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The Disciplinarians: Pinkel and Mangino
Posted by Phenomenal Smith on November 24th, 2009 under Football
Being a disciplinarian is nothing new for college coaches. Neither is being a bully. It’s a fine line. This line is difficult to discern for some coaches, but that’s irrelevant. The line only matters to those who come into contact with the coach. One may think “my, that coach is tough – what a leader!” Another may think about the same coach, “dude, that coach is a grade A asshole bully.” Discipline/bully is in the eye of the beholder.
Pinkel is well-known for being a disciplinarian. In SI’s Lords of Discipline, Pinkel is portrayed as a demanding taskmaster. His wrath was epic:
[Jamonte] Robinson opened the door to the meeting room, where all the Missouri football players had gathered with new coach Gary Pinkel. Pinkel stopped in mid-sentence, stared at Robinson and said, “Get out!”
Robinson blinked. Heads turned. Pinkel said it again, “Get out!” Robinson tried to explain: He’d been in class, this meeting had come together so quickly…. Pinkel tore into him. How could Robinson be so disrespectful? How could he be so insulting to his teammates? The more the 21-year-old Robinson tried to explain, the more he realized how lame he sounded and the higher his voice rose, and he began to feel as he hadn’t felt for a decade—lost, weak, exposed. He tried to regain some swagger. Something in Pinkel’s face wouldn’t let him. “I sounded like an 11-year-old boy,” Robinson says. “It was scary, but he sent a signal.”
I read that and think Pinkel was just a prick. I mean, the kid was in class! Lay off, Gary. If that isn’t wielding power to intimidate, I don’t know what is. Yet, Jamonte, a soon-to-be senior, ultimately didn’t see it that way.
He and Pinkel sat down last summer, months after Pinkel had first chewed him out, and talked about everything but football. “He’s the type of guy I wish I’d had in my life growing up,” Robinson says. “Not a day goes by I don’t wish I were a freshman in this system. I told Coach Pinkel that.”
Just as he finished telling him, Robinson began to cry.
That worked well for Jamonte. It worked for a lot of Mizzou players. Still, there are probably others who went through Pinkel’s system and weren’t so happy with Pinkel’s rigidly strict ways. Some members of the 2004 team – the team Pinkel called the most selfish he’d ever coached – probably don’t send Pinkel Christmas cards. Some might even be willing to share their stories with the media if given the opportunity.
At Kansas, of course, Mangino is getting skewered for his brand of discipline. Or his petty power-tripping bullying. Whatever it is. Some of his guys have stepped forward to support Mangino. Nick Reid, Charles Gordon, and Brandon McAnderson, former Jayhawk stars, have had Mangino’s ample back during this whole scandal. Kerry Meier has uttered words of support. Other coaches have supported Mangino, too.
Even more players though, and some parents, are stepping forward with stories of Mangino’s anger issues, cruel comments, and bullying methods. His form of discipline, he’d tell you.
The shock and awe of the smear campaign is really disturbing. If Mangino verbally attacked a player by referring to the kid’s slain brother getting shot, then he’s a giant a-hole. If he told some kid that he was a bad grandson because he wouldn’t play hurt, then the man’s a prick. That’s obvious. Hell, these stories make me cringe. I would hope they make Pinkel cringe too. If true, Mangino wasn’t being a stern father-figure, he was being a petty tyrant. (Scipio brilliantly analyzes this distinction here and here). I am not here to condone these alleged actions. Still, you know what, if you take the top five meanest things any coach said over an eight year period you’re going to get some provocative stories. It behooves Perkins now to dredge up all the dirt he can find and the media is thoroughly enjoying the ride. (Check out Hiphop’s article about the evil genius that is Lew Perkins).
If KU successfully runs Mangino out of town, and right now the questions are when, not if, and whether he takes Perkins with him, we will see more disgruntled kids/parents take the matter up with their AD of their unruly, unfriendly, bully of a coach. Mangino is not the only one out there. There’re hundreds of them. Hey, maybe that’s okay. Maybe there are other coaches who should be dismissed for crossing the line from mentor to aggressor, but this is a slippery slope and that’s worrisome.
