KUs Mark Mangino gets Fat Raise.....

[TyBull]

Kansas athletic director Lew Perkins announced the other day that the university had torn up head coach Mark Mangino's contract, which expired after the 2008 season, to give him a new five-year deal that will pay Mangino $7.5 million.

Mark Mangino, who has gone 19-29 in four seasons, will make $1.5 million per year. Mangino, who has yet to have a winning season in the Big 12 North -- which ain't exactly the NFC East -- got a 150 percent raise over the $600,000 annual salary in the contract that Perkins tore up.

"We had a good coach," Perkins said. "We're moving in the right direction."

Kansas gave Mark Mangino a nice raise.

Perkins is not riding in his first rodeo. He is regarded as one of best athletic directors in the country. He ran the ship at UConn as Jim Calhoun and Geno Auriemma built it into men's and women's basketball powers, and he had the foresight and the backbone to take the Huskies I-A in football.

But $1.5 million?

"That put Mark fifth [in salary] in the Big 12," Perkins said. "He went from last to fifth. He's tied for fifth with the guy at Nebraska (Bill Callahan). We were comfortable with that. We thought that was fair. The expectations are bigger and stronger now."

It is true that Mangino has raised the bar higher than where he found it. You could have stepped over it before he arrived.

"He has been here four years," Perkins said. "We've gone to two bowls. We won our bowl last year [42-13, over Houston, in the Fort Worth Bowl] … We just wanted to send a message that football is important at this university. The things that they haven't had here are continuity and stability."

Perkins wanted to send a message that Mangino is his guy. That's noteworthy, if only because Mangino took the job the year before Perkins arrived in Lawrence. The popular wisdom is that an athletic director is quicker to fire a coach he didn't hire. Perkins called that wisdom "overrated."

OK, OK.

But $1.5 million?

Perkins came up as a basketball coach. In 1979, his last year before he moved into athletic administration, Perkins coached the South Carolina-Aiken men's basketball team. He thinks he made about $19,000. Now, Perkins is paying his football coach about 79 times his last coaching salary.

"I'm like everybody else," Perkins said. "It's what the market value brings. Do I agree with it? Probably not. It's nuts. But if we are going to compete in the league we're in and run a program at this level, you have to take a deep breath and do what you have to do or you're going to lose him. You lose a guy that you didn't pay an extra $200,000 or $300,000, then it's $1-million-plus to change coaches."

Perkins is right. Pay the coaches on the old staff, pay salaries to lure new coaches, pay moving expenses, pay for the changes the new coach wants …

"He was making $600,000," Perkins said. "A lot of I-AA coaches are making that. We wanted to show him he was important to us. We're not going to have the lowest-paid coach in the conference. If we're going to compete and help our coaches to compete, we have to give them everything we can."

[vankai]

its a new policy they have - $1000 for every pound  ;D

[___ Eats It]

He's got a nice fat contract to match his ass now.  Congrats to him!

This dude makes George O'Leary look like Fabio.

[Jamie]

Wait until you see him wearing the huge blue windbreaker when it gets cooler out. It makes him look like a giant blueberry with a headset.

[___ Eats It]

They should start calling him Mark Mangioplasty, if they haven't already...

[bulls96go]

now he has the $$$$ to get weight loss surgery like charlie weiss at ND