Double T—Double Cross
The Firing of Coach Mike Leach: The Backroom
Deal That Deflated the Red Raider Nation
By
Michael Lee Lanning
Copyright 2011 Scottsdale Book Publishing.
All rights reserved.
Published by Scottsdale Book Publishing, LLC., Scottsdale Arizona.
Special Smashwords Edition
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ISBN 978-0-9831268-3-6 (electronic)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011941257
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – On the Sidelines: The Firing of Mike Leach
Chapter 2 – Mike Leach: The Early Years
Chapter 3 – On the Plains: “Happiness is Lubbock, Texas…”
Chapter 4 – Head Coach Mike Leach: Immediate and Sustained Success
Chapter 5 – Leach and Tech Administrators: Early Conflicts
Chapter 6 – The Golden Season: 2008
Chapter 7 – The Turning Point: New Contract Negotiations
Chapter 8 – The Magic Continues: The 2009 Season
Chapter 9 – The Phony Express: Craig and Adam James
Chapter 10 – The Garage, the Media Room, the Electrical Closet
Chapter 11 – Preparing to Swiftboat Leach: Craig James and Spaeth
Chapter 12 – A Rush to Judgement: The Investigation
Chapter 13 – A Few Not-So-Good Men: The Rush to Firing
Chapter 14 – Aftermath: the Reactions, the Smears, the Lawsuits
Chapter 15 – Life Goes On: Where Are They Now
Appendix A – Organizational Authority for Texas Tech University Administrators and Board of Regents
Appendix C – Texas Tech Statement on Mike Leach Termination
Appendix D – Statement by Texas Tech Coach Mike Leach
Appendix E – Texas Tech Letter to Mike Leach
Books by Michael Lee Lanning
The Only War We Had: A Platoon Leader’s Journal of Vietnam
Vietnam 1969-1970: A Company Commander’s Journal
Inside the LRRPs: Rangers in Vietnam
Inside Force Recon: Recon Marines in Vietnam (with Ray W. Stubbe) The Battles of Peace
Inside the VC and NVA: The Real Story of North Vietnam’s Armed Forces (with Dan Cragg) Vietnam at the Movies
Senseless Secrets: The Failures of U. S. Military Intelligence From George Washington to the Present
The Military 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Military Leaders of All Time
The African-American Soldier: From Crispus Attucks to Colin Powell
Inside the Crosshairs: Snipers in Vietnam
Defenders of Liberty: African-Americans in the Revolutionary War
Blood Warriors: American Military Elites.
The Battle 100: The Stories Behind History’s Most Influential Battles
Mercenaries: Soldiers of Fortune, From Ancient Greece to Today’s Private Military Companies
The Civil War 100: The Stories Behind the Most Influential Battles, People, and Events in the War Between the States
The Revolutionary War 100: The People, Battles, and Events of the American War for Independence, Ranked by their Significance
Dedication:
To truth, justice, honor, honesty, courage, loyalty, and fairness. Characteristics often absent in the events behind the following story.
When approached by my publisher about writing this book, I had mixed emotions—a sparked interest and a skeptical apprehension among them—concerning whether or not the topic and I were right for each other. I do watch the occasional football game on television, but I have not attended a college matchup in years. I keep up with the Top 25 polls through the sports section in the daily newspaper, but I do so more to be informed than because I am a great fan of college football.
I was aware that Texas Tech University fired Mike Leach, mostly because the timing of his surprise termination made the regular news as well as sports headlines. Although I had no “dog in the hunt”—or more aptly “no player on the field”—the story was of interest since I had grown up near Lubbock, had myself attended the Red Raiders’ rival Texas A&M University, and have a daughter who is a Tech graduate. Residing in Phoenix, Arizona near the publisher at the time of his inquiry, I felt fairly removed from the details surrounding the controversial dismissal; however, my wife and I were rebuilding our home on the Bolivar Peninsula on the Texas Gulf Coast that we had lost to Hurricane Ike in 2008, and soon I would be much nearer the primary players in this deepening drama. For all these reasons, I was certainly intrigued by the book’s topic.
As a researcher, writer, and historian, I have previously written military history with a focus on the Vietnam War era. My other books chronicle battles and leaders as far back as 3000 BC. But after turning to my computer and making a brief initial search on the phrase “Mike Leach Texas Tech,” I quickly discovered that an incident as recent as two years ago—and continuing today— is much easier in most ways to investigate but more difficult in others than incidents that occurred decades or even centuries ago. The good news and bad news are the same—information is everywhere. Basic internet searches simply overwhelm.
Yet sources on this particular subject crossed all genre lines, conflicted grossly, or simply made no sense. The more I read, the more it appeared that writers of many articles had more interest in agendas than in facts. Accounts of the same issue were often as radically different as political stories produced by the Fox News Channel and MSNBC.
As research progressed, I quickly discovered the Leach supporters to be more available and forthright than the Texas Tech University administrators, who seemed to have adopted a deep-bunker mentality. It soon became apparent that something was just not right—morally or legally. From the outset, the firing of Mike Leach appeared to be more the result of the good old boy buddy system at work than any sound business practice in play, more about personal politics for control than basic professionalism, and more about finances than fairness. But I wanted to gather all the evidence and details in order to present a fair analysis.
I have made every effort in this book to cover both sides of the controversy. I have cited court documents, depositions, and personal interviews that have been at the forefront of my research as well as opinion columns, internet blogs, and other commentary available. The conclusions reached in this book are my own—based on the facts as I understand them. All readers are, of course, entitled to make up their own minds.
