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No, Mike Leach, YOU'RE awesome! [Pirates Last Voyage]

Parliament

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Kavinsky
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It was spring semester of my soph year at tech and I was at the rec center swimming laps.  I pulled up the deck, sat up and removed my goggles. Then the guy in the lane next to me asks "how far d

strangulation!
strangulation!

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SamMan
SamMan

This is fucking sad. I’ve always respected Coach Leach for what he has achieved on and off the field; his willingness to speak his mind; his aversion to what everybody else would deem “normal” for a m

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billfromlaketravis

billfromlaketravis 11817

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I admire people that don't give a shit and do their own thing. I feared Leach while he was at Tech. His offense was groundbreaking, and a giant thorn in our sides. 

I grew quite fond of him when he left Tech. I enjoyed the hell out of him trolling aggy at every opportunity. 

The sports world won't be the same without him. 

RIP Pirate. If Heaven is anything like Key West, I hope you're there. 

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Parliament

Parliament 14593

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Not sure if this one has been posted.  He talks about all the money he borrowed to pay for law school.  Borrowed $45k (alotta money back then) went to coaching and had no chance to pay it back.  Quote" "$45k or $45M, what's the difference?  I can't pay either."  So when he was coaching in Iowa, he took a class every semester so they wouldn't call for payment.  At one point, he told a loan collector he was gonna run to Mexico.

ETA

He didn't get them all paid off until his 2nd year at TTU.  

 

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markstanco

markstanco 12786

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Man I hope every jersey says Leach above the numbers on the back. That would be so kick ass.

And F Tech for firing him. They better stay low and say nothing. Trash school for sticking up for that dirtbag entitled son of Craig James. They will never again be in a place like they were with leach. They did it to themselves.

L
O
L

Enjoy being SMU for eternity.
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HeHateMe

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Met Coach Leach when I took an official to UK in 1998.  He struck me as odd but very knowledgeable at the time.  I played defense so our interactions were limited and they were playing South Carolina that weekend, so he had more important things to worry about.  I roomed with Jared Lorenzen on that trip and he was beyond excited to play for the guy.  It wasn’t until he got to Tech that I started to appreciate his genius.  The CFB world won’t even begin to understand the contributions he made to the game for another 10-15 years.  He literally changed the game and I feel for his family and every player who was privileged enough to have him lead them.  RIP coach, the world was better with you but the game thanks you!

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MalibuSheriff

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On 12/17/2022 at 6:35 PM, Parliament said:

Not sure if this one has been posted.  He talks about all the money he borrowed to pay for law school.  Borrowed $45k (alotta money back then) went to coaching and had no chance to pay it back.  Quote" "$45k or $45M, what's the difference?  I can't pay either."  So when he was coaching in Iowa, he took a class every semester so they wouldn't call for payment.  At one point, he told a loan collector he was gonna run to Mexico.

ETA

He didn't get them all paid off until his 2nd year at TTU.  

 

Gold!

”Those are some of the biggest pricks on Earth.  The fact that they work there I mean that they are relatively disgusting people.  They’re the type that aspire to be dog catchers are something like that.”

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HamsterHookah

HamsterHookah 112

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Just read this anecdote from David Epstein. RIP Pirate King:

I had the pleasure of joining Mike and a few others for a meal in 2019, following the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. The final panel of the conference featured Michael Lewis — author of Moneyball, The Big Short, and other books — interviewing Mike Leach. Leach was digressive (my kind of guy!) and hilarious.

Here’s the story that ended the panel:

One season, while Leach was coaching Texas Tech, the team was having kicking troubles. Not just missing field goals, but also extra points, which are usually perfunctory. Leach said that the team had a powerful, highly recruited kicker who could “damn near bust the windows on the offices in the end zone of the stadium,” but he wasn’t handling the pressure of the college game well. A second kicker wasn’t working out, either. 

As it happened, an early-season game against Massachusetts featured a promotion in which a spectator pulled out of the stands had an opportunity to win a few months of free rent by kicking a 30-yard field goal. That day, the kid whose name was chosen from a signup sheet was an education major who took a step or two and calmly drained it. Leach sent a staff member to grab the kid as he walked back to the stands. And that’s how Ed Lynnwood became the Texas Tech kicker. 

An important thing to know about Ed Lynnwood is that his name wasn’t Ed Lynnwood. Leach liked the name “Ed” because it was easy to remember and quick to say. And Lynnwood Townhomes had sponsored the win-a-month-of-rent contest, so Leach just named his kicker Ed Lynnwood. (His real name was Matt Williams. And he had to forgo the free rent in order to join the team, presumably because it would have been an impermissible benefit for a college athlete.) 

Leach described Lynnwood’s personality as “a little like Jeff Spicoli on ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High,’ which is kind of what I was looking for out of a kicker.” He told Lynnwood that they were preparing to play 10th-ranked Kansas, at Kansas. “Look, we want you to kick extra points this game. How do you feel about that?” Leach recalled asking. 

“Good,” he recalled Lynnwood replying. “Shouldn’t be too hard. It’s only three yards…well, I guess there’s the ten for the end zone, but it’s only about three yards. I’ll probably make all of them. I’m human, I’m not perfect. I might miss one, but I’m not going to miss very many. I’m probably going to make all of them.”

Leach: “Well, there’ll be a bunch of people there yelling and stuff. Does that bother you?”

Lynnwood: “Nah I don’t think it will, because I’ll just take my steps, and, ya know…”

When the Kansas game rolled around, and Texas Tech was getting close to scoring its first touchdown, several coaches noticed that Lynnwood wasn’t warming up. One by one, they started alerting him that he might want to begin warming up. 

“I got this, don’t worry about it,” Leach remembered Lynnwood saying. And then another concerned coach approached him. “I’m fine,” he said.

And then, Leach said, a third coach approached him. Lynnwood got exasperated. “It’s only three yards!” 

Texas Tech ended up trouncing Kansas, 63-21, which meant there were a lot of extra points. “Ol’ Lynnwood hit nine of those suckers,” Leach said. “So then they left him alone after that.” 

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Bevo&Pevo

Bevo&Pevo 5517

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On 12/20/2022 at 10:47 PM, Modessit said:

If you missed the memorial service and want to watch it:

https://www.wsaz.com/video/2022/12/20/watch-msu-hosts-memorial-service-football-legend-mike-leach/

Wow, what a watch.  So many great speakers I thought Gabe Marks was going to break down.  Will Rogers and Dave Emerick were also good.  The game ball to Wayne or Wade Sims was a thrill.  You could tell it meant a lot to everyone who got to be a part of that.  Yea, Mike was a 1 of 1.   I'm glad I took the time to watch it.  Thanks for posting.

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Welshy

Welshy 914

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5 minutes ago, EastTexan said:

Would have been about how important it is to practice lateral offense and how to defend. 

I miss the Pirate.

Yeah...or maybe rating Kolaches in the breakfast heirarchy. Maybe debating if naan was actually bread.

Much of his genius was his tacit understanding that football was no more or less important than debating the merits of candycorn.

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msucolt45

msucolt45 4227

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It’s karma that MSU’s last game in 2022 had a Pirate ship in the End Zone.

I appreciate everything that Mike Leach meant and brought to college football, even though he was on the opposite sideline of my team over the years. He was a unique “treasure chest” of everything involved!

Hookem!!!

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Francisco 2.0

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The Athletic is running a 2 part story; here's the premise and Part 1:

Quote

Mike Leach was one of college football’s greatest offensive minds — and one of the sport’s greatest characters. The Athletic called more than 25 of his former players, coaches and staff with a simple request: Share your “top-shelf” Mike Leach stories.

That was the easy part. 

The hard part? Trying to figure out what to do with an excessive amount of good stories. Three Leach assistants called back after an interview to tell even more anecdotes. Multiple people raised the idea of a book. 

So The Athletic decided to run the oral history of Leach, who died Dec. 12 after complications from a heart condition at 61, in two parts. The first, today, centers on the mad genius of Leach, the football coach. The second, tomorrow, includes just about everything else.

 

https://theathletic.com/4199018/2023/02/20/mike-leach-best-football-stories/

 

Spoiler

Steve Spurrier Jr., Washington State and Mississippi State assistant: Every time I sat next to him it was a story.

Eric Mele, Washington State and Mississippi State assistant: I don’t even know where to begin.

Spurrier: This year, we had a late night. He’s got to go to the bathroom, so he gets up and leaves. We’re in there for 15 or 20 minutes, just standing there. We went by his office door and his door was shut – and he was doing Cameos!

Luke Falk, Washington State quarterback: We’re playing UCLA. I ask him: “Hey, Coach, what do you want here?” We had 1:17 left and were down by three. He goes: “Ummm. Probably a touchdown.”

James Whalen, Kentucky receiver: I made a mistake (in a game). He came up to me and was getting after me pretty good. I said something to the effect of, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” He looked at me and his eyes got big and, boy, he got pissed. And he said: “If we were in Rome, I’d feed you to the f—— lions.”

