Mickey Mangham
Encyclopedia
Michael Ray "Mickey" Mangham (August 25, 1939 – September 16, 2010) was an American football
player for the LSU Tigers
from 1958 to 1960. He played at the end position on both offense and defense and was selected as an Academic All-America
and All-SEC
player. He is most remembered for catching the winning touchdown pass in the Sugar Bowl
on January 1, 1959, to give LSU the national championship for the 1958 college football season
.
. His mother was the former Louise Ratliff (1913–2005). His father, Francis Ray "Fanny" Mangham (1911–1981), had played basketball
and football for Louisiana Tech University
in Ruston
. He enrolled without an athletic scholarship and played as a walk-on for the freshman football team in 1957. When LSU's head coach Paul Dietzel
asked the freshman coach how the freshman ends were doing, he was told, "Not so good, but this Mangham is looking good." Dietzel heard the story so often that he put Mangham on scholarship.
In 1958, Coach Dietzel played Mangham, then a 6-foot, 1-inch, 190-pound sophomore, in the first two games of the season against Rice and Alabama
. Mangham played so well he became a starter. He helped lead the 1958 LSU Tigers football team
to a perfect 12-0 record and the national championship. He scored LSU's only touchdown on a nine-yard pass from College Football Hall of Fame
r Billy Cannon
in its 7-0 win over Clemson
in the 1959 Sugar Bowl
.
As a junior, Mangham was a starter for the 1959 LSU Tigers football team
that compiled a 9-2 record, finished the season ranked No. 3 in the AP and Coaches poll, and lost to Ole Miss, 21-0, in the 1960 Sugar Bowl
. At the conclusion of the 1959 season, Mangham was selected by a vote of the nation's sports writers to the 1959 first-team Academic All-America
team. He was a three-year starter for LSU, playing on both defense and offense. At the start of the 1960 season, one Louisiana newspaper profiled Mangham as follows:
Mangham concluded his college football career playing in two post-season all-star games. He played for the South team in the 1960 Blue–Gray Football Classic in Montgomery, Alabama
. Mangham scored the only touchdown of the game for the South on a 16-yard touchdown pass from future All-Pro quarterback, Norm Snead
. The following week, he played for the East team in the 1961 Hula Bowl
in Honolulu, Hawaii
. Mangham was injured early in the game, and Pittsburgh end Mike Ditka
was required to play in his place.
In September 1961, Coach Dietzel praised Mangham. Dietzel noted that Mangham had "played every down on defense for us the last two years," and said that replacing him was one of his "toughest problems" for the 1961 season.
. In 1966, he procured a law degree from LSU Law School
. He served as chairman of LSU's Tiger Athletic Foundation during the 1990s. He worked as an oil-and-gas
attorney in the Acadiana
region of Louisiana until his death.
On September 16, 2010, Mangham died of a heart attack
at his home in Lafayette
.
He was married to the former Melinda Waller. Services were held on September 18 at the Episcopal
Church of the Ascension in Lafayette.
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
player for the LSU Tigers
LSU Tigers football
The LSU Tigers football team, also known as the Fighting Tigers or Bayou Bengals, represents Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States in NCAA Division I FBS college football. Current head coach Les Miles has led the team since 2005. Since 1999 when Nick Saban took over as...
from 1958 to 1960. He played at the end position on both offense and defense and was selected as an Academic All-America
Academic All-America
Academic All-America program is a student-athlete recognition program...
and All-SEC
Southeastern Conference
The Southeastern Conference is an American college athletic conference that operates in the southeastern part of the United States. It is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama...
player. He is most remembered for catching the winning touchdown pass in the Sugar Bowl
1959 Sugar Bowl
The 1959 edition to the Sugar Bowl featured the top ranked LSU Tigers, and the 12th ranked Clemson Tigers. This game was one of the classic Sugar Bowl games, as LSU won its first ever national championship....
on January 1, 1959, to give LSU the national championship for the 1958 college football season
1958 college football season
The 1958 college football season was the first to feature the two point conversion. On January 13, 1958, the 11-man NCAA Rules Committee unanimously approved a resolution to allow teams to choose between kicking an extra point after a touchdown, or running or passing from the 3 yard line for 2...