Michael Lee Lanning
Bolivar Peninsula, Texas
October 2011
Chapter
1
On
the Sidelines:
The Firing of Mike Leach
Mike Leach sat on the sidelines. Not in San Antonio’s Alamodome preparing his Texas Tech University Red Raiders for the 2010 Alamo Bowl against the Michigan State Spartans as he had expected. Instead he was alone in his hotel room. Instead of working on plans for the game scheduled for January 2, Leach was awaiting a legal decision from the 99th Judicial Court in Lubbock, a ruling that would either lift or uphold his coaching suspension imposed two days before by his bosses, Texas Tech Athletic Director Gerald Myers and University President Guy Bailey. (Organizational Authority for Texas Tech Administrators and Board of Regents at Appendix A.)
Leach and the Red Raiders had departed Lubbock in high spirits for San Antonio on Monday, December 28, 2009 to complete preparations for the upcoming post-season bowl game to be played four days later. The team—after its spectacular 2008 year—had just completed another successful season, racking up an 8-4 record and making Mike Leach the most winning football coach in Texas Tech history. Not only had the Red Raiders, who had been un-ranked and mostly unnoted a decade before Leach took over, gained national recognition, but also they had done it in a style that old-school proponents of the game said could not be done. Coach Leach had had the vision, and his players had executed it right into the Top 25 in the polls. The Raiders had been flying in more ways than just on planes.
Upon his arrival in the Alamo City, however, Leach received a stunning telephone call from Athletic Director Myers telling him that he had been suspended from coaching duties—effective immediately—until further notice.
Leach was shocked. Here he was at the pinnacle of his coaching career at a major bowl game with an opportunity for him and his team to gain even more national attention and to move up in the Top 25 polls. The previous year’s team had elevated Tech as high as number 2 in the country; the Alamo Bowl, while not a top tier contest, would validate that the Red Raiders had become a national powerhouse and that their radically different style of offense was changing the face of modern football.
Now instead of euphoria and a cheering crowd, Leach stood alone against the forces of incredible accusations and an entrenched university administration and Board of Regents. In weather, it would have been called the perfect storm; in football terms, Leach now faced the perfect blitz. From one side of the field of perspectives and agenda, the attacks were coming fast and furiously from an ESPN sports commentator who was using a microphone from his on-air bully pulpit to accuse Leach of abusing his son. Part of the reason that the suspension caught Leach off-guard was that he thought the complaint issue had been resolved, having been told by the university’s attorney- investigator just days before that she had finished her inquiries and that there was nothing for him to worry about—not that he was overly concerned since he believed he had done nothing wrong in regard to his player. Nevertheless, he had been glad to have the incident behind him so that he could concentrate on the bowl game with no distractions. Or so he had thought.
But the moves against Leach were not that simple or singular. From another, unexpected side of events, the threats were mounting from what looked like thwarted, hostile Board of Regents members who could now see their way to finally out- maneuver Leach, take him down, and save themselves a bundle of cash—all that the same time. When they saw Leach weakened by very public and unanswered accusations, they appeared to have recognized an opportunity for revenge and for saving the university some cash.
Leach, however, was not on the field of play alone. He had dozens of happy players and thousands of jubilant fans at his back; and a staff of loyal coaches and trainers to his front. In the end, however, none of the defenses or supporters could do anything to stop the assault on his reputation and character.
As a part of the brief conversation suspending him from his job, Athletic Director Myers read Leach the letter written on Office of the President stationary: “Dear Coach Leach: We recently received a complaint from a player and his parents regarding your treatment of him after an injury, and we have undertaken an investigation of that complaint. We consider this a serious matter. Until the investigation is complete, you are suspended from all duties as Head Football Coach effective immediately.”
Though surprised, disappointed, and hurt, Leach did not hang his head. He did what he had done all his life when faced with adversity: the Coach fought back. Less than twenty-four hours later, Leach directed his attorney, Ted Liggett of Lubbock, to file a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the suspension based on the failure of Texas Tech to follow due process and for breach of the coach’s contract. The District Court, recognizing the time sensitivity of the matter, had set a hearing for 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, December 30, just three days before the big game.
Because Leach was still in San Antonio, his attorney Liggett approached the courthouse without his client on that Wednesday morning of the 30th , bundled against a driving wind that had brought a light dusting of fresh snow the day before. Stomping through even deeper slush and ice left from a powerful winter storm that had hit the Plains less than a week earlier, the lawyer entered the building only to find an atmosphere even colder than the one outside
Liggett had prepared for a hearing with the presiding judge over the TRO issue and had intended to proceed straight to the judge’s chambers. Instead, outside the judge’s office, he encountered the attorney representing Texas Tech University who informed him that if he proceeded with the hearing on the temporary restraining order, Leach would immediately be terminated as the football coach and as an employee of Texas Tech. Liggett responded that he did indeed intend to proceed, to which the Tech counsel made no comment but rather reached into his briefcase and handed Liggett a letter from his client. In fewer than three dozen words, Texas Tech University President Guy Bailey fired Leach: “This letter shall serve as a formal notice to you that, pursuant to Article V of your Employment Contract, you are terminated with cause effective immediately, for breach of the provisions of Article IV of that Contract.” (Contract at Appendix B.)
Liggett called Leach with the news and then met with reporters and the public who were still in the courthouse expecting the now-canceled hearing to begin. After Liggett read the termination letter, the crowd reacted in disbelief, one man yelling, “You can stuff my season tickets!”
The news swept from Lubbock to San Antonio and rippled across the country—and indeed, the world—in minutes via sports radio and television, blogs, and other media outlets. The story that a university would fire its most successful coach ever on the eve of a nationally televised bowl game was so baffling that it quickly leaped from the sports sections to national news headlines.
Questions came from all directions: Why would Tech fire the coach with the most football wins in its history, a mentor who had one of the highest percentages of graduating players in the NCAA, and an individual who had brought national attention and significant additional revenues to Texas Tech and its football program?