Graham Harrell, Texas Tech quarterback: My first encounter with him, I flew to Lubbock. I was excited to get out there and I figured he’d show me stuff about the offense. They only gave me 10 minutes with him — and he did two magic tricks.

Spurrier: Things you’ve never seen before and things you’ll never see again.

Jamal Morrow, Washington State running back: He definitely left the world a better place with all of his stories.

McGuire: He was one of a kind now.

Morrow: One of one, man.

Robert Taylor, Washington State defensive back: An absolute legend.

Falk: I’ll say this: There was nobody better in crunch time.

Connor Halliday, Washington State quarterback: We got the ball with a minute left and were down seven. Our offensive line was so young. Right before we took the field for that drive, I was talking to the O-line. I was like, “You guys just give me that extra second and we’re going to win this game. I love you guys.” Leach is standing right there and goes: “I’ll love you a lot f—— more if you score.”

Dave Emerick, Washington State and Mississippi State chief of staff: No moment was too big.

Harrell: The Texas game in 2008, the game that his whole Texas Tech era gets remembered for. We were winning the whole game and they scored late to take a one-point lead. We get the ball with a minute and a half left. Right before he sends me out he’s like: “Hey, if we score, we win.” And that was the end of it.

Falk: We’re playing Oregon my senior year. We’re up by like 17. I’m checking runs and short, quick-game passes at the end, trying to run the clock out. We end up kicking a field goal with two minutes left to really seal the deal. I go to the sideline and he was so displeased with me that I wasn’t being aggressive and trying to score a touchdown. He was like: “What are you, just uh, uh, uh, a career bunter?”

Seth Doege, Texas Tech quarterback: “Oh, you’re just going to bunt all the way down the field?”

Falk: “You don’t like touchdowns? Are you allergic to touchdowns?”

Clay McGuire, Texas Tech and Washington State assistant: That was the thing: No matter what, you had to be a really mentally tough person to play for him.

Isaac Dotson, Washington State safety: We were in crunch time. (Defensive coordinator Alex) Grinch called a timeout so we could strategize and game plan, so the whole defense is huddled up right off the sideline. We’re trying to hear what Coach Grinch has to say. He’s in there with a whiteboard, trying to tell us what we’re going to run. Then here comes Coach Leach.

Taylor: He barges through, and it’s taking him forever.

Dotson: We’re really pressed for time, and it takes him like 20 seconds to get all the way to the middle. He goes: “All right, listen, listen. Everybody listen up.”

Taylor: We were expecting him to say something big.

Dotson: He goes, “Don’t let them get a first down.” And then he walks away.

Drew Hollingshead, Washington State and Mississippi State assistant: God, he had a really unique way of not making those situations bigger than they were.

Spurrier: My first meeting with the quarterbacks, I asked, “When y’all met with Coach Leach, what did y’all talk about?” They all just kind of looked at me.

Will Rogers, Mississippi State quarterback: Well, they would start at a different time every day. So they would start whenever Coach got there, which was between 30 minutes and an hour and 30 minutes after they were scheduled. And then as soon as he got there you didn’t know if he was going to talk about football, the military, what we’d been doing all day, what he’d been doing all day, what the food was like today, what kind of sunglasses he’s got on.

Doege: No coach in the country would show up late to his own practice.

Falk: We were late for practice 30 minutes at a time.

John Cohen, Mississippi State athletic director: Finally one day I said, “Mike, when you go through your drills, I’m going to trail you, and I want you to go through every drill, and I want to know the idea behind all of it, and I want to know everything about the offense.” He really broke down every part of the offense and every route and what it was intended to do and what the quarterback was supposed to do and how important it was for him to give confidence to his quarterbacks. There was real genius there.

Doege: He would call me in on a one-on-one meeting, and my mind would be all over the place. I’d walk out of the meeting thinking I was the best quarterback in the country and this is the most simple game. How could I ever make it complex?

Spurrier: He was always really consistent in who he was and what his message was.

Emerick: If a guy was struggling with his accuracy, his coaching point would be: “Point your dick to the target.”

McGuire: Simple as that.

Bob Stoops, Oklahoma coach: He’d tell the quarterback: “Here are your reads. One, two, three, four.” He didn’t care what the defense did or whether the coverage dictated that this guy shouldn’t be open. He’d go, “Listen, half the time they screw it up. If he’s open, throw it to him.”

Mele: He just made it so simple.

Rogers: Coach would always be like, “Just throw it to the f—— open guy.”

Doege: He would put one hand over his eye and he’d have his script in the other hand. He’d ask, “What play should I call?” and move his finger in a circle over the script. He’d uncover his eye and put his finger on a play and go, “Oh, Ace 95. Great f—— play.” Then he’d do it again and his finger would get on another play. “Oh, Ace 92. Great f—— play.”

Halliday: A lot of quarterbacks struggle with the way he wants you to call the game. When you’re running his offense the way it’s supposed to be run, when you get up to the line of scrimmage, you have complete autonomy. His thought process is: “You’re standing there right in front of the defense. You see it better than I do.”

McGuire: The brilliance and the genius of Leach.

Halliday: It was the first week of spring practice. Leach was yelling at me for a bad check or something. I finally got so pissed off that I basically said “f— it” and called all my own plays. I didn’t even look to the sideline to let him even signal a play in, thinking I’m being demonstrative. That next day, we watched the film. I’m thinking I’m going to get my ass chewed out. Was it really worth it? We sat down and he said: “Connor, that’s all I’ve wanted you to do since I got here. This is what I want. You run the f—— show. This was the best practice you’ve ever had. I’m so proud of you.”

Rogers: We’re trying to put the game away. We get down to the red zone and we were on the sideline. … I was 19 or 20 years old at the time, playing the 15th-ranked team in the country. … He gives me a play and is like, “Do you want to run this?” I was like, “No, I want Blue 92 Post Wheel.” You could tell he just didn’t want to run that play at that time. … He was like, “Just call a play that scores a touchdown” and turned and walked away.

Whalen: That cross between crazy and genius and you don’t quite know where that line is.

Doege: Taylor Potts was the starting quarterback. At the time, Potts started off hot and then he got in a little slump. He wasn’t pulling the trigger like Leach wanted him to. He was a little indecisive on reads and stuff. So Leach changed his name to Nick.

Kevin Kilmer, Texas Tech graduate assistant: Leach had convinced himself – and convinced Potts — that Potts had an alter ego.

Taylor Potts, Texas Tech quarterback: We played Kansas at home. I think Doege started, and I went in at the end and we won. We drove all the way down the field and scored in the south end zone right there in front of the student section. All the way on that drive there was just check after check after check. … We marched right down. I came off the field and Mike grabbed me kind of like on the back of the neck. And he said something to the effect of: “Listen, you’re playing clear-headed, you’re playing fast, you’re playing confident, you’re playing just like Nick.”

Doege: What he said was, “Taylor is indecisive. Taylor overthinks things. Taylor doesn’t pull the trigger. But Nick! Nick has a free mind. Nick goes through his reads. Nick pulls the trigger.”

Zane Perry, Texas Tech equipment manager: It was the night before a game. He calls me and says: “Hey, I want you to put Nick on the back of Taylor Potts’ jersey.” I was like: “Coach, I can’t change his name plate the night before a game.” He was like: “I don’t care. Write it in Sharpie.”

Doege: Nick is literally on the back of Taylor’s jersey.

Perry: The following Sunday, Coach said, “I want to make sure you change all his jerseys from now on. Just have Nick. This is Nick Potts now.”

Kilmer: Potts beat Oklahoma when they were like No. 10 in the country with Nick on the back of his jersey.

Harrell: That was the magic behind his madness.

Stoops: As eccentric and different as he might have been, it still got back to: He was a great coach, and he got the best out of his guys.

Jesse Hallford, Washington State video coordinator: We’re playing at UCLA and we pull up to the hotel in LA and there are a ton of trucks, white trailers. We find out they’re shooting the TV show “The Grinder” with Rob Lowe at the hotel.

Falk: The night before a game we always had some video that Leach picked out.

Hallford: This was about Vikings. We had these big old speakers in the room and it was nice and loud.

Hollingshead: Well, one of the showrunners from the show next door runs into the room.

Hallford: He goes, “Hey, man, I’m a production assistant. I work for “The Grinder” with Rob Lowe. Can you turn the music down? We’re shooting a TV show next door.” I go, “I don’t care who you’re working with, I’m not touching this thing.” I think nothing of it.

Mele: We go into the Rose Bowl the next day and win.

Hallford: Coach Leach got everyone together after the game and was talking about how great they had played and it was a team win. He proceeds to go, “We watched that video about Vikings. Well, let me tell you a story about that real quick. We’re watching this video and all of a sudden some little guy comes up to Game Plan” — that was my nickname — “and taps on Game Plan’s shoulder and says, ‘Hey, we’re shooting “The Grinder” with Rob Lowe. We need you to shut the video off.’ And Game Plan said something to the effect of, ‘I don’t give a rat’s flying tail about Rob Lowe.’”

Falk: “Tell Rob Lowe we don’t give a f—.”

