You say Mangini, I say Mangino
Posted: November 28th, 2009 | Filed under: Other Sports | 41 Comments »
I don’t know if you have ever done it, but for a long time it seemed like everyone had at least once or twice said “Jack Nicholson” when they meant “Jack Nicklaus” and vice versa. It seems weird if you think about it … yes, the names are similar but it’s hard to imagine that Nicklaus and Nicholson often share a similar context. Nicholson isn’t winning Masters. Nicklaus isn’t winning Oscars. But the strangeness of having two people that famous with similar names seemed more than many of us could handle. Eddie Murray and Eddie Murphy shared a similar connection.
Now, though, you have two football coaches — both seemingly on the brink of being fired, both rather large, both abrasive in their own ways — and what chance do we have not confusing Eric Mangini and Mark Mangino? Just in the last two weeks, I’ve probably called Mangino-Mangini and Mangini-Mangino two dozen times. What a weird deal to have two men with almost identical names in the news at the same time for virtually the same reason. It’s a lot like that Hollywood thing where two movies about destroying an oncoming meteor or two books about Pistol Pete (or for that matter two books in large part about the 1975 Cincinnati Reds) coming out at the same time. I guess the only thing you can take out of it is that it really is a big world, with billions of possibilities. And with billions of possibilities, coincidences happen.*
*When playing Strat-o-Matic baseball, we used to have a saying: “Twenties happen.” In Strat-o, you would sometimes find yourself in a situation where a guy would score on 1-19 — meaning that on a 20-sided die, if you rolled anything from 1-19, the runner would score. Usually, your opponent would not even throw home in such situations, but sometimes he would. And sometimes, every so often (I’d estimate, oh, about 5% of the time) you would roll the 20, meaning the runner was out at the plate. And you would feel cheated by life. You’d shout “That’s not realistic.” But in baseball, like in life, twenties do indeed happen.
I don’t have much to add to the Mark Mangini chorus. A few weeks ago, I expanded on my fanbole that Mangini was the worst coaching hire in 25 years. And even though people angrily wrote in to defend the reputations of other dreadful coaching hires like Ray Handley, Jim Zorn, Art Shell, Tom Cable, Marty Mornhinweg and many others, I think that at the end of the day I probably will be right. I take no joy in that, really. It is remarkable, if you think about it, that in only 10 games as coach of the Cleveland Browns, Mangini has managed to:
1. Lose nine times — his team’s only victory coming in what I suppose is the worst game of the year, a 6-3 victory over Buffalo. In five of the nine losses, the Browns scored six or fewer points. In five of the nine losses, the Browns gave up 30 or more points. The Browns have gained the fewest yards, given up the third most, allowed 21 first downs by penalty (second most), and their quarterbacks have seven touchdown passes and 15 interceptions — which, improbably, is even worse than Carolina’s Jake Delhomme.
2. Play some sort of weird role in both the hiring and quick firing of former Browns GM George Kokinis. We are told that Kokinis is/was one of his best friends.
3. Turn the Browns quarterback mess into a full-fledged circus complete with a whole new kind of “Guess who is going to be quarterback” intrigue (Who will start this week? Check in next time, same Browns time, same Brown channel!).
4. Do all sorts of comical things like fine a player $1,701 for failing to pay for a $3 water bottle in a hotel room — while getting fined $25,000 himself for leaving Brett Favre off the injury report last year. He also just charged Detroit Lions coach Jim Schwartz of having his players fake injuries so they could deal with the Browns vaunted no-huddle attack, which would be hysterically funny if it wasn’t just so sad. After all this is the guy who turned in Bill Belichick.
And we don’t even want to get back into the whole painting-over-the-mural controversy.*
*Still waiting for the Browns to put that mural back up on a new wall in their training facility. Yep. Still waiting. Maybe they’re just planning to unveil it around a big celebration.
Mangini has gone on a national tour trying to revive his image, and I respect that. The stories emerging are of a good family man who is just trying to do the best he can. I do not doubt these stories at all. But I don’t think anyone said he was a bad family man who is lying in the back room and having people drop grapes into his mouth. No, the point seems to be that he’s a complete disaster as a head football coach, and I think that with only moderate research this would have been obvious BEFORE the Browns hired him. Of course, now there are rumors leaking out that the Browns might be interested in giving Charlie Weis some role, so apparently the geniuses are still meeting behind closed doors in Cleveland.
