More Thoughts on Mike Leach

As more and more news comes trickling out about the firing of Mike Leach from Texas Tech, my emotions get more and more mixed up.  I still think Adam James and his dad are big namby pamby's and Adam needs to be transfered from campus as soon as possible.  I mean, how did he tolerate standing on the sidelines for 4 hours during that game?  Under those bright lights?  It must have been torture.

I still think that Gerald Myers needs to leave as Athletic Director.  There, at least, I'm likely to be pacified.  His contract is up at the end of May and it's rumored he will not return.  So not only did he not care about the outcome of this squabble, but he got to oust his rival before he left.

My emotions were highly mixed at the game on Saturday, sitting with my husband in San Antonio, knowing our Coach wasn't there, angry at the administration for their botched handling of the whole affair, and the player who gave the administration the ax to lower on his head was standing on the side-lines, laughing and smiling and yuking it up as if he hadn't at least been the impetus to hurt us.  It just seemed ... wrong.

The problem I have now, is there is no closure.  I want a farewell.  I want a bon voyage.  I want the chance to thank Coach Leach for everything - EVERYTHING - he did for us.  All the wins, all the bowl games, all the funny press conferences ... I want a chance to say "we will miss you, and Godspeed."

I have been denyed that, by the administration and by Mike Leach himself.  Because of their mutual hatred for each other, I am left torn and unhappy.

Ruffin McNeil, the "interim" head coach as he was called at the Alamobowl, said not one word about the coach that brought him on, that believed in his defensive coordinators even when no one else did, and who built the team that allowed McNeil to win.  That omission, from someone on Mike Leach's staff, and his lack of contrition and appropriate level of mourning, upset me.  I know Leach is not coming back.  I know that he is gone.  But I want to say goodbye.  With fervor.  With guns up and flags waving and my heart in my throat as I thank him for some of the best memories I will ever have.

I met my husband because of a Texas Tech football game that Mike Leach coached.  I had some of the greatest memories in my life at Texas Tech football games.  We've gone to as many games as we could post-grad, and I love going.  I love taking the pictures, our guns up, everyone smiling.  I have a room in my house dedicated to these pictures.  And I will hang the picture I have of myself with Coach Leach among these.  Now it is not merely a great memory ... it is iconic and reminiscent of a time long gone.

Spike Dykes was coach in fall of '99, when I started at Tech.  It would be his last season.  Mike Leach took over the following fall.  In '99, when my indoctrination to football began thanks to my good friend Amber, I learned to really, really dislike Rob Peters, our then quarterback who had no offensive line, and needed about 5 seconds to get a pass off.  This is ridiculous.  He would drop back, 5, 10, 15, 20 yards, get sacked, and we'd lose all those yards.  Almost every play.  I wanted to egg his house.  Watching him was painful.

Then came Kliff Kingsbury, and Coach Leach.  What greatness there was.  He started beating A&M, which was awesome.  And in 2002, the first of my favorite football games ... he led the Raiders to victory against #3 UT.  He threw for 508 yards, and 6 touchdowns.  We won 42 - 38 in the final minutes of the game.  The following week we lost to OU in Norman and thus lost our shot at the Big 12 Championship ... but beating UT is always a good day.

I love my coach.  And he was my coach.  As long as I've been a Red Raider he's been my coach, and now that he's gone and I have to realign my loyalty to a new coach, I don't know how I feel about that.

But this is what it is to be a sports fan.  If you stay with a team long enough, the players change but the coaches change too.  And I will and must adapt.  But for now, I don't have to like it.

Gerald Myers and the administration have done wrong, because Mike Leach wasn't a good ole boy from West Texas who would play their games.  And Myers ego, Kent Hance's ego, and Jim Sowell's ego (Chairman of Board of Regents) all decided last January that they wanted Leach out.  They just couldn't do it after all Leach had done that year.  They were looking all year for a reason to release him from his contract before December 31, 2009.  And Adam James gave them the weapon they were needing.

Politics, beaurocracy, and ego all got in the way of what was best for the University.  On all sides.  That depresses me.  But more than that, the fact that I haven't gotten to pay tribute ... to say THANK YOU for the wins, the seasons, the memories ... it just makes this whole thing very difficult to handle.

The band didn't even play the Pirate songs from Pirates of the Carribean at the half time show.  But as one of the signs at the game said ... "Live like a Pirate, Die like a Pirate."

I wish all the best to Mike Leach in his future endeavors, and I hope that the ensuing legal battles don't hurt the university ... who's students and alumni love Mike Leach, and whom Mike Leach used to love.  The administration is crap.  But the students and alumni are not, but it will be us who suffer greatest through this.