Hallford: Yeah, that’s exactly what he said.

Harrell: Leach loved Game Plan even more because of it. Anytime he would talk about Game Plan, he would be like: “Yeah, he’s the guy that doesn’t care about Rob Lowe and his shows.”

Hallford: I got a game ball for it.

Rogers: This one week it was Ed Reed. We watch this highlight video and he goes on this whole rant about how Ed Reed was the best safety to ever play.

Mele: We’re watching an Ed Reed clip about three minutes long, and he liked it so much he played it back a second time.

Rogers: He goes back on another spiel and then he’s like, “Start it over and really pay attention to the dialogue this time.” So I think we spent a total of 30 or 45 minutes watching the same clips of Ed Reed.

Mele: We win the game the next day and Leach sends the game ball to Ed Reed.

Chance Lovertich, Mississippi State quarterback: We lost to Bama. He was hard on saying to us that we just weren’t confident and we just had to believe in ourselves.

Mele: He started to mention to our guys about “The Little Engine That Could.”

Rogers: Oh, my gosh.

Mele: He goes out and actually reads the book to them in the team meeting the next day about “I think I can, I think I can.”

Lovertich: Just being dead serious.

Hollingshead: He was uniquely himself when it came to game planning.

Mele: My first day on the job, we’re there in the war room, just me and him, buzzing through film. You can’t make this up. The whole wall is a whiteboard. So we’ve got a famous play – 92 – a mesh play. “We attack this guy, we motion this guy.” Next to that we’ve got Vikings — different clans, where they resided. And then it was Y Cross, another famous play. “We want to tag a post on it.” … Next to that, he’s picking my brain. I’m from the Northeast, so it’s mafia bosses. And the next one is another play and then it’s pizza spots across the country.

Harrell: Everything about him was different from what you’d expect from a football coach.

Mark Mangino, Oklahoma assistant: On Sunday night, you start to watch your opponents and break down stuff. I’d walk down the hall past Mike’s office. He’s eating beef jerky and watching a show on TV.

Stoops: The way he ran his offense, the beauty of it, he didn’t care what the defense did. So he didn’t have to watch a lot of film or game plan over and over.

Whalen: One day after practice we went in and we watched the film. We sit down in the meeting room. He has the first play and he goes probably two or three seconds and then he backs it up.

Hal Mumme, Kentucky coach: James is sitting there trying to take notes and write down everything he says.

Whalen: He starts talking about a movie. It was with Nick Nolte when he says, “There’s a new sheriff in town” — “48 Hours.” So he goes, “You know, I watched a movie last night.” He let the play go and then he backed it up and he kept talking about the movie. He’d let the play go and then he’d back it up. We soon realized after an hour we never made it through the first play.

Spurrier: I’ll never forget our first offensive meeting at OU. It’s me, Mark Mangino, Jonathan Hayes, Cale Gundy and Mike Leach getting ready for spring football. Cale Gundy is kind of a Type A. He’s got his pencils lined up, he wants notes, he’s all ready to go. He goes: “Coach Leach, do you have a playbook?” He goes: “No.” Cale goes: “Do you have anything written down that you’re going to give us?” He goes: “No.”

Stoops: He had it all in his head.

Mangino: He was not conventional. He grew up in Cody, Wyo., right there by Yellowstone. He went to BYU. He got a law degree from Pepperdine. He had a different path than a lot of coaches.

Stoops: Steve Spurrier was with him, and he said, “Mike, they’re in 2-man.” He goes, “What the bleep is 2-man?”

Hollingshead: All that stuff never mattered.

Mangino: One of the coaches one day said, “Hey, Mike, do we really want to throw that against 3-roll coverage?” And Mike said, “What’s 3-roll?”

Hollingshead: He didn’t want all the different scenarios. He would be like: “I don’t care about any of that sh–. What if the safety does this? What if the corner does this?” He would always say: “Well, what if the cheerleader went to the 50-yard line and took a sh–?”

Stoops: The guy has won everywhere he has been. You can’t argue with his methods.

Harrell: Everything was different. But it was always a fun, good time.

McGuire: He was the most consistent person I’ve ever been around in my life.

Falk: Papa Leach.

Emerick: He did things his way. That’s one thing you can say about Mike Leach. Unequivocally, he did things his way and had a ton of success doing it. But it was different than anyone in the sport has ever done.

 

 

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NoName

NoName 17147

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On 2/20/2023 at 8:09 AM, Francisco 2.0 said:

The Athletic is running a 2 part story; here's the premise and Part 1:

 

https://theathletic.com/4199018/2023/02/20/mike-leach-best-football-stories/

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Steve Spurrier Jr., Washington State and Mississippi State assistant: Every time I sat next to him it was a story.

Eric Mele, Washington State and Mississippi State assistant: I don’t even know where to begin.

Spurrier: This year, we had a late night. He’s got to go to the bathroom, so he gets up and leaves. We’re in there for 15 or 20 minutes, just standing there. We went by his office door and his door was shut – and he was doing Cameos!

Luke Falk, Washington State quarterback: We’re playing UCLA. I ask him: “Hey, Coach, what do you want here?” We had 1:17 left and were down by three. He goes: “Ummm. Probably a touchdown.”

James Whalen, Kentucky receiver: I made a mistake (in a game). He came up to me and was getting after me pretty good. I said something to the effect of, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” He looked at me and his eyes got big and, boy, he got pissed. And he said: “If we were in Rome, I’d feed you to the f—— lions.”

Graham Harrell, Texas Tech quarterback: My first encounter with him, I flew to Lubbock. I was excited to get out there and I figured he’d show me stuff about the offense. They only gave me 10 minutes with him — and he did two magic tricks.

Spurrier: Things you’ve never seen before and things you’ll never see again.

Jamal Morrow, Washington State running back: He definitely left the world a better place with all of his stories.

McGuire: He was one of a kind now.

Morrow: One of one, man.

Robert Taylor, Washington State defensive back: An absolute legend.

Falk: I’ll say this: There was nobody better in crunch time.

Connor Halliday, Washington State quarterback: We got the ball with a minute left and were down seven. Our offensive line was so young. Right before we took the field for that drive, I was talking to the O-line. I was like, “You guys just give me that extra second and we’re going to win this game. I love you guys.” Leach is standing right there and goes: “I’ll love you a lot f—— more if you score.”

Dave Emerick, Washington State and Mississippi State chief of staff: No moment was too big.

Harrell: The Texas game in 2008, the game that his whole Texas Tech era gets remembered for. We were winning the whole game and they scored late to take a one-point lead. We get the ball with a minute and a half left. Right before he sends me out he’s like: “Hey, if we score, we win.” And that was the end of it.

Falk: We’re playing Oregon my senior year. We’re up by like 17. I’m checking runs and short, quick-game passes at the end, trying to run the clock out. We end up kicking a field goal with two minutes left to really seal the deal. I go to the sideline and he was so displeased with me that I wasn’t being aggressive and trying to score a touchdown. He was like: “What are you, just uh, uh, uh, a career bunter?”

Seth Doege, Texas Tech quarterback: “Oh, you’re just going to bunt all the way down the field?”

Falk: “You don’t like touchdowns? Are you allergic to touchdowns?”

Clay McGuire, Texas Tech and Washington State assistant: That was the thing: No matter what, you had to be a really mentally tough person to play for him.

Isaac Dotson, Washington State safety: We were in crunch time. (Defensive coordinator Alex) Grinch called a timeout so we could strategize and game plan, so the whole defense is huddled up right off the sideline. We’re trying to hear what Coach Grinch has to say. He’s in there with a whiteboard, trying to tell us what we’re going to run. Then here comes Coach Leach.

Taylor: He barges through, and it’s taking him forever.

Dotson: We’re really pressed for time, and it takes him like 20 seconds to get all the way to the middle. He goes: “All right, listen, listen. Everybody listen up.”

Taylor: We were expecting him to say something big.

Dotson: He goes, “Don’t let them get a first down.” And then he walks away.

Drew Hollingshead, Washington State and Mississippi State assistant: God, he had a really unique way of not making those situations bigger than they were.

Spurrier: My first meeting with the quarterbacks, I asked, “When y’all met with Coach Leach, what did y’all talk about?” They all just kind of looked at me.

Will Rogers, Mississippi State quarterback: Well, they would start at a different time every day. So they would start whenever Coach got there, which was between 30 minutes and an hour and 30 minutes after they were scheduled. And then as soon as he got there you didn’t know if he was going to talk about football, the military, what we’d been doing all day, what he’d been doing all day, what the food was like today, what kind of sunglasses he’s got on.

Doege: No coach in the country would show up late to his own practice.

Falk: We were late for practice 30 minutes at a time.

John Cohen, Mississippi State athletic director: Finally one day I said, “Mike, when you go through your drills, I’m going to trail you, and I want you to go through every drill, and I want to know the idea behind all of it, and I want to know everything about the offense.” He really broke down every part of the offense and every route and what it was intended to do and what the quarterback was supposed to do and how important it was for him to give confidence to his quarterbacks. There was real genius there.