Mark Mangino’s story sounds similar — but I think it’s actually quite different. Mangino is the football coach at Kansas and this year the Jayhawks are playing lousy football. They lost six in a row coming into Saturday’s game against Missouri. And during those six losses, the school has started an internal investigation into allegations that Mangino has bullied his players. I guess it began with the report that Mangino poked one of his players in the chest and it sort of mushroomed from there. Numerous people have jumped up to throw new charges at Mangino or to defend him. I know, football coaches bullying players barely seems worth mentioning, but the theme seems to be that there was a pattern of serious abuse here. Some of the examples that have emerged — that Mangino allegedly told one player that he would become an alcoholic like his father and another that if he didn’t shape up he would get sent back to the neighborhood where his brother got shot — are disturbing.
This is not completely out of the blue, of course. Several stories have emerged in recent years that suggest Mangino is not a teddy bear. There was the YouTube of Mangino going nutso on Raimond Pendleton after a penalty. You watch that … and you get a pretty good sense of what style of coaching we’re talking about here.
Still, beyond the few glimpses, he’s a hard man to know. He doesn’t give away much. I suppose you can’t write anything honest about Mangino without at least mentioning the weight issue … I suspect that few men in America had been made fun of for his weight more than Mark Mangino. Think of it: Every stadium, every sports talk radio station, every Internet site constantly mocking you for a personal battle that you obviously cannot win. I remember the hurt in my brother’s eyes when he weighed more than 400 pounds. But maybe there was a lot more going on behind the scenes. I don’t really know.
A few years ago, I had the oddest experience writing about Mangino. I had not spent much time with him at all, but Mangino had often made a point of inviting me to come to Lawrence, Kan. for coffee or lunch some time so we could talk about the Cleveland Indians. Mangino grew up in New Castle, Pennsylvania and he’s a true old-time Indians fan, the sort who can give you the entire lineup of the 1970 Indians. I always meant to go have a little Teepee Talk with Mangino, but never did.
Then, in 2007, the Jayhawks were suddenly undefeated and way up in the polls. It was really pretty remarkable. Mangino’s first year, his team went 0-8 in the Big 12. The squeezed into the Tangerine Bowl his second year, which seemed something like a pinnacle for Kansas football, and they were lousy again his third year and there was this sense that Mangino would not survive much longer. Kansas football is a tough job. There’s no real recruiting base. There are fewer than 3 million people in the entire state of Kansas; and the population is so spread out that much of the state plays eight-man football. Kansas basketball works because it has become a nationwide program, but for football at Kansas (and Kansas State, for that matter) coaches have to work the corners and sweep the alleys that recruiters at Texas and Oklahoma and Nebraska and Missouri miss.
For the next two years, people who knew seemed to expect Kansas football to collapse. Only, it didn’t really happen. The Jayhawks went to the Fort Worth Bowl and won it in 2005. They finished 6-6 in 2006. No, it’s not Alabama but who could expect it to be Alabama? The truth was that Mangino, whatever his methods (and nobody really knew his methods beyond the occasional explosion and wild rumor) seemed to coach the hell out of his players. The Jayhawks never seemed to have quite as much size or speed as their opponents, but they won their share anyway. Then, 2007, they started 11-0 and were very much in the national championship picture. Remarkable stuff. So I decided that year to write a big story on Mangino. Who is this guy anyway?
And … man … that was a lot harder than I expected. Not that I ever expect a story subject to just open up, but suddenly this man who had invited me for coffee was saying (through Kansas sports information officials) that he did not want to do the story. After much negotiation, he offered 10 minutes on the phone. I asked for the 10 minutes in person. I was told no.
So I decided to forget about it. I had plenty of other things to write about. But the Jayhawks kept winning and I decided to take another run at him. This time I was offered 15 minutes on the phone. I asked for the 15 minutes in person. I was told no.
And I decided again to move on. Mark Mangino is not the only guy with Ohio/Pennsylvania stubbornness. No editor was pushing me to write the Mark Mangino story — it was just something that interested me. And if Mangino didn’t want to talk, well, hey, I didn’t need to waste my time.
BUT … the Jayhawks KEPT winning. And I started doing a little reading about Mangino … and I was stunned how little reading there was to be done about the guy. Mark Mangino is an amazing story. Absolutely amazing. He never played college football. Truth is, he dropped out of college after only a year. He worked as a first responder — meaning he drove ambulances to bloody scenes. He got married, had a child, was locked into a certain kind of life only he felt something missing. He asked the local high school football coach Lindy Lauro — a legendary figure in New Castle — if he could help out with the team. Lauro was not impressed.
