The Pirate Speaks: Leach thread v2.0

This story has it all.

 

If you wade through the e-mails obtained by the DMN (all pertaining to the contract negotiations of a year ago) you get the idea that Leach and his agents believed they could pull a fast one on what they consider West Texas rubes. Sounds like most of Leach's "job offers/interviews" were planted by his agents.

The incident with Adam James gave Tech the leverage it needed to force Leach's hand. They asked him to sign off on a letter of conduct, probably knowing that he would refuse. That gave them the reason to suspend him and they probably figured he'd go to court for a restraining order. Two acts of "eff you" defiance and they pulled the trigger.

If Adam James was a slacker, Leach could have suspended him and then let him transfer (rumor has it James wanted to transfer to SMU but Leach doesn't allow transfers to instate I-A schools). Instead of being smart, Leach punished James in a humiliating manner (there was no "danger" involved). Leach figured that he was in such a strong position of strength that he could get away with anything. He figured wrong.

 

Mike Leach, in a way, died for the sins of Nick Saban, Rich Rodriguez, Charlie Weis and all the other coaches who have bent their employers over the chair with impunity to extort new contracts out of them.

Probably 98.5% of the time, there's nothing the university can do about it; it has to bend over and give Coach Cashgrubber anything and everything he demands.

But once in a great while, the university ends up with a red-hot poker in its hands, and when it does, you know where that poker's going.

 

Now all this I can agree with. Leach is an arrogant, entitled prick and really screwed himself here, and I think the school, much like Kansas, was looking for an opportunity to get rid of him. That's their prerogative, and Leach put himself in the situation by reacting in an entirely inappropriate manner and then being arrogant in its aftermath.

All that said, I still get the sense the original incident is not as straightforward as "poor kid was dumped on by Mike Leach for no good reason." I don't trust that either party is putting forward a full, truthful account of what happened with Adam James and why those incidents happened.

 

I get that, but all of my statement still stands. He deserves what he got for the way he treated a player with a concussion, even though that is only part of why he got fired.

 

That's great stuff. Reminds me of those amazing moments when you've FOIA'd the hell out of a story you've been working on, and you are begrudgingly delivered that hefty file of badly photocopied emails. Sitting before you is Christmas Day; access to the political and thought processes your subjects spent so much time massaging and keeping away from you. There it all is, the real stuff, the real discussions by the real decision-makers. They know you've seen it, and they know they can no longer bullshit and cover.

I won't lie. I always got at at least half a rod from diving into a key FOIA package like that for my beat. It's orgasmic, from a journalistic perspective.

 

Every word of those first e-mails is fascinating. What a cool look inside the minds of those running a BCS program.

 

Fascinating, to me, is the use of the "p-word" and vagina as metaphors for wimp or soft. I suspect most guys who use those words that way -- if they had to menstruate monthly and one day go into labor and pass a baby through an orifice generally smaller than the baby -- would not subsequently invoke the name of that orifice in calling someone soft or wimpy.

Never understood how a thinking person could come up with that one.

 

Take the word "thinking" out of that last sentence and maybe it will make more sense. I know plenty of guys who use it that way, including athletes and coaches. I doubt any of them really think it through like that.

 

Mike Reno looks very much like Kim Jong-Il.

 

Shit! The concussion left Adam's ears ringing so loudly, you can hear the buzz on youtube.

 

It's amazing how different the stories are on SI.com and Sportsline compared to ESPN.

Stewart Mandel and Matty Hayes both essentially say Leach was ambushed and one of them said James' credibility as a college football analyst must be taken into serious question now.