The Texas Tech administration immediately went on the offensive to justify what was quickly becoming a very unpopular decision on their part. Shortly after the news broke, Tech issued a statement that read in part, “After reviewing all the information available, Texas Tech University has decided that the best course of action for the university and football program is to terminate its relationship with Head Football Coach Mike Leach for cause.” The statement continued, “The coach’s termination was precipitated by his treatment of a player after the player was diagnosed with a concussion. The player was put at risk for additional injury. After the university was apprised of the treatment, Coach Leach was contacted by the administration of the university in an attempt to resolve the problem. In a defiant act of insubordination, Coach Leach continually refused to cooperate in a meaningful way to help resolve the complaint…. This action, along with his continuous acts of insubordination, resulted in irreconcilable differences that make it impossible for Coach Leach to remain at Texas Tech.” (Complete statement at Appendix C)
Texas Tech University System Board of Regents Chairman Larry Anders and Vice Chairman Jerry Turner voiced their support for the termination. Both lauded the “leadership” Athletic Director Myers and University President Bailey had exhibited in taking the action. University Chancellor Kent Hance told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, “This is sad. The only person responsible for Mike Leach being gone is Mike Leach.”
Those who were following Tech football and ESPN television already knew that the episode, at least on the surface, involved the alleged mistreatment of sophomore player Adam James, son of former Southern Methodist University and National Football League star Craig James. The elder James, an on-camera ESPN personality, analyst, and sports announcer—scheduled to be an on-air commentator for the Alamo Bowl—had already been broadcasting his belief that his son had been mistreated by Coach Leach. There can be little doubt that pressure from national exposure for employing and tolerating an allegedly abusive coach, as James presented Leach in his son’s side of the story, influenced Tech officials. Or, did it simply hand them an excuse they had been waiting for?
The James family announced on December 30, “We appreciate that the University conducted a fair and thorough investigation.” Even though the statement added that there would be no further comment at that time, Craig James was right back on ESPN voicing his view of the situation, giving interviews, and answering questions as they came to him. On December 19—just two days after his son’s first alleged mistreatment and more than a week before Leach was suspended—James the elder had already hired his own public relations firm to assist him in publicly presenting his son’s claims. Some sources point to James hiring the PR firm as much as ten days earlier.
The basis of the James family outrage was that Adam had supposedly been endangered when the coach failed to appropriately respond to his concussion. The evidence that Craig James presented to the world was a 16-second, jerkily amateurish cell phone video shot on December 19 showing Adam allegedly confined in an “electrical closet” while the rest of the team practiced for the Alamo Bowl. However, the hair-trigger first response to activate a public relations firm rather than rush his son to a doctor indicates that the James complaint was much more about Adam’s lack of playing time and star treatment than about Adam’s “playing” time in an electrical closet.
Once news of Leach’s termination reached national headlines, rumors and theories began to surface that exposed the lingering and festering hostilities that had existed between Leach and the university since negotiations over his 2008 contract. Or perhaps more accurately stated, lingering and festering feelings of hostility apparently held by some of the members of the Board of Regents toward Leach as a result of the outcome of those negotiations. The fact that Tech saved $800,000 by firing Leach when they did—money that would have been due him as a bonus negotiated in that contract—did not escape notice or suspicion.
A still-stunned Mike Leach packed his bags in San Antonio and turned the team over to assistant Ruffin McNeill. In a statement to the news media Leach said, “I want everyone to know what a privilege and pleasure it has been to teach and coach more than 400 student-athletes at Texas Tech University.”
But Leach was not going away quietly. After noting the accomplishments of his decade at Tech, he continued, “Over the past several months, there have been individuals in the Texas Tech administration, Board of Regents, and booster groups who have dealt in lies, and continue to do so. These lies have led to my firing this morning. I steadfastly refuse to deal in any lies, and am disappointed that I have not been afforded the opportunity for the truth to be known. Texas Tech’s decision to deal in lies and fabricate a story which led to my firing, includes, but is not limited by, animosity from last year’s contract negotiations. I will not tolerate such retaliatory action; additionally, we will pursue all available legal remedies.”
In summary Leach stated, “These actions taken by Texas Tech have severely damaged my reputation and public image. In addition, Texas Tech has caused harm not only to my family, but to the entire Red Raider Nation and the sport of college football.” (Complete statement at Appendix D.)
Leach was especially on target about the Red Raider Nation. Tech boosters and alumni—who had been thrilled to watch their team soar into high-scoring victories for almost a decade— flooded the blogs and Letters to the Editors columns, supporting the coach more than ten to one. A common thread bound their complaints: the Double T had double crossed their favorite coach.
Chapter
2
Mike
Leach: The Early Years
As a boy and as a young man growing up, Mike Leach had no plans to become a football coach. But when he set his mind to the task as an adult, he rose to the ranks of the most successful and innovative leaders on the gridiron. His teams set records; his players won awards. He broke all the old rules, and then put the game back together in an extraordinarily new way.
Leach was born on March 9, 1961 in the northern California town of Susanville, but his family moved often before eventually settling in Cody, Wyoming near Yellowstone National Park when Leach was a young boy. In Cody he went out for the high school football team but spent most of his time on the bench as a reserve. While Leach was not much of a player, he was an intense observer and student of the game.
Upon graduation, Leach, raised as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, enrolled in Brigham Young University where he participated in rugby matches. He played no football in Provo but he did continue his observations of the game as he closely followed the BYU Cougars football team with its spread-out, pass-oriented offense under head coach LaVell Edwards and offensive coordinator Norm Chow.
After his graduation in 1983, Leach enrolled in the law school at Pepperdine University in California where he became enamored with the ocean and the beach, both of which would remain more fascinating and inspiring to him than the law. By the time he graduated, Leach was doubting his decision to become an attorney. Despite having a wife and one child to support, he decided he definitely did not want to practice law. Instead, he proclaimed that what he really wanted to become was a football coach, and he enrolled in the United States Sports Academy in Daphne, Alabama—the first, only, and likely last Doctor of Jurisprudence graduate of Pepperdine University School of Law to do so.