As I wrote in the story:
“What makes you qualified?” Mangino would remember Lauro saying.
“I’ll work morning, noon and night,” Mangino would remember saying back.
And so on. Mangino did help out with the team, and he liked it, and he felt what Bruce Springsteen calls that one last chance to make it real. He wanted to coach football. He went back to Youngstown State — he was 31 years old — and he ended up coaching under Jim Tressel (while still going to school, driving an ambulance, raising his kids and so on). After he graduated, he found a couple of coaching jobs and had mixed success. He coached only one year at Ellwood City, Pa., a lousy year, and recently a few people in Ellwood City told Brady McCollough of the Kansas City Star that Mangino was abrasive and profane and overbearing and all those things that people say about him now. He also was 1-9 that year.
It was after Ellwood City that he drove across the country and took a graduate assistant’s job at Kansas State for $220 a week. The family slept in a friend’s basement. He became a full-time coach there, then he was offensive coordinator at Oklahoma when the Sooner won the National Championship, then he got the job at Kansas.
I really wanted to write the story — even if it only meant some time on the phone. What drives a man like this? What makes a fire burn that hot in someone? I made one more run at Mangino and was told this time that he would give me some good time, but only on the phone — that was his non-negotiable condition. So we talked on the phone for probably an hour, and during that time he twice invited me to come have coffee or lunch with him so we could talk about the Cleveland Indians. What a strange guy.
But … what a good football coach. That year, the Jayhawks went 12-1 and won the Orange Bowl. I think that was as good a coaching job as anyone did this decade. Last year, the Jayhawks won eight games and won the Insight Bowl. They were doing it with some good football players and what seemed to be outstanding preparation, game-planning and intensity. You heard vague stories now and again about how tough and cruel Mangino could be. But you didn’t hear too many complaints. The Jayhawks were winning. And college football coaches who win, well, there isn’t much that stands in their path.
And this year, after a good start, they started losing. And these stories emerged. Funny timing. I think the stuff that has come out about Mangino in the last couple of weeks has set off what I think is a series of fairly interesting sports arguments. This is an argument about how far a football coach should be allowed to go — where are the boundaries between tough and tyrant drawn in American sports in 2009? This leads to an argument about whether we have become too fragile in America. This leads to an argument about winning and losing — and the question: Would Kansas be investigating Mark Mangino if Kansas was having a great season? And what does your answer — yes they would still investigate him or no way they investigate him — say about your own views of college sports?
I find myself going back and forth on all these arguments, just as I go back and forth on Mark Mangino. On the one hand, I admire him a great deal. He came from nothing, worked his way up the hard way, reached the top of his profession against the craziest odds. And along the way he coached up a lot of players — players who still swear by him.
On the other hand, I don’t really know what happened behind closed doors. And there are a lot of people — not necessarily soft people either — who say Mangino bullied them. And I don’t like bullies.
On the other hand, if you took just about any big-time football coach and listed off the 10 worst things they yelled at kids — well, wouldn’t most of them look like bullies? Wouldn’t they all?
On the other hand, college is still college, right? How can we stand for coaches — teachers — who scream at their players, threaten them, intimidate them in entirely unfair ways? Is it naive to believe that fair play is a part of college football?
On the other hand, is a coach yelling obscenities at a player really so bad? I mean we’re asking these players to put their bodies at risk for a scholarship and our entertainment. We know they might break bones and tear muscles — is a coach yelling really going to scar them? I was talking today to an old college football offensive lineman who said that his intense coach screamed the most vile things at him … and also taught him more about life than just about anyone.
On the other hand, as a college football coach you cannot yell at a kid that he’s in danger of becoming an alcoholic like his father.
Back and forth, round and round — feelings are raw on these subjects. And opinions are easy. What I know for sure is that Mark Mangino coached the Jayhawks Saturday against rival Missouri, and it was a wild game, back and forth, and Missouri won on a last second field goal. It was probably Mangino’s last game as a coach … stuff like this rarely ends without a firing. For his part, Mangino was defiant to the end. “I run the program the right way, I’m proud of it and we’re not going to change,” he said after the game. Well, that’s Mangino. He’s not going to apologize for doing what he believed that he had to do. It’s what I admire and dislike in him. I guess in the end, I’m left with this quote — I asked Mark Mangino two years ago what he thought his players felt about him.
