Column:

Kansas coach Mangino big loser in game

By Dan Friesen

Published Nov. 27, 2007

I can't believe our football team just beat Kansas. It's even harder to believe the Tigers are the No. 1 team in the country.

It's important for me to make a few things clear from the beginning. First, I have as little school spirit as anyone you'll ever meet. This stems mostly from having grown up here, watching our sports teams initially appear promising only to quickly blow up and start sucking harder than RJD2's newest album. Second, I'm not a sports guy. I had a brief period in my middle school and junior high years when I was deeply invested in sports. I lost interest around the time I suffered a career-ending knee injury during my freshman year. There was a lot of talk that I was the most promising small forward prospect on the West Junior High Junior Varsity 2 basketball team, but that will forever remain idle speculation.

But I recently found a new incentive to watch sports: gambling. I lost a fair amount on Thanksgiving, mostly from betting that the Lions would beat the spread. I'm new to this whole thing, but I learned a lot, like what "the spread" is.

Anyway, I watched the Missouri-Kansas game on Saturday, and it stuck out to me that there were really two losers here, one of them being me. Our football team beat its biggest rival and might have become the top-ranked team in the country, and I'm on a road trip to Arizona so I don't even get to take part in the insane drunken revelry that must be going on downtown as I write these words. I wouldn't be too surprised if I return to Columbia to find an entirely burned downtown area. A little too much booze, a little too much of the feeling of being liberated after so many years of oppressively disappointing sports teams ... that tends to be the recipe for arson.

The other loser, and no one is going to be surprised by this, is Kansas coach Mark Mangino. I swear that guy is half-man, half-hoagie. While watching the game, I started to suspect that, perhaps, Big Pun faked his death and is in hiding in the greater Lawrence area. Not only did his team lose (ending the game in the most demoralizing way — with a safety. That was good hustle, Lorenzo.), but he was also on national TV yelling at his players, looking like a displeased Subway customer who felt his sandwich artist didn't put enough mayo on his foot-long chicken-and-bacon-ranch sandwich.

I was very impressed by our team, particularly the defense. William Moore was picking off passes more impressively than Mark Mangino when anyone in his immediate vicinity attempts the "catching an M&M in the mouth" trick.

I thank you, Chase Daniel. I thank you, Danario Alexander. I thank you, Lorenzo Williams. I thank you, Tony Temple. I thank you guys for creating circumstances that allowed me to see a wide shot of a bunch of soul-shattered Kansas fans sporting looks on their faces sadder than the look on Mark Mangino's face when he wakes up to discover that someone ate the last piece of his leftover meat-lover's pizza, the very piece he intended to have for breakfast.

I can believe seeing the sadness of strangers who root for a rival team would make me happy. It's even easier to believe that even after all I've learned about gambling this week, I would still take Mark Mangino to beat the spread against Kobayashi in a double battered corn dog eating contest. That man looks like he can eat.