of years, he was just trying to weed out the bad apples,” Stubbs said. “He had to lay down the foundation that this was going to be a disciplined team. I rolled with the punches and went along with it because I wanted to have a winning program. I thought coach Mangino was okay.”

Stubbs’ teams under Mangino never finished with a winning record, but he still noticed that progress was being made.

“I really believe that kind of coaching style worked because we really needed it at that time,” Stubbs said. “My junior year we went to a bowl game mainly just because coach Mangino pushing us and our strength and conditioning coaches pushing us to the highest level.”

VIVA LA FIGA!

by bmaxw on Nov 19, 2009 11:16 PM CST up reply actions

yup

then again, here’s Mangino from 20 years ago: http://www.kansascity.com/sports/story/1581876.html
with the same number of supporters and detractors.

by mojavereject on Nov 20, 2009 9:28 AM CST up reply actions

Well said mojave, you bring up some great points.

by Remington870 on Nov 20, 2009 8:22 AM CST up reply actions

there is a differenc between being a hard ass and aggressive

and then just being a general jerk about life… making fun of peoples personal and private problems/family situations is completely uncalled for.

You think that people got their panties in a bunch when Leach jokingly made fun of fat girlfriends. Imagine if he had made fun of alcoholic parents, and brothers who had been shot… big difference

by johnlaf13 on Nov 19, 2009 6:30 PM CST reply actions

Pressure

They’re just trying to find reasons to fire him as far as I can tell. He’s really fat. He’s a jerk. Wah. He’s been a very effective fat jerk. Kansas was nobody and nowhere until he showed up. Now they’re having a bad year and suddenly everyone’s mad that he made some mean remarks to players? And he’s had “inappropriate contact”, which makes me think he’s been doing some really naughty things to those kids, but apparently that’s not the case.

I also don’t think the media is trying too hard to find positive voices. I heard that Bob Stoops (Mangino’s former boss) came out to support him. Players? Well he hasn’t really been there that long and most of the high profile players are still on the team as far as I’m aware. Lots of people say stupid things when the pressure to win gets to them; see Mike Leach re: Fat Little Girlfriends.

by merrik on Nov 19, 2009 10:59 PM CST reply actions

Generational....

In my mind this a generational issue. Iv’e heard it called things like the “pussification of America”, among others. The reality is, what these kids are talking about is consistent with young members of our armed forces, police academies, even the college fraternities. More and more often verbal or light physical reprimand is simply beyond what these kids can tolerate, even though it is no different, and perhaps lighter than punishment we recieved in our youth. I have first hand experience in these issues and I can tell you that right down the line, as parents, we are not getting it done. these kids come to college or the service softer and softer every year. More lawsuits, more whinning, more tattle-telling. What happened to the notion that this is a voluntary sport, and you can choose to walk away at any time? If you don’t like it leave, otherwise put on your big boy pants.

by TTUMAR on Nov 20, 2009 6:55 AM CST reply actions 1 recs

Not to defend Mangino, but when I was in boot camp (USAF) in the early 90s, a DI had to ask permission to touch you for, to example, show you where a part of your uniform was out of kilter. They couldn’t technically cuss at you either, so they got pretty creative. I had my fair share of times being called a Richard Cranium.

by Tech92 on Nov 20, 2009 12:21 PM CST up reply actions

I was in USAF boot camp in '89

And there was no holding back. They’d whack you, call you things that would make a sailor blush.

by Plano Jeff on Nov 20, 2009 11:14 PM CST up reply actions

Kids today vs. yesterday

Lets look at WW II
16.1 million served in the military, over 10 million of them had to be drafted.
62% had to be drafted when the country faced the most powerful army (ger) and the most powerful navy (Jap) that the world had ever seen.

Those sorry long haired hippies of the Vietnam era?
Just over 8.7 million served, just over 1.8 million were drafted.
20% were drafted, 80% percent volunteered to fight in a very unpopular war.

Which bring us to these damn soft ass, baggy pant wearing, pierced lip SOB s we call kids today.
It is an all volunteer Military. ( I will not go into the Politics of the War on this site)
If you factor in t average time served in combat zone for WWII and Vietnam vs. the current rotations, I think Tom Brokaw needs to rethink that greatest generation line.

I will take the kids of today, sure there are some slackers in the group but hasn’t there always been.

Mangino needs to pull his head out of Woody Hays ass and learn to communicate with a new generation. Bob Knight never could, but Mack Brown did and he is still doing OK with these soft ass, pierced lip, tattooed, hippty hoppers.

VIVA LA FIGA!

by bmaxw on Nov 20, 2009 10:25 PM CST up reply actions

y'know

as a kid who enlisted January ‘06 as a cavalry scout, I’m not very receptive to arguments about how the current generation is softer than any other group of American males. We’re the same demographic of maladjusted youths with daddy issues we’ve always been, and we respond to different leadership methods more or less the same as we always have. If you combine your harsh methods with a fundamental respect for our well-being, we’ll respond to you like you’re Caesar. If you shit on us just because you can, expect a hand grenade in your back pocket. Especially in the case of athletically gifted, highly motivated kids who make the choice to spend the next ~4 years of their lives under your supervision. It’s a voluntary choice, but if you can’t have some respect for the kind of commitment the kids are making when they come to your program, you have no business coaching, period.

by mojavereject on Nov 21, 2009 1:13 AM CST up reply actions

Good buddy of mine was a Calvary Scout. His perception of football is slightly jaded, unlike yours.

" Answers -- Become Resources."
Without Questions; There are limited Resources...

by KWashburn on Nov 21, 2009 5:53 AM CST up reply actions

I hear what you ......

and mojave are saying, and I think there is a valid arguement either way. That said, your draft info above is mute IMO because we don’t have a draft. Your data implies your comparing apples to apples, which your not. As a third gerneration Marine, I have a little insight into this subject, and although I am proud of our fighting force, just take a alook at Plano Jeff’s post. DIs asking for permission, “stress cards” used by recruits in training etc…..My generation of Marines was softer than my fathers, as I imagine his was softer than my grandfathers. In the end, I am sure Mangino is a real ass. But I say again, he is who he has been his whole career spanning 20 years. If the kids don’t like, there are over 100 schools they can play for, without dragging a coach and a program through the mud.

by TTUMAR on Nov 22, 2009 6:09 PM CST up reply actions

"generational"

If the comment about going back to the ghetto and getting shot like his brother was really made, I’m at a loss for words. I’m all for being a hard ass to get performance from players, but there are some lines that you just dont cross.

by RdrPwr on Nov 22, 2009 6:19 PM CST up reply actions

He made KU football matter

but he will proably be gone after this season, then KU football will get shuned back into the nether realm.

by wrench_raider on Nov 20, 2009 9:56 AM CST reply actions

KU mattered the 2 years they didn’t have to play Tech, Texas, and Oklahoma. Poseurs. If you have the chance to have a beer in Kansas with a KU “fan” or KSU “fan” take the latter. JMO, formerly marooned in Wichi-wichi- Wichita 4 years( great people btw).

by Plano Jeff on Nov 20, 2009 11:22 PM CST reply actions