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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN SPORTS
SOFTBALL | 9A
Season ends without final games
WEDNESDAY,MAY11,2011
Because of rain and a scheduling conflict, the Kansas softball team had to miss its last opportunities to further raise their RPI. But it still has a shot at regionalals.
WWW.KANSAN.COM
SPEAKING UP
Mangino breaks silence
KANSAN FILE PHOTO
Former Kansas football coach Mark Mangino looks up to the scoreboard in the final seconds of a game against Nebraska. Mangino broke his year-and-a-half silence to talk to his hometown newspaper, the New Castle news, about his past coaching and what he wants for the future.
BY KORY CARPENTER
kcarpenter@kansan.com
It's been 17 months since Mark Mangino resigned as the head football coach at Kansas. During that span, Mangino has been virtually silent in his dealings with the media and has turned down interview requests while spending time with his wife in Naples, Fla., away from the public eye.
Mangino's nearly year-and-a-half silence was broken when he recently met with Kayleen Cubbal of the New Castle News, a paper in Mangino's hometown of New Castle, Pa. While he could not delve into too many details regarding the investigation by former Kansas Athletics Director Lew Perkins (Mangino and the University agreed to a $3 million buyout with a gag order), he said the allegations of player abuse caught him off guard.
"I was blind-sided and didn't realize there were any issues at all," he told Cubbal. "To use the word 'shocked' would be appropriate."
During his
who issued the coach a parking ticket on campus, in a spot where he had allegedly already received 22 violations. That story went largely unnoticed, if noticed at all, during the 2007 season.
"When I look back on my time at Kansas, I want to remember the positive, not dwell on the negative."
eight-year tenure in Lawrence, Mangino's accomplishments were unmatched by any of his predecessors and were highlighted in 2007, when he led Kansas to a No. 2 national ranking and an Orange Bowl victory.
It wasn't until a 2009 Lawrence Journal-World article brought the incident to light, while Mangino was in the middle of a seven-game losing streak, that information about these incidents started trickling out. Also during the 2009 season, Mangino was investigated for poking the chest of linebacker Arist Wright during a practice.
With the parking ticket story, player abuse allegations and seven-game losing streak that ended the 2009 season, Mangino's time in Lawrence seemed to be coming to an end, and he agreed to a $3 million buyout with the school on Dec. 9. Even though he couldn't disclose details, Mangino said he didn't want to dwell on the past
The heat Mangino received from the Pendleton incident was short lived, as the Jayhawks were playing great and just beginning their 2007 season.
MARK MANGINO Former KU football coach
"That should never even have been an issue," Mangino said. "The conversation was between me and the player. It is an unwritten rule in college football that video is fair game in the coaches' box, but audio is absolutely off limite."
His coaching wasn't without flaws, though. A 2007 incident with Raimond Pendleton following an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty became infamous. Mangino was caught on video ripping into Pendleton with some vulgar language. Mangino's take on the incident:
But before that season even began, Mangino was accused of verbally attacking a KU student
anyway.
"When I look back on my time at Kansas, I want to remember the positive, not dwell on the negative," he said. "I'm very proud of my time there."
PAGE 10A
Although he's spent much of the last 17 months with his family, he's still found time for football. This spring, he spent two weeks with his former boss and University of Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops, helping the coaches and players as an offensive adviser. He's also spent time with Akron, BYU and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as an adviser.
"The juices are still flowing" he said. "I'm getting the itch."
He said he's currently looking for head coaching positions, but he has criteria that the position would need to meet.
"I want to be in a football environment — in other words, I would only go to a place where football has a high level of importance" he told Cubbal. "I don't want to go someplace where football is an afterthought or a hobby; that just would not work for me."
Edited by Amanda Sorell
Quotes from Kathleen Cubbal of the New Castle News
BASEBALL
Walz leaves behind unexpected legacy
BY MIKE VERNON
mvernon@kansan.com
While wearing a blue Kansas baseball shirt and waiting for his dad to meet him for lunch at a Pepperjax Grill in Omaha, Neb., incoming freshman Colin Belmont fell under the shadow of a 6-foot-1, 180-pound college student. Colin's shirt had attracted the attention of the visitor, who asked Colin first if he went to Kansas, then if he played baseball.
Conn told the stranger that he planned on attending Kansas in the fall, that he had played baseball at Millard North High school, and that he hoped to walk-on to the Kansas baseball team.
Walz, a former walk-on himself, went on to exchange phone numbers with the future freshman and even offered to throw with Colin once he got to Lawrence. The experience for Colin, who couldn't believe that an athlete approached a student, was one that will stick with him forever.
He happened to be speaking to senior pitcher TJ. Waltz of the Kansas baseball team.
Now one win away from tying the all-time wins record for a pitcher, Walz came to Kansas under very different circumstances — a walk-on with a guaranteed spot on the roster. Walz said he didn't think he would have a significant role on the jayhawks' roster his freshman year. Instead, he started seven games for the jayhawks his first year, going 4-1 for the team with an ERA of 5.00.
