HARTFORD, Conn. -- Eric Mangini stood before his team, megaphone to mouth, preaching some of the core beliefs he espoused during his "Mangenius" days a decade ago with the New York Jets. He talked about teamwork and selflessness, with his amplified words carrying across a crowded football field.
On this day, Mangini's team consisted of about 700 players -- the participants in his annual youth football camp. Every June, he returns to his alma mater, Bulkeley High School, for a one-day camp. It started in 2002, when he was an anonymous assistant coach for the New England Patriots. He changed teams three times, but he kept coming back. Even now, without a job in the NFL, he came back Saturday, still hoping to make a difference in his community.
The camp has been the one constant in a career marked by upheaval. Mangini has experienced extreme highs (he led the Jets to the playoffs in his first season, 2006) and extreme lows (fired by the Jets and Cleveland Browns in a span of two years). He got back in as a San Francisco 49ers assistant, and now he's looking at his second straight year out of the league.
The coaching bug remains in his system, as it should. He's still only 46 and, even though things ended badly with the Jets, he's an intelligent coach with a lot to offer. There are players who hated his heavy-handed coaching style who will admit he was the smartest coach they ever had.
"Coaching, yeah, I'm still interested in that, but I'm also interested in other things I can try, too," Mangini told ESPN.
Personally, I think Mangini would be terrific in personnel, evaluating talent. People tend to forget it was Mangini and general manager Mike Tannenbaum who built the talent base that resulted in back-to-back appearances in the AFC Championship Game under Rex Ryan. Mangini was responsible for Nick Mangold, D'Brickashaw Ferguson, Leon Washington, Thomas Jones, Mike DeVito, Damien Woody, Darrelle Revis and David Harris, who's still on the team.
"I was sad when they let go of Nick and Revis," Mangini said.
He has a good eye for talent, admitting "it would be really intriguing" to work in a front office. Mangini's team-building was on display in 2008, when the Jets jumped to an 8-3 start and were considered a Super Bowl contender. On paper, it was arguably their best team of the last two decades, but they collapsed and finished 9-7, resulting in Mangini's midnight firing.
"I loved that experience and I'm proud of what we did there," he said. "I know when I left there, that team was really good and they were disciplined and they had high character and they knew how to work. If we had one less injury that year, things would be really different."
He was referring, of course, to Brett Favre, who played down the stretch with a torn biceps tendon -- and it showed. Badly. If he had remained healthy, the Jets would've competed for a championship. The following January, the Jets were in the AFC title game, Favre was in the NFC title game with the Minnesota Vikings and Mangini -- coming off a 5-11 season in Cleveland -- was watching from Disney World on a vacation.
"That's football," he said, smiling.
Mangini won't cop to bitterness, but he clearly felt his program was on the rise when owner Woody Johnson decided to fire him. Professionally, he hasn't been able to recapture the mojo from '06, when he was hailed as one of the bright young coaches in the league. He was so popular that he landed a cameo on "The Sopranos," appearing as himself as a dinner guest at Artie Bucco's restaurant.
"Tone, you know who's in tonight?" Bucco asks Tony Soprano on the iconic HBO series. "Mangenius."
That was 10 years ago. Mangenius is long gone, but he's still a pretty big deal on Wethersfield Aveneue in Hartford, where every June a few hundred kids -- many of them underprivileged -- get a full day of football and NFL coaching.