Leach completed the USSA program only to find that job openings in the upper levels of the coaching profession were few, especially for a man with no experience playing college football. In 1987, he lobbied his way into a position as assistant coach of safeties and offensive linemen at Cal Poly at San Luis Obispo, a Division II school.
The satisfaction was enormous, but the monetary rewards were small. When Leach told his wife Sharon that he would be earning $3,000, she assumed that they could live on that monthly income. When he explained that the amount was for the whole year, Sharon reached for the want ads. She found a job as an administrative assistant in a local vineyard, and Mike did odd jobs, such as substitute teaching, to supplement their income.
A year later the Leaches moved inland to the College of the Desert in Palm Desert, California, where he would coach linebackers. Although it was a step down from a Division II school to a junior college, his salary rose to an annual sum of $12,000. Sharon found another job, this time as an admin assistant on the campus.
In early 1989, Leach accepted the head coach position of the Poli Bears, a professional European football league in Finland. His stay with the Finns was brief, not because the players smoked cigarettes on the beach during games but because of a better offer back in the States.
The fall of 1989 found Leach in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, as the offensive line coach at Wesleyan College, a National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) school with fewer than a thousand students. While the institution had neither a strong football tradition nor a winning record, it was a four-year school, and more important, the head coach was Hal Mumme, a man who would mentor and mold Leach into a powerful purveyor of a new type of football.
At first glance, Mumme would not leap out of coaching history as one to be such an inspiration and role model. Following an unsuccessful stint as the offensive coordinator at the University of Texas at El Paso from 1982-1985, Mumme accepted the head coach position at Copperas Cove High School in Central Texas. There Mumme adopted techniques he had seen be successful for LaVell Edwards at BYU. He instituted a spread-out, pass- oriented, multiple-receiver offense. This strategy, combined with tough players from military families stationed at nearby Fort Hood, began to defeat Texas powerhouse schools that had previously dominated the region.
When Mumme moved up to Iowa Wesleyan, Leach was one of the first assistants he hired. In an article by S. C. Gwynne in the September 2009 edition of Texas Monthly Magazine, Leach— when asked why Mumme had chosen him—explained, “He probably thought I was ambitious and would do anything he told me. He was right.”
In the spring of 1989, Mumme and Leach attended the BYU training camp and then leap-frogged across the country visiting other pass-oriented programs. By the time they returned to Iowa, they had formulated the basics for their offense, which would be operating primarily out of the shotgun formation and throwing the ball to multiple receivers. Instead of a ball-control and time- of-possession approach, they focused on speed and simplicity. In the same interview with Texas Monthly, Mumme recalled, “We just saw time differently than other coaches did. You can replace personnel. You can replace equipment. Time is the only thing you can’t replace in a game. So we wanted to run as many plays as we could in the time allowed.”
The innovative offense worked. Wesleyan’s football record was 0 and 10 before Mumme and Leach. Over the next three years, the coaches added a no-huddle scheme to their offense and won 25 while losing only 10 as they set 26 national NAIA records. Along with the wins and records came rewards for Leach, small though they may have been. His starting salary of $13,000 rose to $22,000. Despite his meager wages, Leach was happy doing what he wanted to do.
The advancement of football coaches follows a simple route. Win and move up. In 1992, Mumme and Leach did just that when they went to Division II Valdosta State in Georgia. Valdosta State was another school with a long-standing losing record. Over the next five years, the Mumme-Leach duo led the college to 40 wins versus 17 losses and a single tie as they consistently ranked in the Top 20 of Division II schools and set 35 conference records and 7 national benchmarks. During this time Leach continued developing his skills in coaching quarterbacks, culminating in his signal caller Chris Hatcher’s earning the Division II Player of the Year title.
In 1997 Mumme landed a new job, and did not hesitate to take Leach with him as his offensive coordinator. Their successes continued at the University of Kentucky with what quickly was dubbed the “Air Raid Offense.” In two years the team set 41 Southeast Conference records as Leach implemented his quarterback development methods. During Leach’s second year as offensive coordinator, UK quarterback Tim Couch completed passes for 4,275 yards, earning honors as first team All American, Heisman Trophy finalist, and the number one pick in the NFL draft.
In 1999 Leach left Mumme and UK to join the newly hired Bob Stoops at the University of Oklahoma. The once-famed Oklahoma program had fallen on hard times and Stoops realized that major changes had to take place to return the program to national prominence. One such change was to give Leach the leeway to convert the run-dominated offense to a pass-oriented attack. Leach relished the challenge though he was not satisfied with the OU quarterbacks who had been recruited to direct a running offense. Leach went looking for a new signal caller. He found his man, Josh Heupel, at remote Snow College in Utah. When Leach offered him a spot at OU, Heupel was playing only about half the time at Snow.
Oklahoma fans were not happy with Leach, his new passing offense, or the quarterback he recruited to run it. Leach recalled the situation, saying, “There was a time when the two most wanted people in the state were me and Josh Heupel. I was the guy who thought we were going to throw the ball. Heupel was the quarterback who couldn’t run.”
Supporters jumped on board the Stoops/Leach bandwagon when the team won 7 games and lost only 5, an improvement from the 5 and 6 season of 1998. More important, and certainly more entertaining for the fans, was the increase from the previous year’s average of 16.7 points per game to an average 36.8 per contest.
In 2000, Oklahoma went 13-0, winning the national championship. Heupel earned honors as the Heisman Trophy runner-up. Leach, however, was not around for the victory celebrations. He had finally achieved his goal. Leach, at age 38, was about to assume his first role as head coach with his hiring by Texas Tech University.
