The topic of the feature story on Big 12 football is long forgotten.
Much like Mike Leach, who died Tuesday at age 61, the ensuing conversation was much more enduring.
After a couple of days of trying to get Leach’s comment for a story when he was coaching Texas Tech, he finally returned a phone call late one evening. The story was about football, and he seemed bored with the whole thing.
Then somehow the topic switched to summer vacations, and Leach’s trip to Wales, and rugby, and watching a game at cavernous Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. By the time I had to beg off the call more than hour later, the clock read 11:15 p.m.
What made Leach unique is that the experience wasn’t. Countless media members and colleagues have similar tales, a sign of his intellectual curiosity beyond coaching football — but he was awfully good at that, too.
Leach was fascinated by pirates and once had a 6-foot skeleton in his office. He wrote a serious book about the leadership strategies of Geronimo. In the wake of 9/11, he scribbled a credible, detailed Middle Eastern battle plan against terrorists on a reporter’s yellow notebook.
He could expound on wedding planning and Bigfoot and the joys of Key West and who would win a fight between a great white shark and grizzly bear. Occasionally, his detours into political discussions got him into hot water, such as his longstanding friendship with former President Donald Trump.
Heck, there are stories about him holding extended phone conversations — with wrong numbers. Most football coaches have tunnel vision by necessity. Leach’s view was as wide as the Hubble Space Telescope. He once proposed a 64-team college football playoff.
“Our sport was better because of Mike Leach,” said Kliff Kingsbury, Leach’s first quarterback at Tech and now coach of the Arizona Cardinals, “and is far less interesting without him.”
Leach, who had a great run with Texas Tech , also turned around Washington State and Mississippi State, where he was in his third season. He had led the team to an 8-4 record when he suffered a massive heart attack this past weekend. He is survived by his wife, Sharon, four children and three grandchildren.
Leach compiled a record of 158-107. Although he never won a national championship and was in the conversation only once, in 2008 at Texas Tech, his influence extended beyond wins and losses. Though Hal Mumme might have invented the Air Raid passing offense, Leach perfected and popularized it.
Leach’s coaching tree of former assistants and players includes TCU’s Sonny Dykes, USC’s Lincoln Riley, Houston’s Dana Holgorsen, Baylor’s Dave Aranda and Tennessee’s Josh Heupel, among others.
“From high school to the NFL, every football game you watch today has Mike Leach’s fingerprints on it,” tweeted BJ Symons, who threw for 5,833 yards and 52 touchdowns at Texas Tech in 2003.
Now it’s common to see one-back sets and wide receiver screens. Back when Leach was starting, it was new and novel. In 2008, current Oklahoma coach Brent Venables remembered Leach, as OU offensive coordinator, opening his playbooks against the Sooners defense in a 1999 spring practice.
“I remember he put 700, 800 yards on us, and how stressed Mike Stoops and I were trying to defend it,” Venables said. “I just remember both of us were ... in a deep, deep state of depression in the locker room afterward.”
Symons was one of a host of record-setting quarterbacks, from Kingsbury to Gardner Minshew at Washington State to Will Rogers at Mississippi State. None were can’t-miss recruits, but they thrived under Leach. Four of the top six passing seasons in FBS history were by Leach quarterbacks.
“I am heartbroken on the passing of coach Leach,” Heupel said in a statement. “In 1999, he gave a kid out of Snow College in Utah a shot at major college football. He saw something in me when no one else did.”
Leach also won at notoriously hard jobs and while maintaining large aspirations. When he was introduced at Tech in December 1999 during a snowstorm, he said: “I never coached in a game where I didn’t believe we couldn’t beat the San Francisco 49ers.”
Though Leach had more A-list comedic material than most working comics, he could be biting, especially after losses in which his teams failed to execute. True story: He had a huge rant after a Tech loss to Oklahoma State in 2007 that few remember because Mike Gundy was talking about being a man and 40 on the other side. At Mississippi State, he criticized players for wanting to spend time with their “fat little girlfriends.”
Leach could also be cantankerous and stubborn, especially when he thought he was right.
After being accused of mistreating tight end Adam James, who had been diagnosed with a concussion, Leach refused to apologize and battled the Tech administration. He was fired after the 2009 regular season, despite an 84-43 record in Lubbock that included the memorable 11-2 season with Graham Harrell and Michael Crabtree in 2008.
Leach, who had a law degree, sued Texas Tech for wrongful termination, although the university was protected by state law. Many Tech fans still wonder about the firing, and Tech football really hasn’t been the same since Leach left.
Tech issued a statement on Leach’s passing: “Coach Leach will be forever remembered as one of the most innovative offensive minds in college football history. His impact on Texas Tech Football alone will live on in history as one of the greatest tenures in the history of our program. From his 84 wins to his record-setting offenses, Coach Leach quickly built a legacy here at Texas Tech that will never be forgotten.”
Some thought he was radioactive after the Tech firing. He was out of football for years, then found new life at Washington State in 2012. The Cougars went 11-2 in 2018, then came Mississippi State, where he proved his offense could work against SEC defenses.
Leach’s offensive concepts and his legacy will continue to influence college football for decades, in part because of his knack for seeing talent that others overlooked.
Coach-
— Lincoln Riley (@LincolnRiley) December 13, 2022
You will certainly be missed, but your impact on so many will live on-
Thankful for every moment. You changed my life and so many others.
All of our prayers are with Sharon & the Leach family-
Rest In Peace my friend🙏 pic.twitter.com/C43e2MZvBB
Lincoln Riley of Muleshoe was a struggling reserve quarterback at Tech in 2003. Leach suggested he switch from player to student assistant. Now Riley is one of hottest properties in college coaching at USC.
Riley penned a personal tribute to Leach on Twitter, which reads in part:
“Coach — You will certainly be missed, but your impact on so many will live on. — Thankful for every moment. You changed my life and so many others.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Twitter: @ChuckCarltonDMN
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