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Kirk Mango surprised the gymnastics world in the late 1970s when he went from a non-state qualifier as a high school junior at Willowbrook to winning the still rings national championship as a senior at Northern Illinois.
But the Villa Park native and longtime Downers Grove South teacher and former coach received a big surprise himself late this spring as he earned the No. 8 spot on Northern Illinois’ list of 50 top Huskie athletes of all time.
“I was in shock when I got the call, especially when I found out some of the guys who were behind me,” Mango said. “A guy just drafted in the first round of the NFL draft, Larry English, he’s No. 19, and there are several NFL and NBA players on the list. Then there I am somehow at No. 8.”
Besides English, Mango ranked ahead of current NFL running backs Garrett Wolfe (No. 9) and Michael Turner (No. 14), ex-NBA players Kenny Battle (No. 15, who finished his career at Illinois) and Paul Dawkins (No. 36), and three other NFL standouts past and present in Ryan Diem (a lineman on the Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts who was 46th), retired two-time All-Pro punter Tom Wittum (48th) and wide receiver Justin McCareins (No. 50).
“I was honored but surprised to be ahead of guys like that,” Mango said. “And No. 6 on the list (ex-NFL running back LeShon Johnson) was a Heisman Trophy candidate at Northern.”
Besides Mango, another local Huskies’ legend on the list is Downers Grove resident Jerry Zielinski, an ex-Northern Illinois basketball star who is 34th.
“The tough thing for me was that there were a lot of great gymnasts on our team (at Northern Illinois), so I was a little disappointed that I was the only gymnast on the list,” Mango said. “There are guys just as deserving, especially our head coach Chuck Ehrlich and Mike Burke (a national champion on pommel horse). We were the best athletic program at NIU at the time, which was a credit to Chuck. It’s a shame he’s not in there.”
But Mango is deserving of endless praise and top-10 status, just as an example of perseverance and hard work paying off in championship glory.
Becoming the best
“At conference junior year (for Willowbrook) I was not very good,” Mango said. “I was 35th out of 50 on still rings in the conference, a 5.7 ringsman. But in that meet I saw Tom Ware (from Addison Trail) doing things on the event as good as I had ever seen an Olympian do them. That became my motivation. I wanted to do it just like that.”
Kirk Mango surprised the gymnastics world in the late 1970s when he went from a non-state qualifier as a high school junior at Willowbrook to winning the still rings national championship as a senior at Northern Illinois.
But the Villa Park native and longtime Downers Grove South teacher and former coach received a big surprise himself late this spring as he earned the No. 8 spot on Northern Illinois’ list of 50 top Huskie athletes of all time.
“I was in shock when I got the call, especially when I found out some of the guys who were behind me,” Mango said. “A guy just drafted in the first round of the NFL draft, Larry English, he’s No. 19, and there are several NFL and NBA players on the list. Then there I am somehow at No. 8.”
Besides English, Mango ranked ahead of current NFL running backs Garrett Wolfe (No. 9) and Michael Turner (No. 14), ex-NBA players Kenny Battle (No. 15, who finished his career at Illinois) and Paul Dawkins (No. 36), and three other NFL standouts past and present in Ryan Diem (a lineman on the Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts who was 46th), retired two-time All-Pro punter Tom Wittum (48th) and wide receiver Justin McCareins (No. 50).
“I was honored but surprised to be ahead of guys like that,” Mango said. “And No. 6 on the list (ex-NFL running back LeShon Johnson) was a Heisman Trophy candidate at Northern.”
Besides Mango, another local Huskies’ legend on the list is Downers Grove resident Jerry Zielinski, an ex-Northern Illinois basketball star who is 34th.
“The tough thing for me was that there were a lot of great gymnasts on our team (at Northern Illinois), so I was a little disappointed that I was the only gymnast on the list,” Mango said. “There are guys just as deserving, especially our head coach Chuck Ehrlich and Mike Burke (a national champion on pommel horse). We were the best athletic program at NIU at the time, which was a credit to Chuck. It’s a shame he’s not in there.”
But Mango is deserving of endless praise and top-10 status, just as an example of perseverance and hard work paying off in championship glory.