Chapter
3
On
the Plains:
“Happiness is Lubbock, Texas…”
Mike Leach was ready for Texas Tech. Since college football fields measure the same regardless of the campus and the game’s rules are standard, Leach felt confident he could recruit players for the Red Raiders who could execute his plans. Whether or not Lubbock was ready for Mike Leach was another question.
In a May 3, 2011 article in the New York Times, reporter Randy Kennedy described Lubbock, writing, “…this small city on the tableland of the Southern Great Plains has never had a lot to recommend it, culturally or aesthetically.’”
A regional center for commerce, medical facilities, and education, Lubbock has garnered prominence not so much for its resources as for its central location on the “tableland.” The city has become the 11th largest in the state and the hub of activity serving the vast region that separates it from other metropolises. Dallas is 340 miles southeast while El Paso is equidistance to the southwest; Austin, the state capital, sits 400 miles away; Houston, the state’s largest city, is 524 miles southeast. Albuquerque, New Mexico and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma are closer than most of the Texas cities, each about 350 miles away.
Today’s city of Lubbock did not exist, however, until 1890 and then only because it merged with Monterey, another village across the canyon. The citizens of the two settlements agreed to join forces by keeping the Monterey location but renaming it Lubbock. The townspeople of “old Lubbock” moved their homes and businesses, to the combined town site. A year later Lubbock became the official county seat of Lubbock County; the city incorporated on March 16, 1909.
Texas Technological College, forerunner of Texas Tech University, was established in 1923 and for more than a quarter century remained the town’s most widely known entity. In the latter half of the 20th century, the surrounding Lubbock area began developing into what has become the largest contiguous cotton-growing region in the world, supported by irrigation water from the Ogallala Aquifer as the area receives only an average of 18.7 inches of rainfall and 10.2 inches of snowfall annually.
For its size and age, Lubbock has produced remarkably few famous natives and the two best known came out of the music industry. Scott “Mac” Davis, a popular country and western, rock crossover artist, song writer and actor, was born in Lubbock on January 21, 1942. The Academy of Country Music named Davis Entertainer of the Year for 1974. Interestingly, his most widely known song is Happiness is Texas in My Rearview Mirror that contains the more notable line, I thought happiness was Lubbock, Texas in my rearview mirror.”
Undoubtedly the most famous son of Lubbock is pioneer rock-and-roller Buddy Holly. Born Charles Hardin Holley on September 7, 1936, he changed the spelling of his name and wrote his own songs as Buddy Holly. He established the standard composition for future rock bands: two guitars, a base, and drums.
Holly signed his first professional music contract with Decca Records in early 1957 and recorded hit after hit with his band the Crickets before his death in an airplane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, on February 3, 1959. The Beatles later said that Holly had a great influence on their music, including giving their own group another insect name in recognition of the Crickets. Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Elton John, and the Grateful Dead also recorded Holly’s songs and paid homage to his lasting influence.
Six months before his death, Holly met Maria Elena Santiago, a receptionist for a publisher in New York, to whom he proposed on their first date. On August 15, 1958 the couple flew to Lubbock for the wedding, Maria Elena’s first and only visit to the city on the plains. She did not attend Buddy’s funeral in Lubbock; she has never visited his grave. But, as the owner of the rights to Holly’s name and songs, she charged the City of Lubbock $20,000 for a twenty-year license to maintain the name on its Buddy Holly Center.
Holly rests today under a modest marker that simply reads, “In Loving Memory of Our Son,” recording his name as Buddy Holley, his dates of birth and death, and a carving of his Fender Stratocaster guitar.
Despite his fame, Lubbock itself did not really accept Holly as an honored native until many years after his death. Lubbock was and is not a rock-and-roll town. It is a city of churches and church-goers. Within the city limits are 68 Baptist, 27 Church of Christ, 24 Methodists and 18 Catholic churches. Another 80 houses of worship of various dominations dot the city, mostly Protestant but with one Muslim mosque, and one each Hindu and Jewish temple. A single LDS temple also joins the list.
While most of the various religions represented in Lubbock get along, at least on the surface, there are some deep-seated beliefs in West Texas and on the Plains that meet or perhaps exceed those of other regions. The Baptists think the Methodists are much too liberal, neither can understand why the Church of Christ does not allow a piano to accompany their hymns, and all three consider the Catholic Church as necessary for Hispanics (who make up nearly a fourth of the local population), out-of- state Tech students, and emigrant Yankees. Not even considering the Jews, Hindus, Muslims, and Mormons, each religion is pretty sure that the believers of all the others are going to burn in hell anyway.
Many in Lubbock in the 1950s considered the joining of Buddy Holly and Maria Elena Santiago to be a mixed marriage. There are still some today who consider spouses from different religious affiliations should carry the same moniker. A woman who grew up in a small town near Lubbock recalls, “My grandparents had a mixed marriage. She a Baptist, he Church of Christ. They were married for more than sixty years but every Sunday she would go to her church, he to his.”
Regardless of their religious differences and other various distinguishing features, the people of Lubbock are generally hard-working, fair, and honest in a way that reflects the continuing pioneer spirit of the region. They represent hardy stock who survive the difficult challenges that the land and weather provide. Cowboy hats, boots, and western wear remain as common as suits and ties in the Lubbock business district. A handshake on a deal remains as good as a signed, notarized, contract.
Texas Tech, like any other university, is very much a city within itself. Established on February 10, 1923, Tech boasts a campus of 1,839 acres (nearly three square miles), the second largest contiguous campus in the United States, where students can study for undergraduate and post-graduate, law, and medical degrees at the same location. Author James Mitchener once described the Spanish Renaissance-style campus as “the most beautiful west of the Mississippi until you get to Stanford.” In 2008 Stewart Mandel in Sports Illustrated described Tech as “easily one of ten most beautiful campuses” in the country.
