10/10 — The Manginis now officially can field a basketball team.

Congratulations are in order for Jets head coach Eric Mangini and his wife, Julie, on the birth of their third son. Zack Mangini joined Jake and Luke in the Mangini family at 7:43 this morning. He checks in at a linebacker- or power-forward-like 7 pounds, 13 ounces.

Mangini said Thursday that he plans to be here today to coach the Jets, and that should include his daily news conference scheduled to start at 10:15 a.m. Of course, Mangini was planning to be "at the stadium," or the hospital, at 4 a.m. and "kickoff" (birth) was set for 6 a.m.

But as with these parental matters, schedules change. Coach Mangini will deliver his daily news conference today post-practice, not pre-. We'll keep you posted.

Update, 1:53 p.m. — Mangini just began his news conference today and broke the news not only about Zack's birth but about his interesting middle name. In response to a question from Jane McManus of the Journal News, Mangini revealed:

"Zack's middle name is Brett. Zack Brett Mangini."

And yes, the name comes from the Jets' quarterback.

"The history behind that is that all my kids have middle names that are related to people who have been important to me in my football career," the coach said. "Jake's middle name is Harrison after Rodney Harrison. I really like the name Harrison, and Rodney had a really good year that year."

Luke arrived, Mangini said, "in our transition from the Patriots to the Jets, so Luke's middle name is William, after Bill [Belichick]."

As for Brett Favre, Mangini said, "I really believed Brett would be an instrumental part to another good year, part of my football life, and I would commit to Zack Brett Mangini at that point. That was part of our terms and we stuck with it."

But one thing Mangini didn't commit to was for his third son to be born on Oct. 10, 2008 — which just happens to be Brett Favre's 39th birthday.

"We couldn't have planned that if we wanted to," the coach said. "It's pretty cool that this happened to be on his birthday. I'm not inherently superstitious, but I like the way it fell."

Update, 5:30 p.m. — Favre was asked late in the day about the developments surrounding Zack Brett Mangini and he was obviously amused and honored.

The odds of the child being born the same day as my birthday — I don’t know what the odds are," Favre said. "Eric told me that today was the day and I asked, 'Well, is he still going to be Brett?' He said, 'Yeah, Zack Brett.' I thought it was pretty cool. First off all the odds, in some respects, are a lot like me. What were the odds of me ever coming to the Jets? It is a pretty cool thing."