Becoming the best
“At conference junior year (for Willowbrook) I was not very good,” Mango said. “I was 35th out of 50 on still rings in the conference, a 5.7 ringsman. But in that meet I saw Tom Ware (from Addison Trail) doing things on the event as good as I had ever seen an Olympian do them. That became my motivation. I wanted to do it just like that.”
Mango actually did it even better. Senior Ware took second at state that year, while in 1975 Mango incredibly scored a 9.25 on rings at the state meet to take first place. Ironically, he would go on to join Ware as standout rings specialists at NIU.
“I told my coach (at Willowbrook) after junior year that I wanted to win a state championship, and he was looking at me like I was off my rocker,” Mango joked. “It was like it was impossible to achieve.”
Mango kept ringing up success through college, advancing to nationals three times. He was 13th as a freshman and second as a junior before winning the NCAA rings championship as a senior in 1979.
“I was second as a junior by one-tenth of a point, but you basically can’t make any errors,” he said. “You’ve got to learn to handle pressure. On a dismount if you go one step, you might drop from first place to sixth or seventh, right off the podium.”
Several top gymnasts Mango competed against in college (Indiana State’s Kurt Thomas, Nebraska’s Jim Hartung and Oklahoma’s Bart Conner) went on to the Olympics, and Thomas and Hartung were second and third behind Mango in the 1979 NCAA still ring finals.
A new chapter
With Olympic team eligibility limited to all-arounders, rings specialist Mango’s competitive career essentially ended. But he has put the same passion into education, coaching and a book he wrote a few years ago, “Becoming A True Champion.”
The book recaps Mango’s amazing emergence, and is filled with motivational messages from one who has defied the odds.
“You are the one who controls your destiny,” Mango said. “You have so much control over what you become. Find something you are passionate about, whether it’s science, playing the piano, chess, whatever, and don’t let anything stand in your way. That’s my philosophy on life.
“I teach 300 to 400 kids a year, and it’s sad to me because there is more potential there than what a lot of them see.”
As a girls gymnastics coach at Downers South, Mango coached the Mustangs to three top-eight finishes at state (including his final year, 1992), and 1991 vault champion StephTanie Grygiel remains the only state title individual gymnast in Downers South history.
Mango has since spent short stints as an assistant boys and girls volleyball coach at Downers South.
A 2000 selection to the NIU Hall of Fame, Mango has seen both the positive and negative impact of Title IX gender equity requirements on college athletics.
Two of his daughters earned Division I scholarships (the oldest in soccer at Marquette, the youngest to play volleyball at Louisville), but he also saw his alma mater forced discontinue its men’s gymnastics program due to Title IX’s fiscal constraints.
“My rings record (at NIU) will stand forever, which is kind of bad in a way,” said Mango, a Naperville resident. “There are probably 25 or 30 schools in the country that still have (men’s gymnastics),” Mango said, “and when I was in college every school had it. That was probably the heyday for college gymnastics.
“Opportunities are there for girls that weren’t there in the 1970s, and those are opportunities they should have always had. But I don’t think Title IX was put in place to do what it’s done, that, ‘OK, we need girls sports, so cut boys sports.’
“I have mixed emotions,” Mango added. “I hate seeing any athlete not having an opportunity to compete at the top level. If you’re the best in high school, you should have the same opportunity beyond just football and a few other sports.”
As a former NCAA still rings champion, Mango has also seen his event change.
“There’s more emphasis on strength now,” Mango said. “When I was competing it (judging) was 60 percent swing and technique, 40 percent strength. Now it’s 70 percent strength, and with strength there aren’t a lot of technical things involved.”
The lasting memories
While men’s gymnastics is gone from Northern Illinois, Mango’s spot as the school’s eighth greatest athlete will keep the program alive in the history books. And one night back in 1979 will remain unforgettable as well.
“Aside from nationals, regional championships my senior year stands out as the biggest meet of my college career,” Mango recalled. “It was hugely publicized in Chicago because Kurt Thomas was there, and I don’t know how many people were packed into our fieldhouse. We had the band, cheerleaders. It was unbelievable.”
Mango and his teammates left as champions that night, and his winning attitude and perspective on success continues to this day.
“It’s not about medals, but the process to get there and to get the most out of yourself,” Mango said.