With more than 31,000 students, Tech today ranks as the seventh largest university in Texas. Although Tech enrolls students from all 50 states and from more than a hundred foreign countries, the vast majority are natives of, and share basic values with, West Texas. The University has been somewhat more successful than Lubbock in producing noteworthy alumni. Its most prominent political graduates include the president of Panama from 1969-1978, Demetrio B. Lakas, and three state governors: Preston Smith of Texas in 1968-1972, Daniel Thornton of Colorado from 1951-1955, and John Burroughs of New Mexico from 1959-1961.
Four NASA astronauts are also Tech graduates as is the first Hispanic U.S. Army four star general, Richard E. Cavazos. Four Red Raiders have risen to head major U.S. companies, including General Motors and the Belo Corporation. Singer John Denver was a Tech alumni. On the more notorious side, John Hinckley, Jr., who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981, enrolled in the university off and on from 1973 to 1980. Texas Tech athletic teams participated in the Border Intercollegiate Athletic Conference from 1932 to 1956. After more than twenty years of lobbying and eight rejections, Tech was finally permitted to join the Southwest Conference in 1956. When the SWC disbanded in 1995, Tech, along with the University of Texas, Baylor, and Texas A&M merged with the Big 8 to form the Big 12.
In its long sports history Tech has managed but one national championship. In 1993, the Lady Raiders basketball team, led by Sheryl Swoops, claimed the national title.
The most widely recognized symbol of Texas Tech University is its Double T icon that is generally thought to have originated with E. Y. Freeland, Tech’s head football coach from 1925 to1928. Although its original red, black, and white block configuration has been slightly modified over the years, the Double T remains the icon of the university.
Co-existing on the vast West Texas Plains, where cultural amenities struggle and the gridiron is king, both Tech and Lubbock have come to hold some definite ideas about what to expect from their football coaches. Throughout the state, many fans claim that in Texas there are only two sports—football and spring practice.
In the fall on Friday nights, entire towns empty into their local stadiums or journey hundreds of miles to fill the visitors’ bleachers to watch their high school players. On Saturdays they cheer their favorite Texas college team, which in the Lubbock region is Tech and no other.
At every level in almost every town and city, the football coach is not only the leader of the team but also a spokesman and representative of the community. His influence often exceeds that of local politicians and clergymen. Coaches play golf with the fans—especially donors to their program—speak at local civic and booster events, and endure being either heralded or vilified in the sports pages and on street corners depending on their wins and losses.
Into these expectations and traditions rode individualistic Mike Leach, arriving at Tech to find the administration, faculty, and the townspeople assuming he would continue down the same “good old boy” path of his predecessor. Spike Dykes, who had coached at Tech since 1984, was born in the shadows of Tech’s Jones Stadium in 1938 as the son of a cotton ginner.
Dykes fit in well with the Tech administrators and regents, most of whom are also originally from Lubbock and many of whom had played college football. He shared their basic beliefs and values, spoke their language, and, more importantly, showed proper deference to his superiors and actively courted high-roller donors. During his tenure of more than a dozen years, Dykes managed to win enough games (82-67-1) to keep most of the administration and fans reasonably happy. His teams finished in the national Top 20 only twice and never broke into the Top 10, but Dykes’ longevity earned him the title as the winningest football coach in Tech history at the time. Dykes completed the 1999 season with a 6-5 record.
Well aware that the Red Raider Nation had tired of his inability to break out of the ranks of mediocrity, he announced his retirement after the season’s final game. Many observers believe that Dykes resigned to keep from being fired. Several of the same Tech administrators and board members who later went after Mike Leach’s job were also thought to be behind the exit of Dykes.
Chapter
4
Head
Coach Mike Leach:
Early and Sustained Success, 2000-2007
Assistant football coaches rarely come to the attention of the media. So it was with Mike Leach for the first dozen years of his career when only the most hardcore fans knew he existed. That was to change when he arrived at Texas Tech and Lubbock on December 9, 1999. Instead of being a footnote to the careers of head coaches Mumme and Stoops, Leach would for the next ten years draw the attention not only of the local media but also of the state and national outlets.
The anticipation of Leach’s taking over as the head coach of the Red Raiders was a two-way street. Leach was eager to prove his football philosophy would win; the Raider fans were eager to embrace their new leader who, they hoped, would take them to victories and national prominence.
The people of Lubbock did not know how to take Leach when he first came to town. He did not dress like a football coach. He wore beach shorts and sandals, not sweat suits and a whistle. He did not golf with the university staff and donors. He was more likely to go rollerblading or read a good book. He did not talk like a football coach. Instead of going into deep details about a play or a game plan to show how “football smart” he was—which everyone was interested in hearing—he would start a discussion of world events or history. Some of the good church-goers of Lubbock also murmured about his Mormon background.
When asked if he thought living in Lubbock would be a cultural shock after growing up in Wyoming, Leach responded in his stream-of-conscious manner, “I don’t think so. The people are incredibly similar. They’re friendly people here. The weather’s nicer here. The mountains are shorter here.”
Leach was not the good old boy West Texan that the Red Raider Nation had grown used to. Some thought his behavior to be just plain strange. A number of Tech administrators found him standoffish and not nearly as acquiescing as his predecessors. They later claimed he should have done more to solicit contributions from former students and supporters, but, in fact, Leach went on 65 stops to speak to boosters in his first year alone at Tech and accepted virtually every offer to appear at fundraisers.
While school officials kept their concerns to themselves, the people of Lubbock were more vocal about the new coach. Skip Watson, retired news director of KCBD-TV and former director of public information for the Lubbock Independent School District explains, “Lubbock is a big city of more than 200,000, but in many ways it is still a small town. Everyone is careful about what they say today as they never know who they will be doing business with tomorrow. Lubbock is a quiet, careful place. “But, they still gossip,” Watson continued in an April 2011
interview, “especially about newcomers. When Leach first got here things kind of started slow. Then rumors began that he drank and ran around but I never heard anything to back up any of these claims. These stories stopped as he began to win games and soon everyone was talking about what a great family man he was.”