.
Football star at LSU
Mangham came to LSU from Kensington, MarylandKensington, Maryland
Kensington is a town in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. The population was 1,873 at the 2000 census. Greater Kensington encompasses the entire 20895 zip code and its population is an order of magnitude larger than that of the town at its center....
. His mother was the former Louise Ratliff (1913–2005). His father, Francis Ray "Fanny" Mangham (1911–1981), had played basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
and football for Louisiana Tech University
Louisiana Tech University
Louisiana Tech University, often referred to as Louisiana Tech, LA Tech, or Tech, is a coeducational public research university located in Ruston, Louisiana. Louisiana Tech is designated as a Tier 1 school in the national universities category by the 2012 U.S. News & World Report college rankings...
in Ruston
Ruston, Louisiana
Ruston is a city in and the parish seat of Lincoln Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 20,546 at the 2000 census. Ruston is near the eastern border of the Ark-La-Tex and is the home of Louisiana Tech University. Its economy caters to its college population...
. He enrolled without an athletic scholarship and played as a walk-on for the freshman football team in 1957. When LSU's head coach Paul Dietzel
Paul Dietzel
Paul Dietzel is a former American football player, coach, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head coach at Louisiana State University , the United States Military Academy , and the University of South Carolina , compiling a career record of 109–95–5...
asked the freshman coach how the freshman ends were doing, he was told, "Not so good, but this Mangham is looking good." Dietzel heard the story so often that he put Mangham on scholarship.
In 1958, Coach Dietzel played Mangham, then a 6-foot, 1-inch, 190-pound sophomore, in the first two games of the season against Rice and Alabama
Alabama Crimson Tide football
|TeamName = Alabama football |Image = Alabama Crimson Tide Logo.svg |ImageSize = 110 |Helmet = Alabama Football.png |ImageSize2 = 150 |CurrentSeason = 2011 Alabama Crimson Tide football team...
. Mangham played so well he became a starter. He helped lead the 1958 LSU Tigers football team
1958 LSU Tigers football team
The 1958 LSU Tigers segregated football team represented Louisiana State University during the 1958 college football season. Under head coach Paul Dietzel, the Tigers cruised to an undefeated season capped by a win over Clemson in the Sugar Bowl...
to a perfect 12-0 record and the national championship. He scored LSU's only touchdown on a nine-yard pass from College Football Hall of Fame
College Football Hall of Fame
The College Football Hall of Fame is a hall of fame and museum devoted to college football. Located in South Bend, Indiana, it is connected to a convention center and situated in the city's renovated downtown district, two miles south of the University of Notre Dame campus. It is slated to move...
r Billy Cannon
Billy Cannon
William Abb "Billy" Cannon is an All-American, 1959 Heisman Trophy winner and 2008 inductee into the College Football Hall of Fame from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and one of the American Football League's most celebrated players.He was born in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and moved...
in its 7-0 win over Clemson
Clemson Tigers football
The Clemson Tigers football team is an American football team from Clemson University in South Carolina. It competes in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision and the Atlantic Division of the Atlantic Coast Conference...
in the 1959 Sugar Bowl
1959 Sugar Bowl
The 1959 edition to the Sugar Bowl featured the top ranked LSU Tigers, and the 12th ranked Clemson Tigers. This game was one of the classic Sugar Bowl games, as LSU won its first ever national championship....
.
As a junior, Mangham was a starter for the 1959 LSU Tigers football team
1959 LSU Tigers football team
The 1959 LSU Tigers football team represented Louisiana State University in the 1959 college football season. The Tigers were coached by Paul Dietzel and were the defending national champions.-Pre-season:...
that compiled a 9-2 record, finished the season ranked No. 3 in the AP and Coaches poll, and lost to Ole Miss, 21-0, in the 1960 Sugar Bowl
1960 Sugar Bowl
The 1960 edition to the Sugar Bowl featured the 2nd ranked Ole Miss Rebels, and the third ranked LSU Tigers. LSU was the defending national champions, playing in their home state....
