mike leach: 1961-2022
GEORGE SOMERVILLE
Saturday 17th december 2022
A very sad edition of Saturday In Athens this week. As much as I would want to be talking about the lead up to the Bowl games, the SEC has been dominated by one piece of news.
The news that Mississippi State head coach, Mike Leach, suffered a major heart attack and sadly passed on Monday evening.
The outpourings of love, stories and what we now we refer to as “Leach’isms” have swamped my social media feeds this week. On Tuesday, the SEC Network ran back to back tributes all day and Paul Finebaum dedicated his entire show of four hours to remembering the Bulldogs’ head coach.
The suddenness of his demise has shocked the football world and especially the South Eastern Conference. While Leach coached in the SEC for only 3 seasons, he left an indelible mark.
I didn’t know Mike Leach and never had the chance to meet him. We did exchange messages once as I tried to convince him to be a guest on the College Chaps podcast. He said yes, but we never found a date. It was special just to touch base. But one thing I have had the privilege of is joining the SEC head coaches teleconference each Wednesday. This is a unique opportunity to listen to and ask questions of the conference’s 14 head coaches. The topics vary from the sublime to the bizarre and is a treat to listen in to. One of those coaches was Mike Leach. As much as it is obviously very special to hear any of these coaches speak, including Nick Saban – arguably the greatest football coach the game has seen – I admit to having most looked forward to the 11th name on the list. Mike Leach.
On this weekly call each coach is encouraged to give a summary of events leading up to and including the game in the coming weekend for their team. Leach was not one for opening statements. In fact he famously said at SEC opening days after the Commissioner introduced him on stage,
“well I appreciate that, any questions?”.
This was Mike Leach. He spoke his mind. On some calls he could be downright cantankerous, although I would argue nowhere near as cantankerous as other SEC coaches. He could be endearing and charming. He could be incredibly witty and off the wall. Mike Leach was Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates. It was impossible to predict what you were going to get.
Which clearly was gold dust for the media who pretended not to love it, but knew that it sold newspapers or clicks or whatever else they wanted to generate. And they loved it.
Remembering Coach Leach
My friends and College Chaps co-hosts, Oli Hodgkinson, Alex Chinery and I spoke the other night about Leach when we heard the news that he had suffered a heart attack. For three lads some 4,500 miles from Starkville, it was difficult to comprehend that we weren’t talking about a family member. Such was the pull of the man. My father died of a massive heart attack. He was 9 years younger than Mike Leach, which frankly for both men is no age at all. Lives caught tragically short. And that is what we will feel about Mike Leach. That while we got to witness the Mike Leach experience, we didn’t get enough. As any great entertainer does he left us wanting more.
I wanted to pay tribute in someway to how Coach Leach touched me, us all with his humour, intellect and coaching genius.
To do so I thought I would pull out some of his more eccentric times spent on the press conferences, including those precious SEC conference calls. Not to belittle his coaching achievements in any way, but to show why Leach was different and why he was so interesting to so many.
So, instead of our usual SIA, here are Mike Leach’s best comments from SEC calls. Some are classics and have already been reported, some not much. I hope this helps remember him in some way.
I miss you Mike Leach.
Here are this week’s Mike Leach headlines……
"You mail me a check"
We should never have mistaken Mike Leach’s irreverence for foolhardiness. And sometimes the media’s questions are designed to get a sound bite which will make headlines. Leach was always more savvy than that. On this occasion post the Bulldogs’ loss to Georgia, Leach was asked his thoughts on SEC officiating. During the game the Bulldogs suffered at the hands of some interesting decisions. But whatever Leach was thinking about the officials, he wasn’t letting it be known to the Media. But again, there was no one word answer from Leach.
“That’s obviously a ridiculous question and you know it, unless I plan to spend some money. You mail me a check, I think $30K will cover it. I’ll have to check the market first. You mail me the check and I’ll give you a heck of an answer”.
This quote actually came from Leach’s final SEC Teleconference.
Marriage counsellor
Of all things Mike Leach was to people, it was amazing how often he was asked for advice on marriage. It was a subject which cropped up more times than you would expect. His post game interview with the SEC Network’s Alyssa Lang went viral when he offered Alyssa’s fiancee some marital advice which introduced the concept of eloping. No great surprise then that Coach Leach was asked if he had eloped during the next week’s teleconference. Leach answered thus,
“No, but in hindsight it sure would have been a good idea. We weren’t engaged long tho’ – probably a month. But that’s one of the greatest things to happen as it was a long month weeding though all the logistics of everyone thinking they’re so important…and they’re all forgettable in the end. But it did come down to a point where we were going to get married at the end of the Summer. Her parents were moving and so we were going to get married in late August….and it was like no – this is already a pain in the ass, so no late August and we got married the first week in June”.
Asked at what point he wished he had eloped, Mike said,
“it didn’t take long. As soon as my Mom, my sisters, my aunts got involved and her’s were very involved. She is the youngest of five sisters – could you imagine that, 5 straight girls?! And she was drinking some of the Kool-aid too – you know the whole “do you want the blue invitations, the tan invitations or the pink ones?”