No coach is going to make everyone happy. Some players are going to call it the structure they needed to get their minds right and succeed in college. Others, not so much. Where’s the line? That’s the problem. And if the line is only considered after a five game losing streak amidst a disappointing season, then the investigation isn’t being done for the right reasons and will not garner equitable results.
Happily for Mizzou fans, Pinkel’s brand of discipline has been embraced by most. Mangino’s brand has been embraced by some (hell, maybe by most), but a perfect storm of events – a losing streak, an arrogant AD who didn’t hire the coach, a coach with a bad temper, and an alleged finger poking – created what now appears to be a witch hunt, as Mike Leach called it. Whatever happens it will not look good for our border rivals.
But as this unfolds and you watch your favorite hot-head coach – be it Snyder, Stoops, Leach, or Saban – remember there, but for the grace of football gods, go I. Your team could be next. Discipline is not easily defined and can, and will, be used against you if the situation presents itself.
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Ag_in_TX said:
November 24th, 2009 at 8:47 am
Only the tip of the iceberg has been exposed with Mangino. You only need to look at the assistant coaches who have left and the jobs they left for to figure it out. Why does someone leave a winning program in a horizontal move? They do it to GET OUT!
Hiphopotamus said:
November 24th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Great stuff, Phenom.
Ag: That really is the capper to me. I highly doubt there’s a program anywhere that doesn’t have just as many disgruntled former players, but as someone whose known about this stuff for years, the assistants get it MUCH worse than the players and as you said, they get out when they can.
Gene Claude said:
November 24th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Well done.
The line is certainly a fine one, but the evidence seems to indicate Mangino has crossed it on occasion. The personal attacks are, to me, what goes over the line from disciplinarian to gigantic fat douche. The borderline racist personal attacks and the forcing injured players to play are no good at all. Nowhere does Jamonte Robinson talk about Pinkel using personal information for ad hominem attacks. He is apparently told that he is being disrespectful to the team, the staff and to get out. That seems rough, but not evil. Those anecdotes seem like as good of an illustration about where the line between disciplinarian and d-bag is drawn as any.
However, none of what has come out excuses Lew Perkins from leaking things to the media and encouraging former players to speak out. Seems like a good house cleaning is in order at KU. They should get rid of Self, just in case.
Phenomenal Smith said:
November 24th, 2009 at 10:43 am
GC, Self is as good as gone. That hair will not be tolerated.
Mangino’s attacks that you speak of are terrible, but are they a) true and b) in context? Why would they lie? I know why Perkins would lie, but Joe Mo and the others? I doubt they would, so there’s probably truth to them. I am having trouble believing anything, though, with all the falsehoods that have come out so far.
Forcing injured players to play is more troubling to me. What’s the point? An injured player likely won’t help the team as much as a healthy player. That screams sadistic f*^* as much as anything.
Gene Claude said:
November 24th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Agreed. Veracity is not a strong suit for Perkins. There is enough smoke there, though, to convince me. But I’m a receptive audience….
Prince was another one that apparently was abusive and made injured players take the field. That is just sadistic. I doubt many guys get to BCS level without being able to tolerate pain decently enough. I don’t think they are faking it. If anything, as a coach, you probably need to protect them from themselves. I can imagine Will Ebner and his ilk would play if their brains were spilling down their jerseys.
I figure I read as much “insider” crap as any Mizzou fan, and I have never, ever heard a rumble about Pinkel being anything other than fair with his players. Prior to O’Neal’s death, he seemed unapproachable and very stubborn, but I still never saw a thing about abuse. The only grumblings I’ve heard were that the staff was not very good at teaching fundamentals (that was the alleged reason Domonique Johnson left).