"Playing baseball here was like a dream for me, and I never thought that it could be realistic," Belmont said. "When he talked to me, it seemed real; it was definitely life-changing or at least view-changing."
After exceeding expectations in his rookie campaign, Walz blew them away his sophomore season.
"He came in in throwing 80, and as a result of working hard in the weight room and his long-toss program, he elevated his velocity to 90-91," coach
Walz wasn't content after his breakout year, though. He added a changeup for his junior season, something coach Price said would help him against left-handed hitters. The hard work played off for T.J., as he was named Jayhawk Trophy Pitcher of the Year during the 2010 season.
After coming in as a walk-on just two years before, Walz received a phone call from the Oakland Athletics organization in the 2010 draft letting him know that he had been selected by the team in the 50th round.
Ritch Price said. "That made his breaking ball really special."
The added speed on his fastball helped Walz frequently keep batters off balance. He struck out 88 battens in 82/13 innings his sophomore year, while being named to the All-Big 12 second team.
As the ace and Friday night starter of this year's pitching staff, Walz has gained an incredible amount of respect from his teammates. The undersized pitcher isn't the most vocal player on the team, but has led the lahawkins in a different way this season.
Walz had little interest, though; he wanted to return to school and continue to receive the most important thing to him — his education.
"T.J. just leads by example, he isn't a man of a lot of words," senior pitcher Wally Marcel said of one of his best friends. "When he gets out on the mound he's all business and plays his heart out."
Mike Gunnoe/KANSAN
"That's just part of being a Jayhawk." Walz said. "You see the bird everywhere and it's fun to start conversations based upon the pride you feel in being a Jayhawk."
So now, with the bright light that is his collegiate career beginning to burn out, Walz puts perspective on why he approached the random kid in his home town who happened to be wearing a Kansas shirt.
Edited by Corey Thibodeaux
Senior pitcher T.J. Walz hurts in a pitch Friday at Hogund Ballpark. Walz pitched 7.2 innings with 11 strikeouts.
COMMENTARY
When sports can break boundaries
BY TIM DWYER
tdiwer@kansan.com
believe in sports.
I believe in sports.
I believe Nelson Mandela was right when he said sports have power greater even than governments to shake established racial boundaries. And I believe he proved it with South Africa's 1995 victory in the Rugby World Cup. (Read the book "Playing the Enemy" by John Carlin rather than watch "Invictus." It's better. The book always is – another thing I believe.)
I don't think that I will ever see a performance again that is as racially inspiring as Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball, or Jesse Owens humiliating Adolf Hitler's Aryan master race in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Thankfully, the world has come a long-enough way that the circumstances don't exist for such a showing.
I believe, as I ready myself to walk down that hill in a couple weeks, that I have witnessed the sheer joy that sports can bring here at Kansas. Anyone who was in Lawrence three years ago was probably with me, and witnessed it in their own right. On April 7, 2008, the flight of a brown leather ball out of the hands of Mario Chalmers sent a jubilant group more than twice the size of the student population of Kansas - 80,000 people - hurtling into the streets.
But to say there are no boundaries left to be broken would be hopelessly naive. There will come a day, in the near future I think, that we will see Iraq or Afghanistan or another country absorbed in war earn a trip to a World Cup. I think that the guns will silence, if only for a few days, and the warring factions will find at least one thing they can unite behind, even if it is something so superficially perceived as sports.
I believe there was a glimpse of that power when, in 2008, the Philippine government called a ceasefire to watch Manny Pacquiao, local hero and best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, fight Juan Manuel Marquez. When Gen. Hermogenes Esperon was asked what the rebels would do, he offered only this: "I suggest that they watch the fight also." There were no attacks during the ceasefire.
I believe that, as a child, playing baseball for my father was one of the most influential moments of growing up. Seeing his work ethic, his passion, his ability to control the room outside of the house, was essential in developing my work ethic, passion and charisma. My dad never feared making a decision as a coach. He never feared repercussions from parents or from the league. If he thought it was the right thing to do, he would do so. And so that lesson passed to me in calculably more fully than if he had simply said, "Boomer, stand up for what you believe is right." I believe sports shaped me into the man I am today.
There is a certain beauty in coincidences, and it was particularly evident when the death of Osama bin Laden was announced two Sundays ago at a game between the Mets and the Phillies that was tied at one in the bottom of the ninth. To rearrange those numbers; that's 9, 11, with teams from New York and Pennsylvania. I believe the "U-S-A" chants were particularly loud there.
I think there will be an openly gay professional athlete in a major sport in our lifetime. Soon, I think this man will be both hero and goat, as Robinson was. But the courage of that one man to endure the emotional beating he will surely take will open eyes and further discussion well past what we can even imagine right now. He will, by displaying his own bravery, give courage to young people to endure the same. And I think not fearing who you are is a wonderful thing.
They did not go to riot. They did not go to burn. They went and they embraced and they cheered and they high-fived and they danced and they drank.
For a night, the elation of winning brought together 80,000 people, most of who had never met each other and would never see each other again. But for that night, they were joyful together, regardless of class or race or sexuality or religion
.
That's what I believe in.
Edited by Caroline Bledowski