Doege: He would call me in on a one-on-one meeting, and my mind would be all over the place. I’d walk out of the meeting thinking I was the best quarterback in the country and this is the most simple game. How could I ever make it complex?

Spurrier: He was always really consistent in who he was and what his message was.

Emerick: If a guy was struggling with his accuracy, his coaching point would be: “Point your dick to the target.”

McGuire: Simple as that.

Bob Stoops, Oklahoma coach: He’d tell the quarterback: “Here are your reads. One, two, three, four.” He didn’t care what the defense did or whether the coverage dictated that this guy shouldn’t be open. He’d go, “Listen, half the time they screw it up. If he’s open, throw it to him.”

Mele: He just made it so simple.

Rogers: Coach would always be like, “Just throw it to the f—— open guy.”

Doege: He would put one hand over his eye and he’d have his script in the other hand. He’d ask, “What play should I call?” and move his finger in a circle over the script. He’d uncover his eye and put his finger on a play and go, “Oh, Ace 95. Great f—— play.” Then he’d do it again and his finger would get on another play. “Oh, Ace 92. Great f—— play.”

Halliday: A lot of quarterbacks struggle with the way he wants you to call the game. When you’re running his offense the way it’s supposed to be run, when you get up to the line of scrimmage, you have complete autonomy. His thought process is: “You’re standing there right in front of the defense. You see it better than I do.”

McGuire: The brilliance and the genius of Leach.

Halliday: It was the first week of spring practice. Leach was yelling at me for a bad check or something. I finally got so pissed off that I basically said “f— it” and called all my own plays. I didn’t even look to the sideline to let him even signal a play in, thinking I’m being demonstrative. That next day, we watched the film. I’m thinking I’m going to get my ass chewed out. Was it really worth it? We sat down and he said: “Connor, that’s all I’ve wanted you to do since I got here. This is what I want. You run the f—— show. This was the best practice you’ve ever had. I’m so proud of you.”

Rogers: We’re trying to put the game away. We get down to the red zone and we were on the sideline. … I was 19 or 20 years old at the time, playing the 15th-ranked team in the country. … He gives me a play and is like, “Do you want to run this?” I was like, “No, I want Blue 92 Post Wheel.” You could tell he just didn’t want to run that play at that time. … He was like, “Just call a play that scores a touchdown” and turned and walked away.

Whalen: That cross between crazy and genius and you don’t quite know where that line is.

Doege: Taylor Potts was the starting quarterback. At the time, Potts started off hot and then he got in a little slump. He wasn’t pulling the trigger like Leach wanted him to. He was a little indecisive on reads and stuff. So Leach changed his name to Nick.

Kevin Kilmer, Texas Tech graduate assistant: Leach had convinced himself – and convinced Potts — that Potts had an alter ego.

Taylor Potts, Texas Tech quarterback: We played Kansas at home. I think Doege started, and I went in at the end and we won. We drove all the way down the field and scored in the south end zone right there in front of the student section. All the way on that drive there was just check after check after check. … We marched right down. I came off the field and Mike grabbed me kind of like on the back of the neck. And he said something to the effect of: “Listen, you’re playing clear-headed, you’re playing fast, you’re playing confident, you’re playing just like Nick.”

Doege: What he said was, “Taylor is indecisive. Taylor overthinks things. Taylor doesn’t pull the trigger. But Nick! Nick has a free mind. Nick goes through his reads. Nick pulls the trigger.”

Zane Perry, Texas Tech equipment manager: It was the night before a game. He calls me and says: “Hey, I want you to put Nick on the back of Taylor Potts’ jersey.” I was like: “Coach, I can’t change his name plate the night before a game.” He was like: “I don’t care. Write it in Sharpie.”

Doege: Nick is literally on the back of Taylor’s jersey.

Perry: The following Sunday, Coach said, “I want to make sure you change all his jerseys from now on. Just have Nick. This is Nick Potts now.”

Kilmer: Potts beat Oklahoma when they were like No. 10 in the country with Nick on the back of his jersey.

Harrell: That was the magic behind his madness.

Stoops: As eccentric and different as he might have been, it still got back to: He was a great coach, and he got the best out of his guys.

Jesse Hallford, Washington State video coordinator: We’re playing at UCLA and we pull up to the hotel in LA and there are a ton of trucks, white trailers. We find out they’re shooting the TV show “The Grinder” with Rob Lowe at the hotel.

Falk: The night before a game we always had some video that Leach picked out.

Hallford: This was about Vikings. We had these big old speakers in the room and it was nice and loud.

Hollingshead: Well, one of the showrunners from the show next door runs into the room.

Hallford: He goes, “Hey, man, I’m a production assistant. I work for “The Grinder” with Rob Lowe. Can you turn the music down? We’re shooting a TV show next door.” I go, “I don’t care who you’re working with, I’m not touching this thing.” I think nothing of it.

Mele: We go into the Rose Bowl the next day and win.

Hallford: Coach Leach got everyone together after the game and was talking about how great they had played and it was a team win. He proceeds to go, “We watched that video about Vikings. Well, let me tell you a story about that real quick. We’re watching this video and all of a sudden some little guy comes up to Game Plan” — that was my nickname — “and taps on Game Plan’s shoulder and says, ‘Hey, we’re shooting “The Grinder” with Rob Lowe. We need you to shut the video off.’ And Game Plan said something to the effect of, ‘I don’t give a rat’s flying tail about Rob Lowe.’”

Falk: “Tell Rob Lowe we don’t give a f—.”

Hallford: Yeah, that’s exactly what he said.

Harrell: Leach loved Game Plan even more because of it. Anytime he would talk about Game Plan, he would be like: “Yeah, he’s the guy that doesn’t care about Rob Lowe and his shows.”

Hallford: I got a game ball for it.

Rogers: This one week it was Ed Reed. We watch this highlight video and he goes on this whole rant about how Ed Reed was the best safety to ever play.

Mele: We’re watching an Ed Reed clip about three minutes long, and he liked it so much he played it back a second time.

Rogers: He goes back on another spiel and then he’s like, “Start it over and really pay attention to the dialogue this time.” So I think we spent a total of 30 or 45 minutes watching the same clips of Ed Reed.

Mele: We win the game the next day and Leach sends the game ball to Ed Reed.

Chance Lovertich, Mississippi State quarterback: We lost to Bama. He was hard on saying to us that we just weren’t confident and we just had to believe in ourselves.

Mele: He started to mention to our guys about “The Little Engine That Could.”

Rogers: Oh, my gosh.

Mele: He goes out and actually reads the book to them in the team meeting the next day about “I think I can, I think I can.”

Lovertich: Just being dead serious.

Hollingshead: He was uniquely himself when it came to game planning.

Mele: My first day on the job, we’re there in the war room, just me and him, buzzing through film. You can’t make this up. The whole wall is a whiteboard. So we’ve got a famous play – 92 – a mesh play. “We attack this guy, we motion this guy.” Next to that we’ve got Vikings — different clans, where they resided. And then it was Y Cross, another famous play. “We want to tag a post on it.” … Next to that, he’s picking my brain. I’m from the Northeast, so it’s mafia bosses. And the next one is another play and then it’s pizza spots across the country.

Harrell: Everything about him was different from what you’d expect from a football coach.

Mark Mangino, Oklahoma assistant: On Sunday night, you start to watch your opponents and break down stuff. I’d walk down the hall past Mike’s office. He’s eating beef jerky and watching a show on TV.

Stoops: The way he ran his offense, the beauty of it, he didn’t care what the defense did. So he didn’t have to watch a lot of film or game plan over and over.

Whalen: One day after practice we went in and we watched the film. We sit down in the meeting room. He has the first play and he goes probably two or three seconds and then he backs it up.

Hal Mumme, Kentucky coach: James is sitting there trying to take notes and write down everything he says.

Whalen: He starts talking about a movie. It was with Nick Nolte when he says, “There’s a new sheriff in town” — “48 Hours.” So he goes, “You know, I watched a movie last night.” He let the play go and then he backed it up and he kept talking about the movie. He’d let the play go and then he’d back it up. We soon realized after an hour we never made it through the first play.

Spurrier: I’ll never forget our first offensive meeting at OU. It’s me, Mark Mangino, Jonathan Hayes, Cale Gundy and Mike Leach getting ready for spring football. Cale Gundy is kind of a Type A. He’s got his pencils lined up, he wants notes, he’s all ready to go. He goes: “Coach Leach, do you have a playbook?” He goes: “No.” Cale goes: “Do you have anything written down that you’re going to give us?” He goes: “No.”

Stoops: He had it all in his head.

Mangino: He was not conventional. He grew up in Cody, Wyo., right there by Yellowstone. He went to BYU. He got a law degree from Pepperdine. He had a different path than a lot of coaches.

Stoops: Steve Spurrier was with him, and he said, “Mike, they’re in 2-man.” He goes, “What the bleep is 2-man?”

Hollingshead: All that stuff never mattered.

