Charlie Klein
Now I am not the biggest fan of Mark Mangino. Every time I see video of him I feel like if he ate just one more five dollar footlong meatball sandwich from subway that his incredibly inflated body might finally explode out of his quadruple XL Kansas letterman jacket and onto the field. But, I do have to come to his defense on the current criticism that he is receiving for being a "hard ass" on his players.
The idea that he poked one of his players in the chest should not be so alarming that overly-protective parents get involved and cry for his resignation. If Kansas' record was 8-2 instead of 5-5 I doubt this story would have even come out. No college coach treats his players like royalty. As I heard on ESPN yesterday, I am sure that Nick Saban is not baking cookies for his players down in Alabama.
The quotations by former players about the manner in which Mangino coached them during their time in Lawrence are dismaying. Former Kansas wide receiver Marcus Herford said, "He'd say things like 'I'll send you back to the street corner where you came from.' " It hurts to have one's coach say things like that, but at the same time one has to man up if he wants to play football for Kansas. These players act like they had no idea what they were getting into, when Mangino had a reputation for this sort of coaching style, and yet all of them agreed to play football for him.
This story reminds me of the Michigan over-practicing controversy of the summer. If the harms were as egregious as the player claimed, then such information would have been leaked at an earlier time and corrected by the NCAA. The story basically became some players being too lazy and dissatisfied with their coach, enough so to tell the media about it.
Mangino certainly has said things to his players that may curdle some parent's cream. But I'd say shame on them for not realizing what they were getting their children into when they signed a letter of intent to play for their 300 pound ball coach.
Rock Chalk.
No comments:
Post a Comment