Winning Cures Everything.

I know this a cliche little term that just about everyone in sports uses, but that is why it is used everywhere. It's true. What made me want to write about this is the incidents in Kansas this season with Mark Mangino. Now, don't get me wrong, Mangino is a smart football coach and turned around that program immensely, making a basketball school get excited about what they can do in football is an impressive thing.

If you haven't heard yet, recently players from KU and former players have complained about the way Mangino has been coaching them the past few seasons. He has anger issues and apparently takes it out on the players. The only thing I was thinking of was, where were the complainers a couple years ago when Kansas was 12-1 and winning a BCS Bowl? Oh, that's right, there weren't any. Where were the complainers when Kansas started off 5-0 and looked like the old 2007 team? Oh, yeah, there wasn't any. Do not get me wrong, verbally abusing players is not right and I don't approve anything to do with it, but, why weren't these kids coming out with this stuff when Kansas was good? And why haven't the big stars of Kansas said anything about it? Are they too loyal to their coach, or are they just happy with whatever comes with success? You see it in every sort of team that is losing. Rich Rodriguez is apparently making his kids spend too much time invested in football. Nobody complained about this when he had a good team in West Virginia, but when he has a bad team in Ann Arbor, the story comes out. Eric Mangini is going through the same thing, he apparently puts his team through excruciating practices, though, the complaints have only ever come out when he is on a 1-8 Cleveland team. I never heard any of the Jets players complaining of practices, maybe that's because they were a par team and had somewhat of a chance most years he was there.

The fact is, winning cures everything. I'm sure if Cleveland was even a 4-5 team right now, they wouldn't be saying anything about Eric Mangini's practices. Same thing with Mangino, if Kansas was 10-0 or 9-1 or even 7-3 team there would be no complaints of the way Mangino is coaching because it is bringing success. Nothing brings out controversy like a losing team. It's happened in Michigan, it's happened in Cleveland, and most recently it is happening in Kansas. Not saying what Mangino is doing is right by any means, just saying this story wouldn't be out if it was still week 5 of the college football season when Kansas was undefeated.