Mark Mangino

Mark Thomas Mangino (August 26, 1956) is an American football coach. He is an assistant head coach at Youngstown State. Before his joining Youngstown. Mangino was the the head coach of the Kansas Jayhawks college football team from 2002 to 2009. In 2007, Mangino received several National Coach of the Year honors after leading the Jayhawks to their first 12-win season in school history. Prior to coaching the Jayhawks, Mangino held assistant-coach positions at other universities, including Kansas State and Oklahoma. On December 3, 2009, amid increasing public pressure on the university due to allegations of chronic and harsh mistreatment of his student-players, Mangino and the University of Kansas agreed on a monetary settlement in exchange for his immediate resignation as Jayhawks head coach.

Early life
Mangino was born and raised in New Castle, Pennsylvania. After high school, he was offered a football scholarship at Youngstown State. Mangino played semi-pro baseball in western Pennsylvania until he became an EMT. In his late 20's he returned to Youngstown State to receive his degree.

Early positions
Mangino graduated from Youngstown State University in 1987, serving as an assistant coach there in his last two years under then-head coach Jim Tressel. He also coached at Lincoln High School in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania and at Geneva College, before being hired as an assistant coach at Kansas State University in 1991. Prior to the 1999 season, Mangino left Kansas State to take an assistant position at the University of Oklahoma. While there, he served as the offensive coordinator for the team that beat Florida State for the 2000 national championship. Following that season, he was awarded the Frank Broyles Award as the nation's top assistant coach.

Kansas
Mangino was hired as Kansas head football coach in December 2001. The program had not posted a winning season in any of the 6 seasons prior to his arrival. In 2003, his second season at KU, Mangino led the Jayhawks to an appearance in the 2003 Tangerine Bowl (now known as the Champs Sports Bowl). This was the first bowl appearance for Kansas since 1995. In 2005, his fourth season at KU, the team finished the regular season 6–5, to post its first winning record under Mangino, and went on to the Fort Worth Bowl, its second bowl game in three seasons. Among the Jayhawks' wins was a 40-15 victory over Nebraska, breaking a losing streak that had begun in 1969, which was the second-longest such streak of consecutive losses in NCAA history. The same year Mangino also built a defense that ranked 11th nationally (based on yards allowed per game) and featured third-team All-American and Big 12 Conference Defensive Player of the Year linebacker Nick Reid. The 2005 team also ranked 6th nationally in total punts. In 2007, Mangino coached the Jayhawks to a 12-1 record and the 2008 Orange Bowl (their first ever BCS appearance). Mangino's defense was ranked 12th in the nation, and 4th in scoring defense. On the other side of the ball, the Jayhawks finished 2nd in scoring offense.

Following the win against the Iowa State Cyclones, Mark Mangino became the first KU football coach with a winning career record since Jack Mitchell in 1966. While at Kansas, Mangino led the Jayhawks to 19 consecutive weeks ranked in the AP and/or USA Today polls (2007–08), 20 consecutive wins in a 2 year period for the first time in school history, set home attendance average records in each of the last 4 seasons (2004–2008), led KU to its first appearance in national polls since 1996 and to the school’s highest ranking ever at #2, produced the top 3 total offense seasons in school history, the top two passing seasons and two of the top three scoring seasons and won three Bowl games—the same number they had won in their 102-year history combined prior to his arrival.

With 50 victories, Mangino has the second-most victories in Kansas coaching history.

2007 Coach of the Year awards
For his accomplishments in 2007, he was named the 2007 National Coach of the Year by the Associated Press, ESPN/ABC, The Sporting News, Football Writers Association, Walter Camp Football Foundation, National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, American Football Coaches Association, the Maxwell Football Club (George Munger Award), and he has been named the Woody Hayes National Coach of the Year. He was named the Big 12 Coach of the Year by the Big 12 Coaches and Big 12 Co-Coach of the Year by the Associated Press. Upon winning these Coach of the Year awards, he became the only NCAA coach in history to win both the Frank Broyles Award as the nation's top assistant coach and all the major National Coach of the Year awards.

Player successes
Mangino has coached numerous players who have won honors including Heisman Trophy winner Jason White, Heisman runners-up Josh Heupel and Michael Bishop, and Outland Trophy winner Jammal Brown. Mangino has coached 32 NFL players, 73 All-Big 12 players, and two players named "Big 12 Offensive Newcomer of the Year." Over 20 of his former players are now coaching.

