Call him Centre County’s Renaissance kid: SJCA's Jack Mangene excels as 3-sport athlete and musician

By the time Jack Mangene arrived at Otto’s Pub and Brewery on Thursday evening with his father, he’d already packed in a full day of activity.

The St. Joseph’s Catholic Academy junior went straight from school to basketball practice before heading home, where he crammed in some studying and dinner in less than two hours ahead of his weekly live music gig with his father, Scott. This is a typical Thursday for Jack.

As his school’s top golfer, one of its best basketball players and its starting shortstop — coupled with his guitar-playing — he may just be Centre County’s Renaissance kid. No matter what sport he’s playing, or whether it’s spring or fall, he doesn’t have much time to catch his breath at home on Thursdays before leaving for Otto’s with his 1969 Harmony guitar.

It seems like he has 48 hours in his day.

“I found out about myself over the years that I don’t like devoting my whole self to one thing specifically throughout my life,” Jack said. “I like to kind of take it in a different direction and kind of devote my whole self at different times to different things.”

Less than three hours after basketball practice ended last Thursday, Jack traded his blue mesh practice jersey for his blue SJCA basketball jacket to perform alongside his father at Otto’s. They warm up at 8:01 p.m. with Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Lodi” like always, while the television on the wall above them is turned off.

Jack confidently sings John Mayer’s “Gravity” at the start of their first set. After the Mangenes play “The Boxer” by Simon & Garfunkel, Scott greets the restaurant patrons.

“It is so nice to be here on this Thursday night,” he said. “I am joined by my son, Jack Mangene, a very talented young man. How are you, Jack?”

On this night, like he does year-round, he’s balancing his commitment to sports, music and academics. Between songs, they talk about his exams scheduled for the next day, including a physics mid-term.

“Are you ready?” Scott asked.

“Yeah, I’m ready,” Jack said.

He’ll study some more when he gets home, then make sure he gets enough sleep ahead of another packed day. But for now, at Otto’s, he can lose himself in the music and relieve some stress.

“Let’s play,” Scott said, and they start their next song.

***

Jack Mangene’s first word was “ball.”

He loved playing sports, and he developed a passion for music from a young age. When he was 6 years old, his father took him golfing at Tussey Mountain’s Par 3 course. Jack played with his youth clubs, and Scott brought a sand wedge. Jack also remembers receiving his first guitar — a Yamaha starter guitar — for Christmas from his father when he was 9 years old. And at about the age of 10, Jack played his first gig with his father on St. Patrick’s Day.

“For some odd reason, he made the best parenting decision ever,” Jack said.

Sitting next to his son in a booth at Otto’s last Thursday, Scott smiled.

“Oh my gosh, it was out there,” he said.

Scott needed to learn 20 Irish drinking songs for St. Patrick’s Day gigs, so he played them repeatedly in his car that winter during trips across the state for Jack’s basketball games. Jack memorized the songs and learned how to sing the harmonies, which were in his vocal range. He went with his father to his 4 p.m. gig at the Ale House, where he played his viola and sang Irish drinking songs for an hour.

“We were a gigantic hit,” said Scott, who gave his son the tips that day and still gives him the tips from their gigs. “That was definitely a gig where people were just kind of floored that this young kid was able to do what he was able to do.”

He put on a show as an athlete at a young age, too.

SJCA teammate Ryan Peachey recalls how Jack was unstoppable in youth flag football. “Even then, he was two, three steps ahead of everybody all the time,” Peachey said after Wolves’ basketball practice Thursday. Matthew Steyers, another SJCA teammate, remembers Jack getting on base seemingly every at-bat during one of their travel baseball tournaments. “He was batting like .800,” Steyers said.

He’s continued to wow his Wolves’ teammates over the years.

***

At St. Joseph’s, they jokingly refer to Mangene as the “Jack of all trades.”

Jack is the Wolves’ best golfer who uses a set of Ping Eye 2 golf clubs his father bought in 1988. He’s a relentless source of energy on the basketball court who can drop 20 points on any given night. He’s the baseball team’s steady shortstop who swings a 33-inch, 30-ounce bat. And he’s the musician who plays the guitar at school mass and sings in the school’s a cappella choir.

“He’s a Renaissance man,” SJCA athletic director Chad Walsh said. “I don’t know if there’s anything that he can’t do.”

