Mangino thrilled with strength coach

The most important football coach involved in the rebuilding effort at Kansas University is a man you’ve probably never heard of.

“There’s no question that the strength coach may be the most important coach in the program,” head coach Mark Mangino said. “He has those kids ready physically and mentally. I think a lot of the mental edge and the toughness that kids develop is done in the weight room as well as on the field.”

The coach Mangino selected to strengthen and toughen the Jayhawks is Mark Smith, a top assistant strength coach at Florida for four years.

Smith was fresh off the Gators’ trip to the Orange Bowl when he arrived in Lawrence in early January.

“I’ve been in a situation where I had the opportunity to work with some of the best strength coaches in America,” said Smith, who worked for Jerry Schmidt and then Rob Glass at UF. “I’ve taken what I learned from them and put it into what I’m doing.”

OU’s Schmidt has been part of national championship teams at Notre Dame, Florida and Oklahoma. He worked on the same OU staff as Mangino.

“When I visited with (Schmidt) prior to me leaving to come up here, he told me there was a guy at Florida he thought was tremendous,” Mangino said, “and he tried to get him to come to Oklahoma and he wouldn’t come.”

Smith, 37, had spurned an offer to be an assistant strength coach at Oklahoma, but jumped at the chance to run his own conditioning program at Kansas. He thinks his background with a big-time program will make an impression on the Jayhawks, who haven’t had a winning season since 1995.

“I’ve been involved in one of the top five programs in the country,” said Smith, who was an assistant strength coach at North Carolina State for four years before moving to Gainesville, Fla. “You have to have confidence in what you’re doing. I have confidence in what we’re doing here. The kids feed off that. If you feel good about it, they feel good about it.”

Smith began his career in college football as a linebacker at N.C. State, where he was a three-year letterman, two-year starter and co-captain for the Wolfpack. He’s not the only N.C. State alumnus on the football team’s strength and conditioning staff. Smith lured Bobby Crumpler, his former N.C. State teammate and roommate who was an assistant strength coach for the Wolfpack, to Lawrence.

Two other former Division I athletes are holdovers from the previous staff. Matt Link played football at Virginia, and Jason Beaulieu played soccer and lacrosse at Delaware.

“We’ve been there and we know what it’s like,” Smith said. “That’s the biggest thing I can bring to the guys. I was a football player on the Division I level. I know what their bodies are going through. I know when to back off, and I know when to push.”

Smith started his KU career with a lot of pushing, putting the Jayhawks though a six-week program that included running sessions every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and weight lifting on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays.

“Our kids are stronger, they are faster, they are quicker, their change of direction is much improved from the first day we met them in January,” Mangino said. “He has done a tremendous job. He’s a great disciplinarian, but he’s a compassionate guy. The kids respect him. The level of intensity in the weight room in our offseason workouts has been outstanding.”

Smith said hard work hadn’t been a hard sell with the players.

“The biggest thing I saw when I came in was that we had to change the mentality and work ethic,” he said. “Coach Mangino made it clear to me that he wanted to run a hard-nosed program. The guys have worked very hard doing what I ask them to do. We’ve pushed the kids, and they’ve done a good job of responding.

“They’ve done everything we’ve asked them to do. We’ll take that attitude into spring ball. When summer rolls around, we’ll crank it up again. We’ll go to work, and we’ll work hard and try to improve and be the best team we can be.”

Smith has backed off somewhat during spring drills. The team practices on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; lifts weights on Tuesdays and Thursdays; and scrimmages on Saturdays.

During the summer, the Jayhawks will resume their winter exercise schedule for eight weeks. When the season starts, Smith’s staff will work only two days a week with the varsity players, but they will spend three or four days a week with the red-shirts.

Smith plans to make the most of his time.

“My main purpose is to motivate the kids,” he said. “A work ethic can get you some victories. Everything we do  my staff  we try to make them do it 100 percent, no matter what it is. If you take care of the little things, it’ll take care of the big things.”

Smith’s job should be easier next spring when the $8 million, 42,000-square foot Anderson Family Strength and Conditioning Center is completed on the northwest corner of Anschutz Pavilion.

“That was an influence in me coming here,” he said. “It’s going to be a great opportunity to have a facility like that because it’s going to be state-of-the-art. Once that’s done, you’re not going to find too many facilities that are going to be able to top that. We’ll have 14,000 square feet of working space just on the floor of the weight room.”

The new facility will double the space allotted for weight-lifting equipment in the Shaffer-Holland Strength Center, which is being replaced, on the ground floor and will have a second floor for plyometrics and cardiovascular workouts.

“That will also help in recruiting,” Smith said. “When a young man comes on campus, he’s going to see a great facility.”