Nick Mangold’s sister, Holley Mangold, is a weightlifter who will compete at the London Olympics this summer. Nick won’t be there to see her, but not because the Jets won’t let him leave during training camp.
Nick said on NFL Network that Jets coach Rex Ryan offered him the chance to miss a few days of training camp to travel to London to cheer his sister on, just as the Jaguars are allowing cornerback Aaron Ross to miss time at training camp to watch his Olympic sprinter wife. But Nick didn’t think it would be right to take a vacation while his teammates were sweating through the summer heat.
“God bless Rex because he did offer it to me, but I don’t think I can leave my guys in the middle of training camp,” Mangold said. “But we’ll figure out a way to watch, and I’m real excited and real proud for her. Somehow, some way, I’ll watch it. But I don’t know if I can do the jump over the pond in the middle of training camp.”
At 5-foot-9 and 350 pounds, Holley Mangold is seven inches shorter and 43 pounds heavier than Nick. She recently told the Los Angeles Times that she’s proud to be built like an offensive lineman, which she was in high school.
“I’m huge,” Holley Mangold said. “I love my body. I think it’s perfect. I don’t know what my personality would be like if I wasn’t so huge.”
Holley is huge enough that she qualified for the Olympics by clean and jerking 319 pounds. But no matter how huge Holley gets, Nick made a point of saying on NFL Network that he’s stronger than she is.