This is what he said:
“I can honestly say that I don’t know. Some days, they probably love me. Some days, they hate me. I think they all respect the effort I’ve put in. They know I will tell the truth, even if it’s painful. There’s trust. That’s what matters. … I’ll tell you what I’m proud of: I have never told a player one thing that wasn’t true. Ever.”
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Circle me, Lew Perkins!
I have a lot of mixed feelings about this issue. I believe Mangino is a bully, but I also believe that he has been running his program pretty much the same since was hired. If the administration had a problem with it then they should have gotten rid of him a long time ago. If they looked the other way because he was having some level of success, then shame on them. They should still fire him, but I feel like they have some obligation to pay his remaining contract out. I also believe that some of the player complaints may have been snuffed out in earlier years because he is a bully. There is a chance the administration didn’t know what was going on. If they really didn’t know that players were being intimidated inappropriately,then they should fire him now and let the legal process of contractual fulfillment work itself out.
You’ve got a typo (“though” Kansas sports information officials, should be “through”).
Given what’s come out about him it makes you wonder if that’s why he was so reluctant to talk to you to begin with. He knows what he is, better than anyone. He knows what he has to say and do and he probably knew it was just a matter of time before it came out.
Joe, I believe that you unintentionally demonstrated your exact point at the beginning of paragraph four: “Mark Mangino”. Your call on whether to correct this or leave it, perfectly, in place.
Otherwise, thoughtful post, as usual.
There’s never been a baby mangini
Let’s call the whole thing off.
[...] Joe Posnanski » Blog Archive » You say Mangini, I say Mangino [...]
Actually, the typo is “Mark Mangini.” And, given it proves everything stated in the first two paragraphs, it’s kind of beautiful.
[...] Joe Posnanski » Blog Archive » You say Mangini, I say Mangino [...]
[...] Joe Posnanski » Blog Archive » You say Mangini, I say Mangino [...]
So, he invited you to talk to him in person multiple times, and you blew him off. And you may or may not have written a fluff piece about him when Kansas football was going good. And now, when Kansas football sucks, and everyone’s piling on the coach, you are, too. Seems about right.
Personally, I don’t like the way big time college sports seems to be set up. That includes how the players are treated. Having said that, I question if what Mangino has done is any worse than what dozens of coaches at other schools have done. I guess I am in the camp that believes that Lew Perkins is less interested in protecting his student athletes than he is in using this as as tool to dump his head coach.
I doubt Mangino is the first coach to come under scrutiny for how he addresses his players. But he is one of the few I know of who has been damaged so badly publicly by his superiors. It is not right and didn’t have to be done this way.
Mangino has made a lot of money at KU and hopefully has lived prudently enough that he will not need a big time job to secure his financial future. But his assistant coaches and their families are truly collateral damage in all of this. They don’t make the money Mangino does, and regardless how well they have treated their players, they will likely be stuck scurrying around looking for a new job and moving their families to another town.
In general, the whole thing stinks and leaves me feeling less willing to follow the KU athletic program or to support it financially.
[...] Joe Posnanski » Blog Archive » You say Mangini, I say Mangino [...]
[...] Joe Posnanski » Blog Archive » You say Mangini, I say Mangino [...]
Love the Strat-O-Matic comment. In our SOM league whenever something happens in a real baseball game similar to the “20 roll” our phrase is, “Real life can imitate Strato”.
You left out the racial tinge in some of Mangino’s tirades. I believe it’s a small symbol of general societal progress that his style is found to be unacceptable when brought to light.
And on the field, what a collapse. To start 5-0 and not win another game. To have the ball with the lead and three minutes to go in the final game, with a chance to go to a bowl, and be so wedded to one system that they lack “line up and run the ball” in their offensive arsenal. They took all of thirteen seconds off the clock, and their one attempt to run the ball first necessitated the QB to first drop back five yards into the end zone. Safety. Field goal. Ballgame. Season. Head coaching career. Just a spectacular flameout on all counts.
@11
Let me guess… Kansas fan? I think Joe said he was conflicted, but respects alot of things about Mangino. If that’s piling on, then I wish you luck making it through a world that has no problem truly piling on.
I’m a KU alum, and I want the Hawks to win. But not at any cost.