Leach, despite inheriting mismatched players from the Dykes years, immediately began to win ball games. In 2000, his first season in Lubbock, Tech went 7-6 and earned an invitation to the galleryfurniture.com Bowl in Houston. Over the next seven seasons Tech averaged more than eight victories annually and played in a bowl game each year. This record is all that more remarkable in that Tech played in the highly competitive Big 12 Conference with yearly games against Texas, Oklahoma, and Texas A&M.
By 2004 Tech had broken into the National Top 25 rankings where it would remain for much of the next five years. Leach’s Red Raiders continually ranked at or near the top in national total offense and scoring. He also continued his success in developing quarterbacks with Tech signal callers breaking Big 12 and national passing records.
A student and master of the game of football, Leach does not, however, limit his life to the gridiron. His interests range far and wide. Most coaches talk endlessly about Xs and Os, past games, future contests, and recruiting prospects. Those who reach the top levels of the profession combine intelligence, instinct, and occasionally ruthlessness to win games and keep their jobs. Even so, few coaches at any level are stamped as intellectuals. A Renaissance Man among the coaching ranks is rare indeed.
Mike Leach is not the typical coach. People close to him say that he is usually “the smartest guy in the room.” Others expand that to “smartest in the whole damn building.” As one of the only coaches in the upper legions of football with a law degree, Leach possesses an insatiable curiosity about the unknown and an intense drive to learn new things. He is the only major football coach to publish an article in a law school review. In comparing the relationship between coaching football and practicing law in the Texas Tech Law Review, he wrote, “Both law school and college football view it as important to harden and battle test your charges the best you can before you turn them out into the real world.”
Leach’s interests, both intellectual and fanciful, extend far beyond his professional fields. Each off-season Leach immerses himself in one or more new subjects. Past topics have included those related to his love of the beach such as studying the effects of offshore wave breaks on the Southern California coast, whales, and sharks. He has also delved into the lives of pioneers and Old West characters such as Daniel Boone, Wyatt Earp, and Doc Holliday. He also concentrated on chimpanzees and grizzly bears. Leach recognizes many similarities between football and warfare, having extensively studied World War II, the American Civil War, the culture and history of the Vikings, Winston Churchill, and Napoleon Bonaparte. In his quest for knowledge and understanding, Leach has researched subjects as wide-ranging as from the continent of Australia and the artist Jackson Pollock to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Pictures and mementos of his studies covered the wall of his office at Texas Tech, including the original death certificate of Apache leader Geronimo, another focus of the coach’s interests.
Of all his quests for information, none have had more impact on Leach’s philosophy of life and football than his fascination with pirates. He encouraged each of his players to “swing your sword” while he moved a six-foot motion-activated buccaneer skeleton into his office. The concept of pirates and Red Raiders seemed to go hand-in-hand.
Actually, Leach did not introduce the pirate theme to his team until 2003 when they lost for a second straight year to Missouri, putting them at 5-3 for the season. The day after the latest defeat at the team meeting, Leach brought in a sword, swung it around the room, and lectured his players on the diversity, organization, and work ethics of pirates. He told them they should prepare their bodies for football the way pirates hone their swords for battle. The players—and then the student body and next the fans and finally the media—picked up on the pirate theme. Skull and cross-bone flags began to appear in the stadiums, as did eye patches and swords.
In an interview with Mark Schlabach of ESPN Television on May 7, 2008, Leach explained, “Pirates function as a team. There were a lot of castes and classes in England at the time. But with pirates, it didn’t matter if you were black, white, rich or poor. The object was to get a treasure. If the captain did a bad job, you just throw him overboard.”
Some say that Mike Leach marches to a different drummer—or more precisely, to a whole different band.
When Scott Pelley—a Tech alumni himself—interviewed Leach on CBS’s 60 Minutes in late 2008, he baited the coach by saying, “One sportswriter called you a ‘football madman’ directing a sideshow.”
The coach responded, “Yeah, well, I don’t have any disagreement with it really.”
Mike Leach’s winning formula is actually amazingly simplistic. He recruits the smartest, fastest players available and places them in relatively few formations with multiple options. He has no play book as such and relies on repetition, repetition, repetition in practice so the players are precise and confident on each down. In every facet of training Leach is deeply involved. He stays on top of every situation, following his mantra, “You are either coaching it, or you are allowing it to happen.”
Oddly the Tech offense never developed a catchy moniker, at least none that stuck. Fans and sports writers alike came to refer to the methodology as “Mike’s” or “Tech’s offense.”
Most collegiate teams’ passing formations include only three receivers, but on nearly every play Leach sends five, and he claims he would send more if the game rules allowed. This requires the defensive units to protect the entire field from sideline to sideline and from line of scrimmage to the goal line on every play.
Michael Lewis, writing in the New York Times on December 4, 2005, explained, “Stretching out the offensive line stretched out the defensive line too, forcing the most ferocious pass rushers several yards farther from the quarterback. It also opened up wide passing lanes through which even a short quarterback could see the whole field clearly. Leach spread out his receivers and backs too. The look was more flag football: a truly fantastic number of players racing around trying to catch passes on every play, and a quarterback surprisingly able to keep an eye on all of them.”
Along with using the entire field, Leach believes in speeding up the game with constant attack. Where most offenses run between 65 and 70 plays a game, Leach’s offense averages 85 to 90. As one of the few head coaches who also acts as his own offensive coordinator, he signals the plays to his un-huddled offense. He is not, however, inflexible in his play-calling. He gives his quarterback full authority to change the play regardless of the down or line of scrimmage. In the article by Lewis, Leach explained, “He can see more than I’ll ever see. If I call a stupid play, his job is to get me out of it. If he doesn’t get me out of it, I might holler at him. But if you let him react to what he sees, there’s a ton of touchdowns to be had.”