. At the conclusion of the 1959 season, Mangham was selected by a vote of the nation's sports writers to the 1959 first-team Academic All-America
Academic All-America
Academic All-America program is a student-athlete recognition program...
team. He was a three-year starter for LSU, playing on both defense and offense. At the start of the 1960 season, one Louisiana newspaper profiled Mangham as follows:
"During the past two seasons, Mangham, a 6-1, 202-pound senior from Kensington, Md., has been one of the Tigers' top defensive players, and enters the 1960 campaign with all-star recommendations. He was a pre-season All-Southeastern ConferenceSoutheastern ConferenceThe Southeastern Conference is an American college athletic conference that operates in the southeastern part of the United States. It is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama...
selection, and has the size, speed and experience to live up to that billing."
Mangham concluded his college football career playing in two post-season all-star games. He played for the South team in the 1960 Blue–Gray Football Classic in Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery is the capital of the U.S. state of Alabama, and is the county seat of Montgomery County. It is located on the Alabama River southeast of the center of the state, in the Gulf Coastal Plain. As of the 2010 census, Montgomery had a population of 205,764 making it the second-largest city...
. Mangham scored the only touchdown of the game for the South on a 16-yard touchdown pass from future All-Pro quarterback, Norm Snead
Norm Snead
Norman Bailey Snead is a former American football quarterback in the National Football League for the Washington Redskins, Philadelphia Eagles, Minnesota Vikings, New York Giants, and San Francisco 49ers. He played college football for Wake Forest University and was drafted in the first round of...
. The following week, he played for the East team in the 1961 Hula Bowl
Hula Bowl
The Hula Bowl was an independently administered post-season invitational college football game held each year in Hawaii from 1947 to 2008. The game was last played at Aloha Stadium in the Hālawa district of Honolulu, Hawaii. At one point the longest-running sporting event in Hawaii, it had been...
in Honolulu, Hawaii
Honolulu, Hawaii
Honolulu is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii. Honolulu is the southernmost major U.S. city. Although the name "Honolulu" refers to the urban area on the southeastern shore of the island of Oahu, the city and county government are consolidated as the City and...
. Mangham was injured early in the game, and Pittsburgh end Mike Ditka
Mike Ditka
Michael Keller Ditka, Jr. is a former American football NFL player, television commentator, and coach. Ditka coached the Chicago Bears for 11 years and New Orleans Saints for three years. Ditka and Tom Flores are the only two people to win Super Bowls as a player, an assistant coach, and a head...
was required to play in his place.
In September 1961, Coach Dietzel praised Mangham. Dietzel noted that Mangham had "played every down on defense for us the last two years," and said that replacing him was one of his "toughest problems" for the 1961 season.
Later years
Mangham graduated in 1962 from LSU with a degree in petroleum engineeringPetroleum engineering
Petroleum engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the activities related to the production of hydrocarbons, which can be either crude oil or natural gas. Subsurface activities are deemed to fall within the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry, which are the activities of...
. In 1966, he procured a law degree from LSU Law School
Paul M. Hebert Law Center
The Paul M. Hebert Law Center is a law school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, part of the Louisiana State University System and located on the main campus of Louisiana State University....
. He served as chairman of LSU's Tiger Athletic Foundation during the 1990s. He worked as an oil-and-gas
Natural gas
Natural gas is a naturally occurring gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, typically with 0–20% higher hydrocarbons . It is found associated with other hydrocarbon fuel, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is an important fuel source and a major feedstock for fertilizers.Most natural...
attorney in the Acadiana
Acadiana
Acadiana, or The Heart of Acadiana, is the official name given to the French Louisiana region that is home to a large Francophone population. Of the 64 parishes that make up Louisiana, 22 named parishes and other parishes of similar cultural environment, make up the intrastate...
region of Louisiana until his death.
On September 16, 2010, Mangham died of a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
at his home in Lafayette
Lafayette, Louisiana
Lafayette is a city in and the parish seat of Lafayette Parish, Louisiana, United States, on the Vermilion River. The population was 120,623 at the 2010 census...
.
He was married to the former Melinda Waller. Services were held on September 18 at the Episcopal
Episcopal Church (United States)
The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...
Church of the Ascension in Lafayette.