"Character First"
Mangino implemented many programs while at Kansas, but none more beneficial than the "Character First" program. Designed by Dr. Frank DeSalvo, the university's Dean of Students (and a clinical social worker), the program featured: (1) players' community service in local nursing homes, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and Boys and Girls Clubs of America; (2) players' visits to local schools; (3) lectures from law enforcement officials about issues that lead to trouble for some student-athletes (e.g., drugs, crime, rape); and, (4) motivational/inspirational guest speakers (e.g., retired NBA player Danny Manning, who helped the men's basketball program win 2 national championships—1 as a student-athlete in 1988, the other as an assistant coach under Bill Self in 2008).

Advanced cardiac screenings
Under the guidance of Mangino, Kansas was one of the first college football programs to do advanced cardiac screenings on its players to detect life threatening conditions,

Lincoln High controversy
After going 1-9 in his first season as the head coach of Lincoln High in Ellwood City, PA, a group of parents went to the school board and demanded his firing because of his "language, and harsh approach to people". The board elected not to fire Mangino, but he left the school after only one year and did not complete the year as a teacher.

High school referee incident
On September 21, 2002, Coach Mangino yelled at the officiating crew assigned to the Lawrence High School–Olathe East football game in which Mangino's son, Tommy, was playing. Mangino apparently became angry after referees failed to call what he believed was a late hit on Tommy, the LHS quarterback.

LHS officials took undisclosed action against Mangino after the game for violating a Kansas High School rule barring abuse of game officials by coaches, players and fans.

2004 Kansas–Texas game
In 2004, Mangino paid a $5,000 fine for suggesting that officials acted with favoritism in a questionable offensive pass interference call that affected the outcome of a game against Texas. Mangino implied that money and a BCS berth for the Big 12 Conference influenced the officials to make a call in favor of Texas. He and athletic director Lew Perkins issued public apologies the day after the incident.

NCAA penalties and probation
In 2005, the university self-reported to the NCAA that five major rules violations—including academic fraud—had been committed by some of the football team's student-athletes. In 2006, these major violations, along with four others that has allegedly occurred in other KU sports programs, contributed to the NCAA charging the athletics department with one of its gravest accusations, in modern times: displaying a "lack of institutional control" (i.e., the NCAA's thinly-vailed conclusion that the athletic department allows a corrupt environment in which NCAA rules are violated on a regular basis, with impunity). A graduate assistant was found to have supplied answers for some of the correspondence courses taken by some prospective recruits from junior colleges. As a result, the football program's ability to recruit players transferring in from junior college was reduced for two years; and, the program lost two scholarships for each of the 2007 and 2008 seasons.

Raimond Pendleton incident
During the first game of the 2007 season (a blowout victory over Central Michigan University), KU's Raimond Pendleton ran a CMU punt back 77 yards for a touchdown; but, as he approached the endzone, it was clear that he intentionally slowed down before reaching the endzone in order to jump into it in an overly celebratory or gloating fashion. The officials threw a penalty flag for "excessive celebration", and gave the Jayhawks a 15-yard, "unsportsmanlike conduct" penalty (meaning that KU would have to kick off 15 yards closer to their own endzone, than if they had not been penalized). When Pendleton returned to the KU sideline, an irate Mangino took Pendleton aside and gave him an expletive-laden tongue-lashing. The incident was caught on video, and transmitted by local TV stations in the Topeka and Kansas City areas, eventually finding an even wider audience after a copy of it was uploaded to YouTube. Pendleton afterward downplayed the incident, saying that he deserved it.

Internal investigations
A separate investigation was conducted in 2007, related to Mangino's repeated parking tickets on campus, plus the alleged verbal abuse and general, negative behavior toward some of the campus staff issuing those tickets.

In November 2009, the recurring issue of Mangino's chronic, alleged misconduct towards his players became the subject of an internal investigation by the University of Kansas Athletic Department. He was formally accused of boorish and violent actions (e.g., grabbing players in anger/frustration, verbal abuse, etc.). National sports media coverage of this increased already-mounting public pressure on the university to terminate Mangino's employment. After a prolonged period of negotiations, the university and Mangino's attorneys agreed on the buy-out amount that was large enough to secure his quiet resignation in December 2009.

Head coaching record
Sources:

Note: Π While officially recognized as 2007 divisional co-champions by the Big 12, the Jayhawks lost the head-to-head tie-breaker to Missouri, giving the Tigers the championship game berth.