I know we don’t do a whole lot of sports reporting here at BSC, but if any of you have been following my sporadic college football column installments, then you may be interested to hear about this shake-down. Yesterday, Texas Tech fired head coach Mike Leach just before the hearing to determine whether he was to be reinstated for the Alamo Bowl. Remember, he’d been suspended on Monday due to allegations of mistreatment of an injured player, and had, in typical Leach fashion, turned it around on the school by suing for reinstatement for the bowl game.
All of this is I know we don’t do a whole lot of sports reporting here at BSC, but if any of you have been following my sporadic college football column installments, then you may be interested to hear about this shake-down. Yesterday, Texas Tech fired head coach Mike Leach just before the hearing to determine whether he was to be reinstated for the Alamo Bowl. Remember, he’d been suspended on Monday due to allegations of mistreatment of an injured player, and had, in typical Leach fashion, turned it around on the school by suing for reinstatement for the bowl game. According to ESPN, who also hint that other issues with Leach’s conduct may be coming to light. The mudslinging has likely only just begun.
From a fan’s perspective (a fan of the game, not Texas Tech, mind–remember, I’m a Texas fan, and they have played us too close/beaten us a few too many times in recent years for me to have love for them), this is really disappointing. First, it’s always disappointing when someone who’s looked up to has this kind of scandal attached to their name. I don’t know if it’s true or not, and I don’t know if we really have both sides, so I’m not trying to pass a judgment on Leach. If he did behave badly, shame on him. If he didn’t, shame on Tech. Either way it’s a damn shame that Leach is out. He’s an interesting guy; anyone who has an office full of pirate memorabilia has to be. And he’s brought Texas Tech from relative obscurity to a national program.
Even as a Texas fan, while part of me won’t mind if Tech fades back to that obscurity, I find this a blow–if Leach was the backbone keeping Tech a strong team, then his absence is going to drop the quality of the program and thereby the Big 12 South down a notch. Not to mention the effect it’s likely to have on Bowl Season! I dropped 29 points on Tech to win that game….I guess my consolation will have to be that the guys I’m playing with also put money on them (29, 26, 11, and 14–and it’s just too bad the guy who posted that 11 is currently in the lead). Just a sad situation all around.
With all the accusations being thrown around lets take a moment to state facts that all sides admit to. No investigation was required as the facts are not in contention. 1. A Student-Athlete was diagnosed with a concussion. 2. The Coach’s Policy is to curse out the injured Student-Athletes and place them in darkened locked rooms with no place to sit. 3. The University Administration upon hearing of this policy asked for clarification from the Coach, who admitted in this instance that this was his policy. 4. The University Administration notified the Coach that his actions in this instance were not in keeping with the University’s expectations and requested that the policy be changed. 5. The Coach refused. 6. The University requested that the Coach apoligize to the player for his mistaken policy. 7. The Coach Refused again. 8. The University warned the coach that he would be suspended should he continue to refuse. 8. The Coach Refused a final time. 9. The University suspended the Coach. 10. Coach is Suprised! 11. The Coach hires an attorney to fight suspension. 12. The University Administration Terminates the Coaches contract for multiple contract violations. 13. The Coach is Suprised again! There is no secret plan to get rid of the Coach. Only meglomania.
Hm. Maybe it’s just the media CYA thing, but all the facts I have seen everyone agree on come to this:
1. kid had a concussion
2. family lodged a complaint
3. tech suspended leach to investigate
4. leach sued for reinstatement for alamo bowl
5. tech fired leach
but perhaps you have better sources.
leach was fired because of craig james another case of parent interfering.
Agreed. Leach was fired because of “helicopter dad” Craig James. Now, Craig James can sit back and act like he didn’t have anything to do with it… but in D/FW, there are a lot of people who are ready for him to move on. He was in the middle of the SMU death penalty, and now turns up leading the way for the end of TT football. Sports announcers are a dime a dozen. It’s time to make a switch. We are done with James.
“Howard Beal says:
December 31, 2009 at 5:01 am
With all the accusations being thrown around lets take a moment to state facts that all sides admit to. No investigation was required as the facts are not in contention.”
Really Howard? The facts you specifically listed are not in contention in any way???
I have been following the story for a couple of days now and do not know exactly what happened dur to the differences in the reports from the two sides. However, this is the first time I have even heard contended that “2. The Coach’s Policy is to curse out the injured Student-Athletes and place them in darkened locked rooms with no place to sit…who (Leach) admitted in this instance that this was his policy” Nowhere in any of the reports I read was cursing out mentioned and from the looks of the tours given of the two places the player was put I would have to disagree that there was no place to sit…also, I have only heard the “locked” part from the one player’s side. Also, I have not seen anywhere a full statement by Leach as to the step by step that ocurred, merely responses by his lawyer to various parts of the allegations.
Look, I live in the midwest and do not have any horse in this race. If Leach did all the things he is accused of the way he is accused of doing then disciplinary actions needed to be taken if not his firing (note: many coaches have survived worse than this and stayed at their respective programs). However, it also appears that the TTU administration was not a fan of his in any way and appeared to be looking for a way to get him out (the turnaround from start of incident to full on firing was waaaay fast for any university where hands on physical abuse or sexual abuse was not involved, much less a very successful and popular coach).
I am sure Leach will put out full statement of his view of the step by step occurrences soon and then we can judge nonpatially