Friendship for Stoops, Mangino carries over to field

The head coaches at Oklahoma and Kansas have been close friends for years.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — They have competed for recruits, faced each other on the field, waged epic battles on the racquetball court.

None of it has dimmed the tight bond between Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops and Kansas coach Mark Mangino.

It won’t be any different Saturday, either.

No matter the implications on the rest of the season, the potential for one team to be knocked from the national title chase, the relationship between Stoops and Mangino is too strong, goes back too far to let one game come between them.

“We understand our role in this world, what we’re asked to do and what the expectations are for us professionally, and that’s all that matters,” Mangino said.“There’s no one football game, no one recruit that’s going to change the relationship that we have.”

Stoops is from Youngstown who played at Cardinal Mooney and later was a defensive back at Iowa.

Mangino grew up in New Castle, Pa.

He decided not to play football at Youngstown State after graduating from high school in 1974, then returned to the game in the 1980s to coach junior high and high school teams in his hometown.

After dropping out from Youngstown State in 1976, Mangino returned to school, juggling classes and duties as an assistant coach with a night job as a first responder on the Pennsylvania Turnpike — driving an ambulance and scooping up dead deer — before graduating in 1987.

After a few stops, the two coaches came together under Bill Snyder at Kansas State in 1991, Mangino as a graduate assistant, Stoops as the defensive coordinator after two years as defensive backs coach.

Stoops and Mangino became close friends in five years together at Kansas State, their ties to steel country strengthened by lunchtime battles of racquetball.

Stoops left K-State in 1996 to serve as defensive coordinator at Florida, where he won a national title with Steve Spurrier.When he became Oklahoma’s head coach in 1999, Stoops hired Mangino as his assistant head coach.

“More than anything, he has a great work ethic, he has great discipline, and I love just the fire in him,” Stoops said.

They won a national championship in 2000, then Mangino left Oklahoma in 2002 to become the coach at Kansas, turning the perennial laughingstock of the Big 12 into a national contender, leading the Jayhawks to a 12-1 season and a victory in last year’s Orange Bowl.

Stoops continued his success at Oklahoma, playing for the national title two more times, winning four Big 12 championships and five Big 12 South titles after Mangino left.“I’ll put it to you like this: he’s a very close friend of mine,” Mangino said.

“He’s a guy I can count on and he can count on me, but we’re both competitors. It has absolutely no effect on the competition taking place on the field on Saturday.”