And indeed a “ton of touchdowns” were had by the Tech team under Leach’s tutelage. The teams typically put over 40 points on the scoreboard each game and on occasion as many as 70. In 2004, Tech scored that 70-point high against TCU and then again the same number against Nebraska, the most the Cornhuskers had given up in their 114 years of playing football. The following year the Red Raiders scored 158 total points in a three-game run against teams ranked first, eighth, and nineteenth in the country. Leach disdains having his team punt the ball and settle for field goals; he loves the spread-and-pass-offense. He will go for a first down on fourth and multiple yards rather than kick the ball away regardless of field position. He figures that if he is unsuccessful he will get the ball back eventually and once again march down for another score. Leach’s players understand the philosophy but still marvel at the approach. Cody Hodges, who sat on the sidelines learning the system before becoming a starter, recalled, according to the article by Lewis, “There’s been lots of times I’m on the sidelines, and I’m like, ‘Oh God, we’re going for it!’ We went for it on fourth and 5 on our own 23—in the first quarter. We went for it once on fourth and 18—and we were ahead.”
In the same article another member of the 2005 team explained the “go for it” practice a bit more philosophically. Offensive lineman E. J. Whitley stated, “If you’re on this offense, you expect to score. Most offenses on fourth down are coming off the field. On fourth down we expect a play to be called. Because we haven’t scored yet.”
Leach’s defenses are more traditional yet still simplistic. At Tech he had his players work from only two defensive sets instead of the standard dozen or more. In Leach’s early years at Tech, however, the defense often gave up as many or more points as the offense was able to put on the board. In the 2007 game against Oklahoma State, the Red Raiders lost by a score of 49-45 with the defense surrendering over 600 yards. When asked by a reporter what had happened, Leach responded, “The entire first half we got hit in the mouth and acted like somebody took our lunch money and all we wanted to do was have a pouty expression on our faces until somebody daubed our little tears off and made us feel better.”
In a post-game meeting Leach so demeaned the defense that defensive coordinator Lyle Setencich resigned the next day. While Setencich said he was leaving for “personal reasons,” there was speculation that Leach fired him. This must have been a difficult situation for Leach because Setencich was not just an assistant; the two had been friends all those years since Setencich had given Leach his first coaching job at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo. Whatever the truth, Leach immediately moved his assistant head coach Ruffin McNeill, who had been with him at Tech since 2000, into the position. Under McNeill’s leadership the defense steadily improved over the remainder of the season.
Tech fans—and football enthusiasts across the country—found Leach’s high flying offense and improved defense exciting to watch. Opposing coaches did not always share their enthusiasm. For decades football centered on the running game known as “three yards and a cloud of dust.” Legendary University of Texas Coach Darrell Royal was often quoted as saying that only three things could happen when a team passes the ball—two of those were bad (incomplete or interception). Most coaches and television analysts still emphatically claim that to be successful in passing, the team must first establish a running game. Only in the last couple of decades have a few coaches, notably Leach, depended on the pass as the first—and often second, third, and final—option.
Leach’s success at Tech drew fans across a wide spectrum. Business magnate Donald Trump introduced the Red Raider offense and defense in their nationally televised game on ESPN against Oklahoma University on November 17, 2007. Trump declared that Leach “is my friend and one of the best coaches in the country.” A year later, prior to the matchup with Oklahoma State on November 8, 2008, Trump appeared on ESPN’s College GameDay to again praise Leach calling him “an amazing guy.” The Leach offense is difficult for opposing coaches to prepare for not only because they risk being defeated by a system they do not endorse but also because they may suffer humiliating losses by large scoring margins. During Leach’s tenure, Tech was often accused of running up the score. In his New York Times article Lewis explained, “His [Leach’s] offensive machine lacked an off switch.”
And the Leach offense plays full out until the last whistle blows. Leach does not use his second or third team to run out the clock but pushes them to move down the field and score. If he has to call a time out with seconds left to get in another play—even if leading by several touchdowns—Leach calls it.
Leach explains his “keep scoring” philosophy, “The interesting thing about football is that football is the only sport where you quit playing when you get a lead. In golf, you keep trying to score well when you’re ahead. In basketball, they don’t quit shooting when they’re ahead. In hockey, they don’t quit shooting when they’re ahead. In boxing, you don’t quit punching when you’re ahead. But in football, somehow, magically, you’re supposed to quit playing when you are ahead.”
This style of football, of course, makes the traditional postgame handshake between coaches difficult. In an article by Bruce Feldman on ESPN.com on April 25, 2005, Leach explained, “Its uncomfortable. If I’ve lost, I don’t feel like shaking your hand, and if I’ve won, you’re probably not feeling like shaking mine.”
Off the field, however, Leach gets along quite well with his fellow coaches. Former assistants speak well of him and he is close friends with many of his rivals. Today he is a frequent speaker on campuses across the country and he has no problem getting coaches to appear on his radio program.
Among Leach’s achievements, the most striking is his ability to be a consistent winner using players who are not otherwise highly recruited. Superstar high school football players in Texas sign with the University of Texas or Oklahoma, a few with Texas A&M. Still others go to Nebraska, Michigan, Notre Dame, or to the major schools in Florida and California. Each year nearly every Top 25 team boasts at least one standout athlete from Texas. Texas Tech gets whatever is left over.
Dave Cisar, writing in wordpress.com on April 16, 2011, explains, “He was always going to have to settle for the second and third tier players. He focused on bringing in fast, smart kids that were maybe a bit undersized or odd shaped, kids that maybe didn’t look like football players.”