A year-by-year look at The Associated Press Big 12 coaches of the year, as chosen by reporters who regularly cover the conference for newspapers in the Big 12’s seven states:
2007 – Mark Mangino, Kansas, and Gary Pinkel, Missouri
2006 – Bob Stoops, Oklahoma
2005 – Mack Brown, Texas
2004 – Gary Barnett, Colorado
2003 – Bob Stoops, Oklahoma
2002 – Les Miles, Oklahoma State
2001 – Gary Barnett, Colorado
2000 – Bob Stoops, Oklahoma
1999 – Frank Solich, Nebraska
1998 – Bill Snyder, Kansas State
1997 – Larry Smith, Missouri
1996 – Tom Osborne, Nebraska
Mark Mangino orchestrated an unprecedented regular season for Kansas University’s football team.
And he’ll get a nice holiday bonus for doing so.
KU’s sixth-year coach was named co-coach of the year in the Big 12 Conference by the Associated Press, and won the award outright by a vote of the league coaches. Both honors were announced Tuesday.
“I feel privileged to be recognized by my peers,” Mangino said. “This honor is really a reflection of our entire coaching staff, and we are all very appreciative.”
For being coach of the year, Mangino will receive a bonus of $25,000 by KU, an incentive written into the coach’s latest contract signed last year.
Mangino is the first Kansas coach to win league coach of the year in the Big 12 era and the first overall since Glen Mason won the honor in 1995 while KU was in the Big Eight.
Mangino split the AP honor with Missouri’s Gary Pinkel, whose team is playing Oklahoma on Saturday in the Big 12 championship. Missouri beat Kansas, 36-28, last week in Kansas City, Mo., to take the Big 12 North.
Both schools have taken major strides this season under the leadership of Pinkel and Mangino. The Tigers were 8-5 a year ago before shooting to the No. 1 spot in the national polls this week following their sixth straight victory.
The Jayhawks, meanwhile, went 6-6 in a disappointing 2006 season. But this year, Kansas raced to an 11-0 start and peaked at No. 2 in the major polls before falling to Mizzou. Only Illinois had a bigger turnaround from ’06 to ’07.
The boundary-breaking season – the Jayhawks never have won 11 games before – will give Mangino some extra spending money. In addition to the incentive he earned Tuesday, the sixth-year coach could hit two more and end up getting an extra $175,000 on top of the $1.5 million base salary he’s already promised.
“We’re just glad he’s done so well,” KU athletic director Lew Perkins said. “We’re ecstatic. It’s well deserved.”
Mangino will get no less than $50,000 extra for Kansas playing in a bowl game. That figure could jump to $100,000 if the Jayhawks are picked for a BCS bowl. Kansas is believed to be a strong candidate to go to the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Ariz., with the invitations officially being passed out Sunday.
In addition, Mangino would get another $50,000 if the AP names him national coach of the year. With KU’s unexpected burst into the national spotlight, Mangino would be on a short list of candidates for that honor.
Under the terms of his contract – agreed upon days before the start of the 2006 season – Mangino will get the bonus money within 30 days of when the incentive was earned. Many coaches in big-time college football have similar perks for similar performances.
“They’re very standard,” Perkins said.
Mangino has three other incentives that he won’t meet this season:
¢ A $200,000 bonus if KU wins the national championship.
¢ A $50,000 bonus if the Jayhawks win the Big 12 championship.
¢ A $100,000 bonus if more than 40,000 season tickets are sold by Sept. 1 (Kansas sold 31,000 this season).
Tuesday’s announcement marks the seventh time a KU coach has received conference coach-of-the-year honors. The first six: Pepper Rodgers (1967), Bud Moore (1975), Don Fambrough (1981), Mike Gottfried (1984) and Mason (1991 and 1995).