Some disturbing things have happened over the past few months, including the brawl between the football and basketball teams, the accusations of unfair bullying* against Mangino, and the team’s apparent quitting on him during the second half of the season.
*Obviously coaches sometimes have to chew out players, but it’s possible to do that without threatening them or attacking their families or even using profanity.
I’m not trying to jump on Mangino when he’s down, but they do need to carry out an internal investigation and find out what was going on during the 2009 season. It wouldn’t be fair to just fire him without seriously looking into it first. But if he did lose control of his team*, or if he was really harshly abusive, then he needs to go.
*Somebody needs to ask Bill Self some questions about that gang fight, too, but I haven’t read anything about that.
And, as Joe says, Mangino’s morbid obesity is a signal that there’s something wrong psychologically in there. Maybe he needs to check into some sort of weight-loss rehab place, and while he’s at it get some anger-control therapy.
@18.
I think there should be an investigation into the A.D.’s desicions too. Like you said the basketball program doesn’t have to deal with the brawl. The football coach should represent the school and Mangino should be fired if he really was abusive, but the investigation didn’t need to be open.
I think this is just another example of the country going soft. First, all little league kids get a trophy, then everyone gets an “A” in school (assuming they try), now football coaches can’t even scream and yell. Mangino can’t be worse than Bo, Woody, Bear, etc.
I would wager that every remotely successful football coach is or was a bully. period. (What’s the word for impossible to pay off bet?)
However there should be a limit and I think suggesting you will send someone back to be shot is the limit.
That said, telling someone that failing to work hard and just expecting good things to happen could easily result in them becoming unsuccessful, an alcoholic or worse, or just another guy subject to the ugly violence in their home turf is not necessarily bullying.
In other words, saying that is where they may well find themselves if they don’t make the effort is not the same as saying I’ll send you back there to get shot. One seems OK and the other doesn’t.
Unfortunately, there isn’t any good way to quantify the difference so you can avoid one while cultivating the other. So in the end the criteria for hiring and keeping or firing a coach is whether they win or lose. Which isn’t conducive to them using any form of ethics or morality in dealing with their team.
It is truly sad but it is the truth and it is the same attitude that leads to successful athletes being given a lot of leeway even for criminal behavior.
Love the Strat comment.
I play in an all time strat league. Crazy stuff. Over two decades we have a card for most of the great seasons in MLB history from the flukes like Cash in 61 to the legendary years like Gibson 67.
We also have Carl Mays and Ray Chapman. League rules stipulate that should Chapman be so unfortunate as to roll a twenty on an injury when Mays is on the mound, Chapman is dead!
@17
I’m not a Kansas fan by any stretch of the imagination. It just seems like Joe, by his own admission, blew off Mark Mangino multiple times, and has now written a post basically against the guy at the same time that *everybody* else has, too..
Surprised you did not mention that Mangino briefly worked as a toll-booth collector. Or is that such old news in Kansas that it isn’t even worth mentioning? That blows me away.
College coaches have ALL the leverage in the coach-player relationship. They bully because they can. You rarely hear about pro coaches who are bullies and when you do (Mangini, appropriately enough) it’s often the coach that gets shown the door.
College football and basketball are fundamentally corrupt. You couldn’t design a better system for enabling coaches to be abusive to players. Nothing will change unless players are compensated fairly. Don’t hold your breath.
An old college football offensive lineman? That wasn’t Whitlock, was it?
If a kid is in danger of becoming an alcoholic like his father…someone SHOULD tell him.
@16, Sansho1 has it exactly right: Mangino’s alleged “homie”-tinged comments signal a racial tinge to his bullying. Let’s face it, this argument also is about the King of KU, Kansas basketball. They can’t allow the other big sport to be headed by a guy who refers disparagingly, with a racist edge, to recruits’ backgrounds—what does that signal to new recruits IN BASKETBALL? They’ve already perhaps lost a bluechipper to Roy in NC because of the on-campus football v. basketball battles; Mangino bears his share of the responsibility for that. KU needs to stop the bleeding NOW.
Surely I can’t be the only person to confuse Tony Sparano with Tony Soprano. There was also the time when Junior Felix and Felix Jose were both active…
I really don’t think this issue is that complicated.
A) Lew Perkins didn’t hire Mangino & the 2 don’t really see eye to eye.