Mangino: One of the coaches one day said, “Hey, Mike, do we really want to throw that against 3-roll coverage?” And Mike said, “What’s 3-roll?”

Hollingshead: He didn’t want all the different scenarios. He would be like: “I don’t care about any of that sh–. What if the safety does this? What if the corner does this?” He would always say: “Well, what if the cheerleader went to the 50-yard line and took a sh–?”

Stoops: The guy has won everywhere he has been. You can’t argue with his methods.

Harrell: Everything was different. But it was always a fun, good time.

McGuire: He was the most consistent person I’ve ever been around in my life.

Falk: Papa Leach.

Emerick: He did things his way. That’s one thing you can say about Mike Leach. Unequivocally, he did things his way and had a ton of success doing it. But it was different than anyone in the sport has ever done.

 

 

here is part 2 of the article: https://theathletic.com/4199032/2023/02/21/mike-leach-best-stories/
 

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Clay McGuire, Texas Tech and Washington State assistant: There was a time at Tech where he got into rollerblading. He’d be rollerblading on the outskirts of the city on county roads and people would see him out there in jean shorts and no shirt with a Walkman on.

Isaac Dotson, Washington State safety: If you hear something about Coach Leach that sounds absurd, you can never dismiss it.

 

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Harrell: He did a card trick. He just had a deck and had you say black or red. He went through the whole deck and flipped them over and they were all what I called. He was like: “Well, you make pretty good decisions so I guess you can play here.” Then he called this person on the phone. I think it was his wife, but he called them “The Wizard.” I had to tell him a card before he made the phone call so, like, three of diamonds. He called someone and was like, “Hey, is The Wizard there?” The person on the other line was like, “Yeah.” He handed me the phone and the person was like “three of diamonds” and then just hung up. Then I leave the room, and that was the entire recruiting trip.

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Falk: He was an avid Snapchatter. He’d be in meetings and I’d see him on Snapchat.

Madison: He lived for it.

Emerick: We had a guy who played for us at Washington State named Freddie Davey and somehow Freddie turned into a rapper. He would constantly be on there watching Freddie Davey Snapchats.

Freddie Davey, Washington State linebacker: He always messaged me and wanted me to come to Key West. Bring the family to Key West and hang out with him and fish.

 

 

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Spoiler

The top-shelf Mike Leach stories: Everything-but-football edition

Jayson Jenks
Feb 21, 2023

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Mike Leach was one of college football’s greatest offensive minds — and one of the sport’s greatest characters. The Athletic called more than 25 of his former players, coaches and staff with a simple request: Share your “top-shelf” Mike Leach stories.

That was the easy part.

The hard part? Trying to figure out what to do with an excessive amount of good stories. Three Leach assistants called back after an interview to tell even more anecdotes. Multiple people raised the idea of a book.

So The Athletic decided to run the oral history of Leach, who died Dec. 12 after complications from a heart condition at 61, in two parts. The first centered on the mad genius of Leach, the football coach. The second, today, includes just about everything else.

Jamal Morrow, Washington State running back: He was always himself, and that was the biggest thing I took from him: Be who you are.

Clay McGuire, Texas Tech and Washington State assistant: There was a time at Tech where he got into rollerblading. He’d be rollerblading on the outskirts of the city on county roads and people would see him out there in jean shorts and no shirt with a Walkman on.

Isaac Dotson, Washington State safety: If you hear something about Coach Leach that sounds absurd, you can never dismiss it.

Zane Perry, Texas Tech equipment manager: I used to try to put a black belt in his locker before games because you don’t wear a brown belt with black polos, black shoes and khaki pants. He’s like, “Quit putting that in there. I don’t care what I’m supposed to wear.”

McGuire: That was Mike Leach. He didn’t give a sh–.

Bill Moos, Washington State athletic director: I flew down to Key West to interview him. In the morning, I had it set for 8 or 9. I had everything laid out. I had renderings of the Nike uniforms. I had pictures of the proposed new football complex. Coffee, soft drinks, rolls. A knock at the door. Of course it was about 15 minutes late.

Dave Emerick, Washington State and Mississippi State chief of staff: Coach was notoriously late. Like, bad.

Moos: I had said, “Let’s be casual. We’re in Key West.” To me, that meant take the tie off. I was still in a Hart Schaffner Marx suit with shined shoes, which was my style. I answered the door and there was Mike: cargo shorts, flip-flops, V-neck white T-shirt, three-day beard and Styrofoam spitter.

Morrow: He was not going to change for anybody.

Moos: He goes: “Uh, uh, uh,” spit, “uh, uh, uh, I heard we were to be casual.” I go, “No, you look great. Did you find a place to park? It’s really busy out here.” He goes: “Oh, I don’t have a car. I saddled up my bike and rode in.”

Emerick: He never took himself too seriously.

Moos: I go, “Mike, I want to talk to you about my vision for Cougar football.” I start talking and within three minutes the topic has changed to Winston Churchill, George S. Patton and snow blowers in Cody, Wyo.

Bob Stoops, Oklahoma coach: He marched to his own beat of the drum, and there was no changing that.

Steve Spurrier Jr., Washington State and Mississippi State assistant: Drew Hollingshead told me this, and I’ll never forget it. He said: “What an extremely unique gift it is to never, ever care what anyone else thinks about you. Ever. He did his own thing, dressed his own way, ate whatever he wanted, was always a mess, and he never heard anyone’s opinion of him that ever affected who he was. Never had to defend any bit about him or what he did or how he did it.” I was like, “You know what? That’s a rare quality. I don’t know if anyone else in the world has that quality.”

Mark Mangino, Oklahoma assistant: He had an intellectual curiosity that he could not satisfy.

Luke Falk, Washington State quarterback: We were down 24-7 at Oregon State. I came in at halftime and went in the coaches’ locker room. He was like, “There’s nothing these guys are doing. We just need to go out there and beat the f— out of them. What we need to do is be calm and get after their ass.” And then he proceeds to get on Rosetta Stone or something and practice Spanish.

Drew Hollingshead, Washington State and Mississippi State assistant: It was an app he had on his phone. It would log how many days he had done it straight.

Emerick: He did it for like 984 days in a row; he was proud of it.

Hollingshead: He would remember that he didn’t do his Spanish lesson for the day and freak out because he didn’t want to ruin his streak. He would put the clicker down and start his Spanish lesson right in the middle of film.

Spurrier: We’d be in the locker room before the game and he would be over there talking Spanish to himself.

Will Rogers, Mississippi State quarterback: He would be on the sideline listening to Spanish on his headphones.

Emerick: The funny thing is, he knew no Spanish at all.

Hollingshead: Not one word. Not one freaking word.

John Cohen, Mississippi State athletic director: I was walking with Mike into our football stadium before a Thursday practice. My daughter, Jordan, who was at Wake Forest law school, just happened to call me at that minute. Mike said, “Is that your kid who is in law school?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Let me have the phone.”

Jordan Cohen: I don’t think I had even met Coach Leach before. He goes, “Hi, this is Coach Leach. If you’re in your first year of law school, you’re taking this class and this class and this class right now, right?” He has it exactly right. He asked me how I liked property law. I’m telling him that it’s probably my least favorite class and I’m really not enjoying it. He goes, “Yeah, yeah, that was a hard one.” And then he proceeds to directly pinpoint a case that you only read one time your first year of law school and never again. I can’t even remember the name of it. I think it was one of the first-ever property cases and it was about ownership of a dog or a domesticated wolf or something so random. He’s rattling off the facts of this case like he just read it yesterday.

Emerick: He knew so much about so much.

Jordan Cohen: Mind you, he’s coaching. I can hear him every once in a while say something to someone at practice. He’s actively coaching. And then he’s like, “Well, you know, keep me posted on how property goes. I’ve got to go. Bye.” He kind of apologizes for getting off the phone like I called him.

Rob Taylor, Washington State safety: That man was funny as hell.

Eric Mele, Washington State and Mississippi State assistant: Friday night movies.

Hollingshead: He would watch every second of the movie, from trailer to the end of the credits.

Cole Madison, Washington State offensive lineman: We’d all be on the bus after the movie being like, “Why are we staying here?”

Hollingshead: And the only reason he did that is because he was genuinely curious where the movie was filmed. They don’t put that information until the very last 20 seconds of the credit.

Madison: He loved Lewiston (Idaho) so much because the movie theater popcorn guy there made the best popcorn he’s ever had, supposedly. … So he would drive down the Lewiston popcorn guy to come to Pullman the night before a game just to make him popcorn.

Graham Harrell, Texas Tech quarterback and Washington State assistant: At Washington State, a lot of times we’d be sitting there and he’d go, “What movies are showing? Do you think we should go watch one?” He would be like, “Well, they’re not going to miss us.” We would go all the time in the middle of the day.

