Kansas University football coach Mark Mangino chuckles at the podium during the final news conference before tonight's Orange Bowl between KU and Virginia Tech.

Miami ? Kansas University football coach Mark Mangino said he was told that roughly 100 friends and family members from New Castle, Pa. are in town to attend tonight’s Orange Bowl game.

The sixth-year Kansas coach seemed almost embarrassed at the fuss that has been made over his success this season.

“I think a lot of my friends back home have had more fun than I’ve had during this run here at Kansas,” Mangino said. “And that’s great. I’m glad to see they’re all taking an interest. It’s had a positive impact on them. Those guys would be my friend if I was out digging a ditch somewhere. It wouldn’t change. It’s just they’re kind of excited it’s one of them, one of their guys that’s having an opportunity to coach in the Big 12, having an opportunity to coach in the Orange Bowl … just kind of excited that somebody from the old neighborhood is doing something that’s getting a little attention.”

Mangino chuckled at the fuss made over a football coach.

“A lot of those guys are successful business men, attorneys, own their own businesses, corporate executives that work just as hard as I do, but for some reason, society’s a little screwed up in that way,” he said.

Mangino’s new-found fame has resulted in more attention being paid to his long hours, and in turn, more respect for the life of a football coach’s wife. Mangino was asked Wednesday morning during the final pregame press conference about his wife Mary Jane’s support.

“I’ve talked about my life story for three months now,” Mangino said. “I’ve talked about every member of my family and what they’ve done. My wife has been fabulous. She comes from a football background. Her brother is a former college quarterback at West Virginia. When she was young, she traveled to all the games in Morgantown, and all the road games. She had been around it all her life. So when she got mixed up with me, she knew what she signed up for. And she’s been great.

“But my wife has made it clear, she has been adamant about this and I agree with her, that we haven’t done anything that’s really unique. There are people now who are doctors, lawyers, business people, journalists, that had to eat bologna sandwiches, lived in crummy apartments, counted change at the gas pump to make sure they got to work, because it was a path to get where they wanted to be.”

Again, Mangino pointed to other professions as deserving of more attention than a football coach.

“Certainly there have been sacrifices and aches and pains,” Mangino said of his career path. “But there are thousands of people who work in jobs that have a real impact on people’s lives that did the same thing that Mary Jane and I did and we don’t read about them in the newspapers.

“There are doctors in hospitals and while they were residents, they slept two hours a night. They’re curing cancer and doing noble things like that. I’m coaching football. It’s a game. … There are people in this world who are changing the way we live with technology. Changing health care. Changing the way we do business. Changing the way we communicate with each other. Those are really important jobs. Coaching football, they shouldn’t put job at the end of my description anyhow. This isn’t a job. My grandfather, he had a job. He worked with a pick and shovel for 40 years on the Pennsylvania railroad. That’s a job.”