B) Mangino has become expendable due to his record. He’s never beaten a B12 South team. He’s under .500 in conference play. He’s now lost 3 of the last 4 meetings to their arch-rival Tigers including the 2007 ‘Armageddon’ game. And now the titanic collapse of the “Historic” 2009 season.
C) Whether Mangino actually said the things being alleged by a few of his past players, the fact is that the old saying ‘where there’s smoke, there’s fire’ comes into play. From player accusations to alleged misdeeds with players entrance exams, to out-of-control player conduct – fights, shootings, theft, drugs. And very few of these players were disciplined and none were kicked off the team. It’s interesting that NOT ONE of his current players have come forward to defend him. Not Reesing, not Meier, not one.
Personally I think Mangino is a pretty good coach with the ability to spot talent. However, I think, fairly or not, recruiting will be difficult for him as a head coach due to his weight issues. I think he’s somewhat of an opportunist who left OU & KSU with some hard feelings. It is admirable & yet confounding that he had the perseverance to get a head coaching job but lacked the drive to get his personal health under control. I believe some at KU (Lew Perkins) think that Mangino was on borrowed time and as soon as Reesing and this class leaves, Mangino’s luck will have run out. KU will have a hard time capitalizing on the strides that the program has made during the Reesing years with Mangino recruiting kids. So Mangino is a fall guy for the program and this year’s collapse is the perfect excuse KU needs to make a change. No, not perfect. Perkins needs more than a 1-7 conference finish just 1 year removed from their first ever back-to-back bowl appearances to justify his firing. He needed former players to come forward with RECENT (key) allegations of improper behavior to bolster his actions. He can’t use past deeds (let the media do the dirty work) because it would end up implicating the KU program’s complicity in the process. Both sides are guilty. KU for willingly overlooking past indiscretions when the man was winning games and Mangino for arrogantly putting himself in this position.
After the inevitable split occurs, Mangino should take his time and money and get himself righted physically and mentally and then make a comeback.
> There was also the time when Junior Felix and Felix Jose were both active…
My favorite player at that time was Ken Griffey Junior Felix Jose Canseco. (I almost think we managed to work another name or two in there, but now I can’t remember who. Maybe the last one wasn’t Canseco but a different Jose whose last name led to yet somebody else. Discuss.)
Great column, Joe. In spite of what #11 says, I thought it was a fair assessment of Mangino’s issues & the conundrum facing KU right now. As a Mizzou fan, I hope he’s fired and find it comical that anyone who supports Kansas football would be willing to toss aside the only truly successful coach they’ve had in more than 3 decades. What are the chances of an upgrade? It really comes across to an outsider as a power play in Lawrence, with the people who want to make sure basketball’s place on campus isn’t threatened (irrationally) working to undermine the football program.
[...] “Now, though, you have two football coaches — both seemingly on the brink of being fired, both rather large, both abrasive in their own ways — and what chance do we have not confusing Eric Mangini and Mark Mangino? Just in the last two weeks, I’ve probably called Mangino-Mangini and Mangini-Mangino two dozen times.” [Joe Posnanski] [...]
“Is it naive to believe that fair play is a part of college football? ”
Um, yeah.
I was not aware of the New Castle connection for Mangino. I was an Ohio/PA guy many years ago. The fact that he went back to YSU at 31, coached under Tressel while still going to school and driving an ambulance and from that eventually made his way to become a head coach at Kansas is remarkable.
That does not take away from his current situation which sounds to me like he can be and has been an abusive jerk. ‘Be sure your sins will find you out…”
The Monday morning psychologist in me wonders if Mangino’s weight is behind some of his (alleged) abuse. Sometimes the worst bullies are those who have been bullied themselves.
Regardless, I absolutely hate to see people apologize and make excuses for Mangino’s excessive size. We’re talking about a man whose job gives him daily access to doctors, dieticians, a training table of healthy foods, and one of the best weight rooms in the state of Kansas (in addition to a million dollar salary). That’s better than the contestants on The Biggest Loser, but it does not appear as if he’s dropped an ounce since he came to Lawrence. And that does not protect him from being the butt of jokes from the rest of the Big 12.
As for the “controversy” itself, here are the thoughts of an outside observer (Nebraska alum): if the verbal and physical abuse allegations are true, then he should go.
If not, than firing him would be a colossal mistake. As pointed out above, he seems to have a history of following a bad season with a good one, and the top flite football coaches aren’t lining up to come play second fiddle to KU hoops.
Joe, your Eric Mangini analysis is baffling.
