KWCH - Kansas News and Weather - "Baby Mangino" Becomes Award Winning Internet Star

"Baby Mangino" Becomes Award Winning Internet Star

He's only 8 months old, yet Bode Lubbers is already famous as an internet superstar.  And all the infant had to do was allow his mother put on an eyeliner mustache and a KU sweat suit.  Then the Wichitan baby had the tough job of channeling his inner Mark Mangino.

As "Baby Mangino," Bode has won the 2008 Sports Human of the Year award on the offbeat sports Web site Deadspin, beating several sports figures, including ESPN's Chris Berman and Erin Andrews and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

Baby Mangino began circulating on the Internet after making his debut on an electronic Halloween card, said his mother, Angie Lubbers.

It's hard to mis Bode's resemblance to KU football's head honco.  The parents got they idea when they found a tiny KU sweatsuit in a Target store.  Lubbers put it on Bode, added the mustache, sent it to 20 friends and family, and an Internet star was born.

None of the 20 has confessed to sending the photo outside the group, Lubbers said.

She said the family has followed the online voting faithfully, and she remains constantly surprised at all the attention, having been interviewed on local Wichita television in addition to the photo's online viral status.

"I keep saying it'll end eventually," she said. "But then it seems like someone else will pick it up."

KU Athletic Department spokesman Jim Marchiony said that while he had seen the photo, and thought it was cute and offbeat, he did not think many others in the athletic department had taken notice.

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By Joe Ballard (WICHITA, Kan.)

All it took was point and shoot and suddenly 6-month-old Bode Lubber is in the national spotlight. His mom, Angie, dressed him up like KU Football Coach Mark Mangino for halloween. Once in the outfit with a drawn on moustache Angie snapped a picture of Bode and sent it on to her friends and family. Lubbers says she thought the costume was pretty funny.

Then days later she started getting phone calls from relatives and friends in St. Loui

s and South Carolina. They were telling her they were seeing pictures of her son on national sports network ESPN. Angie says she assumes the e-mail kept getting forwarded on until the picture wound up on national T.V. Next year Angie doesn't expect to top the "baby mangino" costume.