 
 
(Sam Greenwood / Getty Images)

Spurrier: When we were at Oklahoma, he had a plastic bag with two slices of bread in it. Every day, he brought two slices of bread. I watched him one day. He got a piece of bread and balled it up. One whole slice of bread and just balled it as tight as he could. I can’t quite figure out what he’s doing. Is he going fishing? He’s just sitting there for a couple minutes squeezing it. Then he took the ball and he put it in his mouth and swallowed it whole. So I asked him. He said: “Well, my wife said because I drink so much coffee and it’s not good for my stomach that I need to eat two slices of bread a day — and I hate bread. So I ball it up and swallow it up.” OK, there you have it. That’s a great idea. I like that.

McGuire: I picked him up in Phoenix for a recruiting visit. We’d just got hired at Washington State. He’d been out bear hunting at this hunting lodge in Canada for a week. He’s got a generic sweatshirt and hat from the lodge and probably hadn’t taken a shower from the night before.

Spurrier: I picked him up at an airport once for a visit. He had jeans on, loafers, a surf T-shirt.

McGuire: We go right to the high school. This is his big return to coaching. We park in the school parking lot and there are kids out there and there’s this little foyer where the high school coach is waiting for us like 40 or 50 yards away and he can see us. He goes, “I reckon I should probably put a Washington State shirt on, huh?” So he gets out in the middle of the school parking lot and he opens the trunk and gets a suitcase and just starts stripping off his shirt. He’s just out there talking on the phone for five or 10 minutes, with no shirt on, while the high school coach is in the foyer laughing.

Rogers: The first time I got on the phone with him, he was at Washington State and I was committed here. He just goes on this spiel. He was like,  “They don’t even throw the ball. We want you to throw the ball. Are cowbells really that cool? If you want a cowbell, I’ll go get you a cowbell.”

Harrell: He did a card trick. He just had a deck and had you say black or red. He went through the whole deck and flipped them over and they were all what I called. He was like: “Well, you make pretty good decisions so I guess you can play here.” Then he called this person on the phone. I think it was his wife, but he called them “The Wizard.” I had to tell him a card before he made the phone call so, like, three of diamonds. He called someone and was like, “Hey, is The Wizard there?” The person on the other line was like, “Yeah.” He handed me the phone and the person was like “three of diamonds” and then just hung up. Then I leave the room, and that was the entire recruiting trip.

Hollingshead: He knows everybody.

Emerick: He was going to Matthew McConaughey’s wedding. He comes back and is like, “Yeah, I saw McConaughey, but I didn’t get to spend a ton of time with him. They had all these tents that everyone lived in. I mostly hung out with Rooster.”

Rooster McConaughey, Matthew’s older brother: It was just one night, but it was all night.

Emerick: He could go to 4:30, 5 in the morning pretty easy. He wanted people around him.

Rooster: I sang a couple of George Jones songs over there at my brother’s wedding and went and sat down. He came over and wanted to visit. What an interesting guy. He was drinking tequila and water. We got to sittin’ around the table. It was 1 in the morning or something. Both of us like to cuss a lot and like to hear ourselves talk. We didn’t ask each other too many questions because if you did, it gave the other guy the floor. He loved to talk about Texas high school football and he complimented me on my George Jones stuff.

Dotson: He just wanted to be everybody’s friend at the end of the day.

Rooster: As the night went on, it was down to three of us. The third guy, sh–, he was so far out of it he was talking like Chewbacca. I think ol’ Leach liked it OK because Chewbacca kinda dressed like a pirate. It was the most entertaining seven hours. … It was 8 or 9 or 10 in the morning when I left. Hell, he was still telling stories! … He’s knowledgable about everything. I mean, gee whiz. This guy could have run for office — and filibustered the sh– out of everybody. “Here comes Leach, here comes Leach, pass the bill!” … That was one of my greatest evenings I’ve ever had.

Emerick: He was at a party in Phoenix. I said, “Coach, how did the party go?” He goes, “Oh, it was fun. Charles Barkley picked me up.” I said, “He picked you up?” He goes, “Yeah, we’re friends. He picked me up.” I said, “Where were you?” He goes, “No, he literally picked me up and carried me around the party.”

Dotson: I think that’s what he loved about his job the most — the group of people he was able to bring together and all the stories he was able to accumulate.

Mangino: When we got to Oklahoma, we all got rooms at the Residence Inn in Norman.

Stoops: None of our wives or families were with us yet. We were like a mini fraternity.

Mangino: The first night, Bob walked with me and came and sat in my room. He called Mike and told him to come down. We’re all sitting there drinking beer, smoking cigars and calling recruits in that room.

Stoops: Once everybody was done with hosting recruits and parents on Friday, Saturday night, we’d all reconvene at Bear’s room.

Mangino: Bear is my nickname.

Stoops: Little by little, everyone would filter out.

Mangino: Except Leach. We’re sitting there BS-ing and I’m trying to figure this guy out. He’s interesting but different. It’s about 1:30, 2 o’clock. I said, “Mike, I’m about to go to sleep.” I get in my bed. Mike doesn’t leave. He’s sitting there drinking beer, chewing snuff and he’s laughing at Howard Stern. It’s about 3:30 in the morning. I’m like, “When is this guy going to leave?” Finally about 4 o’clock, he says, “See ya, Coach,” and he leaves. Next night, same routine. … This goes on for four or five nights. That was my introduction to Mike.

 
 
(Joe Robbins / Getty Images)

Falk: He was an avid Snapchatter. He’d be in meetings and I’d see him on Snapchat.

Madison: He lived for it.

Emerick: We had a guy who played for us at Washington State named Freddie Davey and somehow Freddie turned into a rapper. He would constantly be on there watching Freddie Davey Snapchats.

Freddie Davey, Washington State linebacker: He always messaged me and wanted me to come to Key West. Bring the family to Key West and hang out with him and fish.

Emerick: He will talk to anybody about anything.

Spurrier: I used to really try to pay attention to him to try to capture what made him good. That’s really hard to do because there’s never a conversation that goes for very long where he talks about football. He talks about politics, he talks about …

Moos: Superman …

Mele: Sacagewea …

Morrow: Ancient Russians …

Hal Mumme, Kentucky coach: Why he and my ex-wife never got along …

Morrow: Who would win between a gorilla and a tiger …

Mumme: There are aliens but not Bigfoot …

Hollingshead: How the fat in the butter reacts with the caffeine in such a way that it supercharges the coffee.

Emerick: We go back to the hotel lobby and it’s like 2 in the morning. I was just trying to go to bed at this point so I said, “Coach, I need to call my wife.” I was totally bluffing; she was obviously asleep. He goes: “OK, call her.” I’m like, “Uhhh, maybe I don’t need to call her.” So we go up and he’s just talking. He follows me into my room. There are two beds and he sits on one of them. I doze off for 30 or 45 minutes. I wake up — and he is still talking to me.

Mumme: We make this big trip to Florida in 1991. On the way back, we’re driving along and I looked at him. “I think I might be able to get the job at The Citadel. How would you like that?” He looks at me and goes, “I don’t want to play soldier.” … He said, “If I was going to play something, I just want to play a pirate.” He goes into this long oration about how you could have a school where everybody dressed like pirates. You could have cannon practice and swing-your-sword practice.

Kevin Kilmer, Texas Tech assistant: I was an undergrad student assistant, but he always made me feel like I was a part of it. That’s what he did with everybody. He made everybody feel like he was on their level.

Connor Halliday, Washington State quarterback: He ended up being like my best friend. Yeah, I was watching film and getting better, but I was hanging out with my friend, drinking Colombian coffee and taking dips.

Falk: I don’t think I told him nearly enough: I’m just so grateful for him.

Seth Doege, Texas Tech quarterback: This man changed my life.

Taylor: I have the utmost respect for that man. 

Rogers: Even now, there’s so much that I appreciate about him that I didn’t notice until he was gone.

Mangino: He knew what he wanted in life and how he was going to live his life, and nobody was going to tell him any different. We said it as coaches, a bunch of us: “Wish we could be like Leach and not give a sh–.”

Taylor: One of one.

Mele: Classic, man. Love the guy.

Moos: I love the guy.

John Cohen: I’m going to really miss him.

 

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Davis Lane

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On 2/21/2023 at 8:24 AM, NoName said:

here is part 2 of the article: https://theathletic.com/4199032/2023/02/21/mike-leach-best-stories/
 

+

+
 

 

Text:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

The top-shelf Mike Leach stories: Everything-but-football edition

Jayson Jenks
Feb 21, 2023

 

12

 

Mike Leach was one of college football’s greatest offensive minds — and one of the sport’s greatest characters. The Athletic called more than 25 of his former players, coaches and staff with a simple request: Share your “top-shelf” Mike Leach stories.

That was the easy part.

The hard part? Trying to figure out what to do with an excessive amount of good stories. Three Leach assistants called back after an interview to tell even more anecdotes. Multiple people raised the idea of a book.

So The Athletic decided to run the oral history of Leach, who died Dec. 12 after complications from a heart condition at 61, in two parts. The first centered on the mad genius of Leach, the football coach. The second, today, includes just about everything else.

Jamal Morrow, Washington State running back: He was always himself, and that was the biggest thing I took from him: Be who you are.