To address your four point case against him:
“1. Lose nine times”
What more do you expect in a rebuilding year, from a team that was 4-12 last season? Nobody was expecting this team to make the playoffs. Mangini hasn’t even had a full year to know what he was working with here, but in the process has deliberately dumped high-talent low-character guys like Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow to clear cap space and stockpile draft picks. I’m not sure how relevant the record here is.
“2. Play some sort of weird role in both the hiring and quick firing of former Browns GM George Kokinis. We are told that Kokinis is/was one of his best friends.”
Some sort of weird role. Right. All speculation here on your part. Until the facts emerge, the safest assumption is that Kokinis wasn’t operating consistently with the vision of the organization.
“3. Turn the Browns quarterback mess into a full-fledged circus complete with a whole new kind of “Guess who is going to be quarterback” intrigue (Who will start this week? Check in next time, same Browns time, same Brown channel!).”
There’s no Johnny Unitas in this story, Joe. And there’s an excellent argument that Mangini handled the quarterback situation as perfectly as anyone could have been expected to. What nobody ever discusses here is the $11 million that Quinn stands to earn if he takes 70% of the snaps this season. There were a lot of people in town who thought Anderson should have been the guy. Not only has the Anderson/Quinn debate now been conclusively resolved, but at the small expense of sitting Quinn for five games, Mangini’s now put Quinn in a position where he’ll actually have to earn that $11m. $11m is real money, no?
“4. Water bottle/mural/Schwartz accusation”
The water bottle fine was for a repeat offender, reportedly Braylon Edwards, who was repeatedly embarrassing the team by not paying these expenses.
The Schwartz accusation can be easily interpreted as a coach sticking up for his players, many of whom expressed their frustration with the Lions’ tactic after the game.
The point is though that molehills always turn into mountains when it comes to Mangini, and it seems more media-manufactured than anything else.
It’s especially bad with Mangini having come out of New York where it looks more than anything else like he was made the fall guy in a shortsighted “win-now/please the media” approach that just kills NFL franchises, and to which franchises in New York are especially susceptible due to the large audience. The media of course is a willing accomplice, not only because it’s so easy to sell negativity, but because reporting on rebuilding projects is boring.
It’s sad that the Cleveland media has picked right up where New York left off. The Browns organization has been a historic mess since the franchise returned to the NFL, and now that we finally have a guy who understands that a winning culture needs to be instilled from the ground up (see Steelers, Pittsburgh), everybody wants to run him out of town simply because things have to get worse before they get better. So we hear about “water bottles” and “bus rides” and “ice fights.” It’s a tragedy.
Even worse when a voice as respected as yours piles on, but only to arrange the molehills in the same way. “Look, they’re losing, and water bottles.” It’s incredibly frustrating to read this from you.
If Mangini was so untalented, I doubt he’d have been promoted to coordinator by Belichick, and I doubt he’d have been able to have as much success with the Jets as he did (would have been in the playoffs two out of three years if not for Favre’s meltdown). Trained under Parcells and Belichick, young, and obviously hungry for success. But let’s run him out of town after one season in which he deliberately cut talent for cap space and draft picks?
Why are you playing a part in this, Joe? It just kills me.
Meanwhile, the Steelers proceed with their third coach in what, 200 years?
@#29:
“B) Mangino has become expendable due to his record. He’s never beaten a B12 South team.”
Untrue. As they were 7-1 in conference play in 2007, they had to have beaten 3 Big 12 South teams. That year they beat Oklahoma State (in Stillwater), Baylor, and Texas A & M.
@Pete – I love your site. You are a good man, and thorough.
But, I have no idea why you so vehemently support Mangini like this. It’s true that the Browns have been a mess since their return, But, they weren’t a “historic mess” until Mangini arrived.
If a football “czar” or whatever they want to call it comes in and wants to keep Mangini on a coach then fine. Doubtful but fine. But we can’t let him near our 11 draft picks.
Mangini has been terrible. The truth is we are farther away than ever before.
And, Joe is on record as thinking Mangini was bad even before he was hired, so I don’t know if this counts as piling on.
The Browns and Bengals were the most awful teams of the 90s that I can recall, the Bengals have improved immensely, but the Browns retain their failing position, though they’ve been upstaged by the Lions of course.
@CardinalMike #21 — While it is certainly true that many successful football coaches are bullies and likely true that most are, I’ll take your bet — Tony Dungy.
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