Nearly every KU fan I’ve spoken to about this has said “Oh, we’ve always known Mangino was an asshole to everyone.” Um, OK.
Ag_in_TX said:
November 24th, 2009 at 11:10 am
The individual I know who used to be an assistant for him told me many stories along the lines of what has been leaked – and a lot of viral shit that has never seen the light of day.
Go look up the EDSBS Mangino Motivational posters. It is claimed that all those lines were actually used by Mangino. I know of one of those lines that the individual I know told me about last year.
DocNice said:
November 24th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Phenom, I don’t know the specifics around getting a player to play injured, but I could see situations where that’s more than justified. As you know, football is a hard sport, and you gotta play hurt sometimes. I know the comparisons to war are stretched too far and insulting sometimes, but what they have in common, IMHO, is that at times they ask you to go beyond what your body and mind tell you are your limits.
A quick story from my personal experience. I had one of those old school coaches to start. It used to really upset me when he’d lay into me verbally. He’d grab you and push you into place, he’d get in your face, and he’d berate you. I couldn’t handle it until the assistant told me that his yelling meant he cared. I was when he stopped yelling that I should worry.
Once I got injured in a game, and he came on to the field to check me out. When we went back to the sideline, he told me if I ever made him come onto the field for something like that again, he’d made me run for a week. He told me to man up and go walk it off and get back in the game. Now, agree with that or not, it did work for me, and most others that played for him. At a young age, I needed someone to teach me what it meant to be a man. To throw your body around with wild abandon, to play through pain, to be mentally tough.
The next year we got a new coach. He was a big shot coach that had coached at big time high school, mid-major college and even in the CFL for a while. Man, I learned so much about strategy from him. But he never taught me to be a man the way the other coach did.
People forget that a lot of these college kids never had that kind of teaching and discipline, so in that sense, I can definitely see a lot of Mangino’s alleged behavior as more than defensible. Hell, I loved that youtube clip of chewing out a player on the sideline.
Now, I love to see KU suffer, and I’m enjoying this whole spectacle, but if this was any other school, you’d have to admit that this is inexcusable on KU’s part. It’s not like nobody knew this about Mangino for the last 5 years. This didn’t become an issue until they lost 5 straight. Does he have an anger management problem? Definitely. Is he an asshat? Almost certainly. Does he have deep seated psychological issues, probably related to his weight problem? Possibly. But any and all of that is more than easy to address with him without this smear campaign.
You wouldn’t fire a regular employee at a regular corporation without counseling him/her and giving a chance to improve. You sure as heck don’t fire a $2.5 million a year coach without having him take anger management classes. Which is where this gets interesting. Perkins is so obviously and blatantly using this as cover to fire a coach just because he’s losing. Other coaches are just as easily going to see through that. Maybe he saves a million or two to the coach, not nothing. But is that worth selling the honor and dignity of KU? Okay, that’s an oxymoron, but still.
Any way you slice this, it ends up badly for KU, and as such, this absolutely HAS to end badly for Perkins.
DocNice said:
November 24th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Sorry for the novel, I was channeling 3MNC.
Hiphopotamus said:
November 24th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Other coaches are just as easily going to see through that. Maybe he saves a million or two to the coach, not nothing. But is that worth selling the honor and dignity of KU? Okay, that’s an oxymoron, but still.
Any way you slice this, it ends up badly for KU, and as such, this absolutely HAS to end badly for Perkins.
This was my worry from the very beginning. However, the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve backed off on that stance. Mostly because I just don’t think people – more specifically coaches – are all that noble. Maybe one or two backs off because of how this went down, but more often than not, if someone is presented with money and opportunity, they usually don’t turn it down because of how the guy before him was treated.