Clay McGuire, Texas Tech and Washington State assistant: There was a time at Tech where he got into rollerblading. He’d be rollerblading on the outskirts of the city on county roads and people would see him out there in jean shorts and no shirt with a Walkman on.

Isaac Dotson, Washington State safety: If you hear something about Coach Leach that sounds absurd, you can never dismiss it.

Zane Perry, Texas Tech equipment manager: I used to try to put a black belt in his locker before games because you don’t wear a brown belt with black polos, black shoes and khaki pants. He’s like, “Quit putting that in there. I don’t care what I’m supposed to wear.”

McGuire: That was Mike Leach. He didn’t give a sh–.

Bill Moos, Washington State athletic director: I flew down to Key West to interview him. In the morning, I had it set for 8 or 9. I had everything laid out. I had renderings of the Nike uniforms. I had pictures of the proposed new football complex. Coffee, soft drinks, rolls. A knock at the door. Of course it was about 15 minutes late.

Dave Emerick, Washington State and Mississippi State chief of staff: Coach was notoriously late. Like, bad.

Moos: I had said, “Let’s be casual. We’re in Key West.” To me, that meant take the tie off. I was still in a Hart Schaffner Marx suit with shined shoes, which was my style. I answered the door and there was Mike: cargo shorts, flip-flops, V-neck white T-shirt, three-day beard and Styrofoam spitter.

Morrow: He was not going to change for anybody.

Moos: He goes: “Uh, uh, uh,” spit, “uh, uh, uh, I heard we were to be casual.” I go, “No, you look great. Did you find a place to park? It’s really busy out here.” He goes: “Oh, I don’t have a car. I saddled up my bike and rode in.”

Emerick: He never took himself too seriously.

Moos: I go, “Mike, I want to talk to you about my vision for Cougar football.” I start talking and within three minutes the topic has changed to Winston Churchill, George S. Patton and snow blowers in Cody, Wyo.

Bob Stoops, Oklahoma coach: He marched to his own beat of the drum, and there was no changing that.

Steve Spurrier Jr., Washington State and Mississippi State assistant: Drew Hollingshead told me this, and I’ll never forget it. He said: “What an extremely unique gift it is to never, ever care what anyone else thinks about you. Ever. He did his own thing, dressed his own way, ate whatever he wanted, was always a mess, and he never heard anyone’s opinion of him that ever affected who he was. Never had to defend any bit about him or what he did or how he did it.” I was like, “You know what? That’s a rare quality. I don’t know if anyone else in the world has that quality.”

Mark Mangino, Oklahoma assistant: He had an intellectual curiosity that he could not satisfy.

Luke Falk, Washington State quarterback: We were down 24-7 at Oregon State. I came in at halftime and went in the coaches’ locker room. He was like, “There’s nothing these guys are doing. We just need to go out there and beat the f— out of them. What we need to do is be calm and get after their ass.” And then he proceeds to get on Rosetta Stone or something and practice Spanish.

Drew Hollingshead, Washington State and Mississippi State assistant: It was an app he had on his phone. It would log how many days he had done it straight.

Emerick: He did it for like 984 days in a row; he was proud of it.

Hollingshead: He would remember that he didn’t do his Spanish lesson for the day and freak out because he didn’t want to ruin his streak. He would put the clicker down and start his Spanish lesson right in the middle of film.

Spurrier: We’d be in the locker room before the game and he would be over there talking Spanish to himself.

Will Rogers, Mississippi State quarterback: He would be on the sideline listening to Spanish on his headphones.

Emerick: The funny thing is, he knew no Spanish at all.

Hollingshead: Not one word. Not one freaking word.

John Cohen, Mississippi State athletic director: I was walking with Mike into our football stadium before a Thursday practice. My daughter, Jordan, who was at Wake Forest law school, just happened to call me at that minute. Mike said, “Is that your kid who is in law school?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Let me have the phone.”

Jordan Cohen: I don’t think I had even met Coach Leach before. He goes, “Hi, this is Coach Leach. If you’re in your first year of law school, you’re taking this class and this class and this class right now, right?” He has it exactly right. He asked me how I liked property law. I’m telling him that it’s probably my least favorite class and I’m really not enjoying it. He goes, “Yeah, yeah, that was a hard one.” And then he proceeds to directly pinpoint a case that you only read one time your first year of law school and never again. I can’t even remember the name of it. I think it was one of the first-ever property cases and it was about ownership of a dog or a domesticated wolf or something so random. He’s rattling off the facts of this case like he just read it yesterday.

Emerick: He knew so much about so much.

Jordan Cohen: Mind you, he’s coaching. I can hear him every once in a while say something to someone at practice. He’s actively coaching. And then he’s like, “Well, you know, keep me posted on how property goes. I’ve got to go. Bye.” He kind of apologizes for getting off the phone like I called him.

Rob Taylor, Washington State safety: That man was funny as hell.

Eric Mele, Washington State and Mississippi State assistant: Friday night movies.

Hollingshead: He would watch every second of the movie, from trailer to the end of the credits.

Cole Madison, Washington State offensive lineman: We’d all be on the bus after the movie being like, “Why are we staying here?”

Hollingshead: And the only reason he did that is because he was genuinely curious where the movie was filmed. They don’t put that information until the very last 20 seconds of the credit.

Madison: He loved Lewiston (Idaho) so much because the movie theater popcorn guy there made the best popcorn he’s ever had, supposedly. … So he would drive down the Lewiston popcorn guy to come to Pullman the night before a game just to make him popcorn.

Graham Harrell, Texas Tech quarterback and Washington State assistant: At Washington State, a lot of times we’d be sitting there and he’d go, “What movies are showing? Do you think we should go watch one?” He would be like, “Well, they’re not going to miss us.” We would go all the time in the middle of the day.

 
 
(Sam Greenwood / Getty Images)

Spurrier: When we were at Oklahoma, he had a plastic bag with two slices of bread in it. Every day, he brought two slices of bread. I watched him one day. He got a piece of bread and balled it up. One whole slice of bread and just balled it as tight as he could. I can’t quite figure out what he’s doing. Is he going fishing? He’s just sitting there for a couple minutes squeezing it. Then he took the ball and he put it in his mouth and swallowed it whole. So I asked him. He said: “Well, my wife said because I drink so much coffee and it’s not good for my stomach that I need to eat two slices of bread a day — and I hate bread. So I ball it up and swallow it up.” OK, there you have it. That’s a great idea. I like that.

McGuire: I picked him up in Phoenix for a recruiting visit. We’d just got hired at Washington State. He’d been out bear hunting at this hunting lodge in Canada for a week. He’s got a generic sweatshirt and hat from the lodge and probably hadn’t taken a shower from the night before.

Spurrier: I picked him up at an airport once for a visit. He had jeans on, loafers, a surf T-shirt.

McGuire: We go right to the high school. This is his big return to coaching. We park in the school parking lot and there are kids out there and there’s this little foyer where the high school coach is waiting for us like 40 or 50 yards away and he can see us. He goes, “I reckon I should probably put a Washington State shirt on, huh?” So he gets out in the middle of the school parking lot and he opens the trunk and gets a suitcase and just starts stripping off his shirt. He’s just out there talking on the phone for five or 10 minutes, with no shirt on, while the high school coach is in the foyer laughing.

Rogers: The first time I got on the phone with him, he was at Washington State and I was committed here. He just goes on this spiel. He was like,  “They don’t even throw the ball. We want you to throw the ball. Are cowbells really that cool? If you want a cowbell, I’ll go get you a cowbell.”

Harrell: He did a card trick. He just had a deck and had you say black or red. He went through the whole deck and flipped them over and they were all what I called. He was like: “Well, you make pretty good decisions so I guess you can play here.” Then he called this person on the phone. I think it was his wife, but he called them “The Wizard.” I had to tell him a card before he made the phone call so, like, three of diamonds. He called someone and was like, “Hey, is The Wizard there?” The person on the other line was like, “Yeah.” He handed me the phone and the person was like “three of diamonds” and then just hung up. Then I leave the room, and that was the entire recruiting trip.

Hollingshead: He knows everybody.

Emerick: He was going to Matthew McConaughey’s wedding. He comes back and is like, “Yeah, I saw McConaughey, but I didn’t get to spend a ton of time with him. They had all these tents that everyone lived in. I mostly hung out with Rooster.”

Rooster McConaughey, Matthew’s older brother: It was just one night, but it was all night.

Emerick: He could go to 4:30, 5 in the morning pretty easy. He wanted people around him.

Rooster: I sang a couple of George Jones songs over there at my brother’s wedding and went and sat down. He came over and wanted to visit. What an interesting guy. He was drinking tequila and water. We got to sittin’ around the table. It was 1 in the morning or something. Both of us like to cuss a lot and like to hear ourselves talk. We didn’t ask each other too many questions because if you did, it gave the other guy the floor. He loved to talk about Texas high school football and he complimented me on my George Jones stuff.

Dotson: He just wanted to be everybody’s friend at the end of the day.