But he still routinely impresses his teammates, coaches and parents while leading the Wolves and performing — one of the Wolves’ JV basketball players even showed up to support Jack at his gig at Otto’s last Thursday, waving as he walked in during the first song of the night.

This past golf season, in the team’s first match against Bald Eagle Area at Skytop Mountain Golf Club, Jack crushed his tee shot to the green on the Par-4 No. 1 hole to set up a 20-foot eagle putt. Jack shot a career-best 71 that day in the Wolves’ win and went on to finish second individually in District 6 to help SJCA capture its first district championship. Opposing coaches and parents went from wondering “Who’s this kid?” when they first saw him to knowing who he was at future matches.

On the basketball court as a freshman, he was the team’s best left-handed finisher. Jack — who swings left-handed in baseball and right-handed on the golf course — has only improved at getting to the rim as he’s added strength. And he is one of the team’s leaders with his intensity and communication on the defensive end.

“People respect him a lot,” SJCA basketball teammate Carl Engstrom said. “His work ethic is second to none.”

The 6-foot-1 forward outworks his opponents to pull down rebound after rebound every night. He uses his strength, quickness and positioning to battle on the boards, but it starts with his all-out approach.

“It’s Dennis Rodman. It’s the fact that, ‘I just want it more than the other team wants it,’” SJCA coach Richard Ciambotti said. “I can’t compare anybody I’ve ever seen or coached from a rebounding standpoint.”

His teammates said they play with confidence alongside Jack. He may be their peer, but they look up to him.

“He’s one of those guys that when he’s on the court or the field or the golf course, you know he’s there,” Peachey said. “He has such a presence.”

***

Jack decided this year that golf will be his primary sport after his breakout season. He’s planning to dedicate his summer to golf, but he’s also committed to playing his senior year of basketball and baseball at St. Joseph’s.

He believes being well-rounded is more important than focusing on one sport.

“I love basketball too much,” Jack said. “I love golf too much. I love baseball too much. I love playing the guitar.”

The laid-back, but hardworking kid has made an impression on his classmates at St. Joseph’s. Steyers said he’s always happy and smiling when he’s around Jack. Ciambotti said everybody gravitates to Jack, adding that the junior balances a fun-loving approach with being serious. And his mother, Dani, takes pride in his ability to set and achieve even the smallest goals.

“Last year, Jack decided that he was going to learn how to whistle, and he literally whistled for three months straight,” Dani said. “He drove us all insane.

“And that’s a true story. I am not lying. It’s insane, but that’s just how he is. He decides he wants to do something, and he does it.”

That focus serves him well throughout the year as an athlete. He seems to play with an endless energy supply on the basketball court, where he relishes the competing with an opponent every trip down the floor. And he attacks his schedule with the same attitude, going from practice to playing at a gig at Otto’s to studying for a test.

“I don’t know how he has time in the day. I really don’t,” Ciambotti said. “I remember growing up with kids who did the same sort of thing and saying, ‘This kid must have 48 hours in his day to be able to do all the different things.’”

***

With the clock ticking closer to 10 p.m., after a patron drops more money into the pitcher doubling as a tip jar, Scott Mangene tells his son their next song will be their last of the night.

“Then you got to go study,” Scott said. “You got work to do. No encores today, Jack. We got to tear this stuff down, and we’re getting home.”

They finish playing to applause at 10:02 p.m. — completing a night that included songs by Tom Petty, Neil Young and The Lumineers, among others — and Jack soon places his guitar in its case. He collects his tip money from another night playing alongside his father, an activity that has taken the place of their daily games of catch during Jack’s Little League days. There are 16 people left where the Mangenes played at Otto’s for the past two hours. Jack and Scott take down the microphone stands and wind up their cords to pack their equipment away. With a backpack hanging over his shoulder and his guitar in hand, Jack walks outside into the rain at 10:13 p.m. and heads home with his father.

His day isn’t quite over. He still has some studying to do.

“It’s all worth it,” Jack said. “This is definitely worth staying up a couple extra hours.”

This story was originally published January 16, 2018 at 8:26 PM with the headline "Call him Centre County’s Renaissance kid: SJCA's Jack Mangene excels as 3-sport athlete and musician."