……To which I would say I don’t care but then they would say “but we want you to be a part of this too” ….ok then, the blue ones. Then they would say “I kinda like the tan ones”…..Fine the tan ones then – “Well you’re just saying whatever I answer”….so you see you can’t give them a good answer. You just have to go work or hang out or make up reasons to not be around”.
Sound advice. And the laughter around the teleconference was loud and raucous.
False News
This tale made it onto an earlier SIA. Reports during the week were that Texas had spent $280,000 on recruiting trip for prospective recruits including Arch Manning. The sheer size of the bill for the trip was eye watering and the media had a field day with this number in the days leading up to Mike Leach’s press conference. Of course Leach was a highly intelligent man – he had done the math. And once he had done the math he called foul and called out those pesky Longhorns.
“Have you ever been to or heard of rooms that can eat up that much of $280,000? I haven’t,”
said Leach somewhat impishly,
“Let’s make them really expensive. There’s eight recruits, hypothetically. Let’s make those rooms $3,000 a piece. Right there you still haven’t even dented it……I think this is embellished… But I would be curious if someone managed to be creative enough to find a way to spend that much money in that period of time on that number of people. I’d be curious exactly how it was done and what they did. I have some serious, serious, serious doubts about this.”
And then Mike called it what he thought it was, fake news
“If you go to England, it’s understood that the news, at least half of it, is false and people read it because it’s a good story, They wink-wink and kind of nudge each other, and it’s just understood it’s not true …
Over here, we actually go through the motions of pretending everything written is true. More than any time in my lifetime, stuff that I read is not true. My suspicion is this goes into that category. I don’t know that, but I would love to just have a quick one-hour course on how you spend $280,000 in 48 hours.”
Tiny Dinosaur hands
Mike Leach is worried if his receivers refuse to use their hands, they might end up like the dinosaurs.
— Grace Ybarra (@gnybarra) October 23, 2022
For reference, Leach was "a big dinosaur guy" growing up. pic.twitter.com/C6p9krKg5N
It is also well known that Mike Leach did not suffer fools gladly. His players will tell of times where Leach has been highly critical of their play. One such occasion this season happened post the defeat to Alabama. A game Mike Leach knows his team could have won. But they didn’t. Leach did not hold back about his receivers, who he feared would lose the power in their arms, such was the inactivity he saw on the field. In fact Leach thought that his receivers could evolve to a time where their arms ended up like the dinosaurs.
Leach said,
“I’m genuinely fearful that on our team if me and the other coaches don’t get them right, that about a generation from now their kids and their grandkids won’t have hands.
Because from a lack of use those hands just disappear. Maybe they’ll be … like those dinosaur hands – you’ve got like a tyrannosaurus rex, which is clearly really good at eating things, with big ol’ jaws and all that stuff, certainly athletic and can run.
I think we took a very, very, very big step as a team, which we have to correct this. We have to correct this because, you know, I think that its best in the end for these guys that they have good hand development and that they don’t evolve to where they don’t have hands”.
Opening statements?
One of my favorites:
— Peter Burns (@PeterBurnsESPN) December 13, 2022
1st appearance at SEC Media Days, we were all excited to hear from Mike Leach.
Normally each coach gives about a 5-10 min opening statement on the team and off-season.
We couldn’t wait to hear what Leach was going to say in his speech
He gave us this….😂 pic.twitter.com/AhXH0RBYwx
Let’s go back to that SEC opening performance on stage at SEC Media Days in Atlanta, Somewhat predictably, Mike Leach was asked why he didn’t like to offer up a prepared opening statement.
“Opening statements? Well, I hate opening statements. I really don’t see the point of it. So as opposed to me sit there and think of some flowery opening statement, which I’ve done before, and then at the end of the opening statement a number of people ask questions that have already been addressed in my opening statement, I decided we’d just sort of cut out the middleman. You go ahead and ask the questions, and I’ll go ahead and answer ’em”.
A man of one word
As much as Mike Leach is known for his long, sometimes rambling answers to questions, many times veering away from the subject, the Bulldogs head coach could at time be brief. Very brief.
On an SEC teleconference Leach was asked about the decision making of his star quarterback, Will Rogers. Asked “is Rogers making the right decisions for you Coach”, Leach had a one word answer,
“Usually”…….
Better call Saul
At SEC Media Days back in July 2022, somehow Mike Leach got onto the subject of what he watches on Netflix. We found out that he was quite the fan of Better Call Saul, documentaries about Pablo Escobar and that his kids had got him started on Stranger Things. By the time we got round to football season, the season finale of his favourite show had come and gone. Obviously Mike was asked his thoughts on the finale and whether he was satisfied with it’s ending.
“I don’t want to reveal it for those that haven’t seen it – but yes it was kind of an abrupt ending that really wrapped everything up. They almost set it up for a sequel and they certainly could.
But the ultimate season finale was Breaking Bad….which was really an outstanding season finale”.
GEORGE SOMERVILLE
COLLEGE FOOTBALL WRITER
A GLASWEGIAN LIVING IN LONDON, GEORGE IS A COLLEGE FOOTBALL FAN WHO FOLLOWS THE ALABAMA CRIMSON TIDE. HE PROVIDES CFB CONTENT FOR THE TOUCHDOWN AND IS ONE THIRD OF THE COLLEGE CHAPS PODCAST.