Rooster: As the night went on, it was down to three of us. The third guy, sh–, he was so far out of it he was talking like Chewbacca. I think ol’ Leach liked it OK because Chewbacca kinda dressed like a pirate. It was the most entertaining seven hours. … It was 8 or 9 or 10 in the morning when I left. Hell, he was still telling stories! … He’s knowledgable about everything. I mean, gee whiz. This guy could have run for office — and filibustered the sh– out of everybody. “Here comes Leach, here comes Leach, pass the bill!” … That was one of my greatest evenings I’ve ever had.

Emerick: He was at a party in Phoenix. I said, “Coach, how did the party go?” He goes, “Oh, it was fun. Charles Barkley picked me up.” I said, “He picked you up?” He goes, “Yeah, we’re friends. He picked me up.” I said, “Where were you?” He goes, “No, he literally picked me up and carried me around the party.”

Dotson: I think that’s what he loved about his job the most — the group of people he was able to bring together and all the stories he was able to accumulate.

Mangino: When we got to Oklahoma, we all got rooms at the Residence Inn in Norman.

Stoops: None of our wives or families were with us yet. We were like a mini fraternity.

Mangino: The first night, Bob walked with me and came and sat in my room. He called Mike and told him to come down. We’re all sitting there drinking beer, smoking cigars and calling recruits in that room.

Stoops: Once everybody was done with hosting recruits and parents on Friday, Saturday night, we’d all reconvene at Bear’s room.

Mangino: Bear is my nickname.

Stoops: Little by little, everyone would filter out.

Mangino: Except Leach. We’re sitting there BS-ing and I’m trying to figure this guy out. He’s interesting but different. It’s about 1:30, 2 o’clock. I said, “Mike, I’m about to go to sleep.” I get in my bed. Mike doesn’t leave. He’s sitting there drinking beer, chewing snuff and he’s laughing at Howard Stern. It’s about 3:30 in the morning. I’m like, “When is this guy going to leave?” Finally about 4 o’clock, he says, “See ya, Coach,” and he leaves. Next night, same routine. … This goes on for four or five nights. That was my introduction to Mike.

 
 
(Joe Robbins / Getty Images)

Falk: He was an avid Snapchatter. He’d be in meetings and I’d see him on Snapchat.

Madison: He lived for it.

Emerick: We had a guy who played for us at Washington State named Freddie Davey and somehow Freddie turned into a rapper. He would constantly be on there watching Freddie Davey Snapchats.

Freddie Davey, Washington State linebacker: He always messaged me and wanted me to come to Key West. Bring the family to Key West and hang out with him and fish.

Emerick: He will talk to anybody about anything.

Spurrier: I used to really try to pay attention to him to try to capture what made him good. That’s really hard to do because there’s never a conversation that goes for very long where he talks about football. He talks about politics, he talks about …

Moos: Superman …

Mele: Sacagewea …

Morrow: Ancient Russians …

Hal Mumme, Kentucky coach: Why he and my ex-wife never got along …

Morrow: Who would win between a gorilla and a tiger …

Mumme: There are aliens but not Bigfoot …

Hollingshead: How the fat in the butter reacts with the caffeine in such a way that it supercharges the coffee.

Emerick: We go back to the hotel lobby and it’s like 2 in the morning. I was just trying to go to bed at this point so I said, “Coach, I need to call my wife.” I was totally bluffing; she was obviously asleep. He goes: “OK, call her.” I’m like, “Uhhh, maybe I don’t need to call her.” So we go up and he’s just talking. He follows me into my room. There are two beds and he sits on one of them. I doze off for 30 or 45 minutes. I wake up — and he is still talking to me.

Mumme: We make this big trip to Florida in 1991. On the way back, we’re driving along and I looked at him. “I think I might be able to get the job at The Citadel. How would you like that?” He looks at me and goes, “I don’t want to play soldier.” … He said, “If I was going to play something, I just want to play a pirate.” He goes into this long oration about how you could have a school where everybody dressed like pirates. You could have cannon practice and swing-your-sword practice.

Kevin Kilmer, Texas Tech assistant: I was an undergrad student assistant, but he always made me feel like I was a part of it. That’s what he did with everybody. He made everybody feel like he was on their level.

Connor Halliday, Washington State quarterback: He ended up being like my best friend. Yeah, I was watching film and getting better, but I was hanging out with my friend, drinking Colombian coffee and taking dips.

Falk: I don’t think I told him nearly enough: I’m just so grateful for him.

Seth Doege, Texas Tech quarterback: This man changed my life.

Taylor: I have the utmost respect for that man. 

Rogers: Even now, there’s so much that I appreciate about him that I didn’t notice until he was gone.

Mangino: He knew what he wanted in life and how he was going to live his life, and nobody was going to tell him any different. We said it as coaches, a bunch of us: “Wish we could be like Leach and not give a sh–.”

Taylor: One of one.

Mele: Classic, man. Love the guy.

Moos: I love the guy.

John Cohen: I’m going to really miss him.

 

I lost it here ~> "Morrow: Who would win between a gorilla and a tiger …"

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On 2/21/2023 at 8:24 AM, NoName said:

Luke Falk, Washington State quarterback: We were down 24-7 at Oregon State. I came in at halftime and went in the coaches’ locker room. He was like, “There’s nothing these guys are doing. We just need to go out there and beat the f— out of them. What we need to do is be calm and get after their ass.” And then he proceeds to get on Rosetta Stone or something and practice Spanish.

Holy shit. 

Man, Leach had to go? There are enough absolute dirtballs in the sport and Leach was the one whose time was up?

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SDG

SDG 3336

Posted
Posted
20 hours ago, Tex Long said:

The Book - I mean THE Book - about Mike, complete with fucks, Fucks, and FUCKS, needs to steal an existing title (I'm under the impression that titles are not copyrightable, but probably there are some conditions). That title is HOW TO NOT GIVE A FUCK. 

Do it.

Hopefully it’s written by Buddy Levy who was my English professor while at Wazzu.  (True story; he bought us beer at The Coug after our last day of class)

https://www.cougcenter.com/2014/6/9/5767016/buddy-levy--geronimo-book--mike-leach-wsu-football

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Tommy Shelby

Tommy Shelby 189

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Posted
On 12/18/2022 at 12:15 AM, markstanco said:


Man I hope every jersey says Leach above the numbers on the back. That would be so kick ass.

And F Tech for firing him. They better stay low and say nothing. Trash school for sticking up for that dirtbag entitled son of Craig James. They will never again be in a place like they were with leach. They did it to themselves.

L
O
L

Enjoy being SMU for eternity.

Yup, and UT will be the Michigan of the south. Constantly talking about potential, money, tradition and prestige while OU (or in Michigan’s tOSU) continues to have more conference and national titles. 
 

Thought to be fair, being able to keep a kid disciplined in Austin, especially a 4-5 star, has to be damn near impossible. 
 

Here come the flurry of downvotes haha. Craig James did kill 5 hookers and the unsubstantiated west Texas hubris will keep Tech mediocre at best. Being a Tech fan just sucks 🫠

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NoName 17147

Posted
Posted
8 hours ago, Tommy Shelby said:

Yup, and UT will be the Michigan of the south. Constantly talking about potential, money, tradition and prestige while OU (or in Michigan’s tOSU) continues to have more conference and national titles.

conference titles? sure. 15 in the last 23 years.

but since Switzer left OU in 88, Texas and OU have the same number of national championships.

since 2000, Texas and OU have the same number of national championships. that includes the worst decade in the history of Texas football. that includes, by winning % 3 of the worst 7 coaches in Texas history. that includes, by winning %, 2 of the 3 worst coaches in Texas history (Strong and Sark)

OU is absolutely not Ohio State, who haven't missed on hiring a head coach since like 1946 when they hired a guy who was there for one year and still won 55% of his games. literally, since 1900 that's their worst full time coach.

here is OU since Switzer left:

  • Gary Gibbs, 62.5%
  • Schnellenbarger, 50%
  • John Blake, 35.3%
  • Stoops, 79.8%
  • Lincoln Riley, 84.6% (higher than Switzer, higher than Bud Wilkinson
  • Brett Venables, 46.1% --> for comparison, Charlie Strong was at 44.4%.

Venables is much closer to John Blake than he is Bob Stoops. next year is make or break for him, and personally i have little faith in him not being who he showed everyone he was last year.

now, does OU have a ton of institutional buy in ? yes. do they have a great AD? absolutely. but let's not act like they have some institutional long level of success in hiring great coaches and only great coaches.

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n64ra

n64ra 1150

Posted
Posted
18 hours ago, Tommy Shelby said:

Yup, and UT will be the Michigan of the south. Constantly talking about potential, money, tradition and prestige while OU (or in Michigan’s tOSU) continues to have more conference and national titles. 
 

Thought to be fair, being able to keep a kid disciplined in Austin, especially a 4-5 star, has to be damn near impossible. 
 

Here come the flurry of downvotes haha. Craig James did kill 5 hookers and the unsubstantiated west Texas hubris will keep Tech mediocre at best. Being a Tech fan just sucks 🫠

Doesn't UM claim 11 titles and tOSU claim 8?

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