Kansas football coach Mark Mangino poked a player in the chest during a practice, sparking the super secret internal investigation that everyone's not doing a good job of keeping secrets about.
Since the poke, the Jayhawks have lost five in a row. They face Texas on Saturday (good luck with that).
At his weekly press conference, Mangino was asked if he'd lost his team.
"Not one bit," Mangino replied. "I may have lost some people around here, but it's not the players. Take it for what it's worth. You decipher and see."
My decoder ring says he's talking about athletic director Lew Perkins, who is leading the investigation.
There's more allegations and, of course, the YouTube video.
And here's the topper: parking tickets.
Scofflaw Mangino racked up 23 parking tickets for parking in a loading zone near his office between 2004 and 2007, according to the Lawrence Journal-World.
Ticket No. 23 allegedly set Mangino off. The rotund coach tracked
down the student meter maid and chewed the guy's ass.
Here are excerpts
from report about Mangino's tirade, according to the LJW:
"He got out of the car, slammed the door and came withinabout a half-foot of my face and started yelling at me, saying that I
couldn't answer any of his questions and that he works 16-hour days and
has no time to get a pass," Walters wrote, in his report.
...
"This job gives you power, does it?" Mangino said, according to
Walters. "You feel real fucking powerful walking around like a big
shot, huh? ... Why in the hell else would you be bothering me with
this?"
No, Walters said, the office had told him to issue tickets for cars parked in the loading zone.
"So offices tell you what to do?" Mangino said, according to Walters.
"Fucking offices walk around telling you what to do all day?"
...
"You just don't like talking to me because I'm ethnic, just because I talk with my hands."
...
"He then went on to tell me how important he is to this university and
how he doesn't have time to spend dealing with all this crap."
Mark Mangino: White Whale.
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Great post, thanks. Could you expand on the second section in a little more detail please?
Who cares if 12-1 was a fluke? This is Kansas We're talking about here! I'm an SEC guy and this just seems like a Kentucky fan demanding more from their football program after one good season. It's hard to overcome being pegged as a basketball school for a football program. Recruits sense it and go to the place where they feel like they're on top. Be happy this guy has brought Kansas to mediocrity because for the most part Kansas football has been somewhere below mediocre.
Did you see how Saban blew up on Julio Jones in the LSU game? He made a pro player cry in Miami. These players need pacifiers. Mangino wants them to do it his way and the right way. Perhaps the reason they're 5-5 is because they're a bunch of soft pansies who can't take the hard knocks?
@Abe-
You make great points, though I don't think it's even that big a conspiracy. This disaster of a season has already pissed off the boosters without any help from Perkins. The happiness and optimism KU fans felt after the 2007 season has been replaced by the recognition that it was, as you mention, a fluke.
The fact is that Perkins wanted to get rid of Mangino in 2006 but wavered long enough for him to win the Orange Bowl, which made firing him impossible. But remember that Mangino has been an angry man since he got into town and was banned from his son's high school games. The only difference is that now he's expendable.
Funny that these stories don't make it out in the public until ku goes on their worst losing streak in years. I hate Mark Mangino, but doesn't it seem like the fluke 12-1 season followed by the average 6-6 season, followed by the disasterous HISTORY AWAITS campaign is just the AD setting Mangino up to fail, fire him, find someway to not have to pay him his full buyout? These "leaked" stories coming out now smells like a smear campaign by Athletic Director Lew Perkins to turn ku fans (and donars) against Mangino. Perkins needs a Pitch feature written on him the slimy, dirty, cheater.
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