Fire Mark Mangino the Monster

If it's true that Kansas football coach Mark Mangino, upon seeing a receiver named Raymond Brown drop a pass, launched into a hideous tirade that concluded with a racially tinged threat -- "If you don't shut up, I'm going to send you back to St. Louis so you can get shot with your homies" -- then the university should dismiss Mangino immediately. If it's true Mangino told receiver Marcus Herford that he'd send him "back to the street corner where you came from,'' then keeping the coach would be a Rock Chalk Crock.

And if it's also true that another Kansas player, who had told the team that he dreamed of becoming a lawyer and that his father was an alcoholic, was subjected to this insensitive, vicious onslaught from Mangino -- "Are you going to be a lawyer or do you want to become an alcoholic like your Dad?'' -- then we might have to strap Mangino in a straitjacket and haul him away.

For he is a madman.

---

---

Unless the grudges against Mangino by several ex-Kansas players actually are lies, then an abusive monster must be purged and put out of his misery. That much is obvious in a world that doesn't need insufferable, perspective-challenged thugs in college coaching. What isn't as clear is why these episodes, and a subsequent investigation by the Kansas athletic department, didn't surface until Mangino lost five straight games. Suddenly, athletic director Lew Perkins became very interested in an allegation that Mangino poked Arist Wright, a senior linebacker, in the chest during a walk-through before the Colorado game last month. And suddenly, Perkins is very interested in ex-players telling grisly stories to the Kansas City Star.

Surely, these charges don't constitute shocking news in Lawrence. We've known about Mangino's anger issues for some time, including an infamous YouTube video in which he violently chewed out a player who was showboating. What concerns me is if these problems were conveniently ignored by the university's powers-that-be because Mangino, until the last two months, had been an enormous success. Remember, the football program was a train wreck when he took over in 2002. Within five years, the Jayhawks were 12-1 and in the running for a national championship, which earned Mangino the Associated Press Coach of the Year award in 2007. This season, Kansas started 5-0 and rose to 16th in the AP poll. Through all those triumphant months and years, not once did the university seem concerned about Mangino's temper. That's how it works in sports. When an abusive coach wins, he's an intense disciplinarian and leader.

"I have not done anything that's inappropriate," Mangino said Wednesday night. "I have been in this conference for nearly 20 years, and what I can tell you is that our coaching intensity does not largely differ from the other Big Eight and Big 12 teams that I have observed. We have handled this program in terms of intensity and holding players accountable the same since 2002 to today. Nothing's changed. Absolutely nothing has changed."

All that has changed is the losing. And when he starts losing, prompting the bosses and boosters to build a case against him, he's a raging lunatic who must be fired. Which explains why so many stories are coming out about Mangino, including one where he was banned from his son's high school football games because of a confrontation Mangino had with game officials.
"Every other day, he'd get in somebody's face and he'd be pushing them on their shoulder pads. He tried to provoke us to get us to snap. His whole motto was to 'break you down to build you up.'"
-- Former Kansas RB Jocques Crawford
"I remember one time he grabbed [former offensive lineman] Anthony Collins and Anthony threw his arm down," Herford said. "I mean, to put your hands on another man? There is no reason to ever do that. And Anthony was very angry. Mangino was screaming. And Anthony was like, 'You're not going to do me like that.' ''

Said former Kansas running back Jocques Crawford: "Every other day, he'd get in somebody's face and he'd be pushing them on their shoulder pads. He tried to provoke us to get us to snap. His whole motto was to 'break you down to build you up.' One time, I felt he'd gone too far with Mike [Rivera.] ... I felt disgraced by my coach. At halftime, he could pick out players one by one and talk about their flaws. He got to me and he says, 'We have a guy on the team that says he's going to rush for 2,000 yards and he's not shown me sh*t.' After I arrived, players told me, 'You have two weeks until you see the real Mangino come out.' Some of the things he would say or do were totally outrageous.''

"I don't know if poking and grabbing is physical abuse. But sometimes Mangino maybe goes over the edge,'' Brown said. "I have seen him run up to a player and push a player. Sometimes he gets in your face and you feel like, 'OK, now you're in my bubble.' ''

In the 21st century, the practice of poking and grabbing isn't as accepted in coaching as it was in previous decades. Too many top coaches in college football -- Urban Meyer, Mack Brown, Nick Saban, the emerging Jim Harbaugh -- can be disciplinarians without being bullies. I can't imagine any of those men, even in their angriest hours, saying this to Crawford: "He'd say, 'This is Kansas, you're not back home.' He'd say, 'You're not back with your homies. If you're not careful you'll be watching the game in the stands with your homies. You'll be back in that neighborhood.' ''

Count them: Brown, Herford, Crawford. That's three players who mentioned homies and/or the neighborhood. If the school somehow chooses to retain Mangino, be prepared for much-warranted protests and Rev. Jesse Jackson visits. "He would take your personal business and he would attack you with it,'' Herford said of Mangino. "There's nothing wrong with being a disciplinarian. But there is a way to handle your players and keep them motivated. His way was to demotivate you and make you feel as low as you can go."

In an interview with the Kansas City Star, Crawford said Mangino "stereotyped'' inner-city players. "He would always say things like, 'You're not back home with the homies in the hood,' '' he said. "I have to take offense to that. What do you have against guys coming from bad neighborhoods and trying to better themselves by going to college?"

The words are indicting, scary. Why would any parent want to send his kid to play for Mangino? Shame on Kansas officials for not coming to that conclusion a while ago, when they didn't have to market a new, $34-million deck of premium seating at Memorial Stadium. Of course, Mangino's success built that elite club, just as it upgraded the facilities on a campus once dominated by the basketball program. He has remained remarkably poised this week, trying to prepare his team for Saturday's game against national-title contender Texas while enduring the storm of a lifetime. He's confident he'll be on the sideline in Austin.

"You lose a few games in a row, those type of things surface. It's not uncommon," Mangino said. "I don't take it lightly, but I'm focused on Texas and I'm very comfortable the way we manage and run the football program here. This is what comes when things aren't going well. You're going to find disgruntled people."

Seems they have an assortment of disturbing reasons to be disgruntled.