Phenomenal Smith said:
November 24th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Doc, that was very MNC like. Well, quantity-wise anyway. I appreciate your thoughts. Still, I don’t get how playing hurt makes you a man, but I understand that a lot of people share that thought. John Cornish would still be a man if Mangino had not punished him for getting injured. He’d just be a man without a limp and a knot on his thigh. I don’t doubt that there are times when you have to play through the pain, but you do that because your team is better with you at, say, 60%, rather than the backup at 100% (and the medical staff believes you are not likely to get hurt worse because of playing). The whole Gabbert on one-leg is better than a two-legged Costello theory. If Gabbert hadn’t gotten hurt, he’d be just as manly as he is now.
I agree with what you’re saying about KU/Perkins. I don’t see this ending well for Perkins, especially if it isn’t resolved soon.
By the way, if Perkins survives, I expect to see Edsall named the new coach.
DocNice said:
November 24th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Phenom, sometimes I wish this board had an edit comments function. That was a long winded and meandering reply. The point I was trying to make is that some kids don’t know how to push their bodies and “be a man.” In our modern world of relative safety, it’s not really a useful skill all that often. But for most of history, “being manly” was about surviving war, assault, attack and disease, and still living or providing. Now it’s more about scratching your balls and grunting, but the fundamental underlying principles remain the same. Mentality is important to performance.
At the risk of going MNC on you again, the point I meant to put in my first post was another story about my heady days of high school glory. After a pretty good junior year, I was hoping to get some postseason honors as a senior. I got beat and bruised up early in the year and wore a little extra protective padding. And I was playing like crap. Halfway through the year, in the middle of practice, I said “screw it, time to be a man” and threw off all this gear and abandoned all pretense of self preservation and fear of pain. On the very next play and for the rest of the year, I played my best.
I’ve got a non-football story that illustrates the point even more dramatically but I don’t want to bore you to death. The point is, mentality matters. If a coach sees a player that’s not wanting to play through an injury, and he thinks he can play, it’s not just about that play or that game. It’s about understanding what it means to do battle in the heat of a hard nosed football game.
DocNice said:
November 24th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Actually, I could have summarized my point even more with two words: Will Ebner. Sure he’s fast and strong, but does anyone think he’s one of the best players on the field because he’s the most athletic?
Gene Claude said:
November 25th, 2009 at 8:41 am
Doc, I understand your point…in football, you have to play when you are hurt. I think we have a definition problem about “injured.” If injured means you are physically incapable of doing some things that are necessary on the field, you should not be made to play to prove a point. That is disadvantageous for your team and for the player and is motivated by a machismo that is all too pervasive in football.
I think by DI football, most every player can play with pain and isn’t a wussbag (like me). Maybe not, maybe some motivation is required. In high school, I ‘m sure it is required, and it is a very fine line to figure out which kids are really injured and which don’t tolerate pain sufficiently to be football players (again, me).
My biggest personal problem with what you describe is that I think it is an antiquated and ineffective management system that is motivated by some false sense of manhood. A good manager can motivate a wide array of humans. The type of management you describe may work famously for some types of humans, but it is disasterous failure for others. Yet, many sports managers continue to only use the in your face style. All you have to do is read the reflections of former KU players to see how ineffective it is for some types of people. Proponents of that system would say that those players are weak and aren’t worth having on a team anyway, but that can’t be right. A good manager can get the best out of every employee/player by using different motivational techniques. And, there are plenty of recent examples…Tony Dungy, Mike Tomlin, etc. I imagine they raise their voices and get in players faces at times, but they aren’t one trick ponies. So….I reject that Mangino’s is a necessary overall management technique in football. There are surely anecdotes about its success, as there would be about any motivational technique.
Most employees job duties are not largely built on public perception. Mangino’s is. If your lead salesman has taken acts that are now public that undermine faith in the clientele (recruits, fans), you don’t offer him anger management, you fire him. None of this is meant to excuse Lew. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Barking Carnival — Blog — Mike Leach....I told you so said:
December 28th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
[...] in November after the Mangino story came to light, I wrote about how proper discipline is hard to define. I closed the article out by writing: But as this unfolds and you watch your favorite hot-head [...]