Mike Leach, brilliant and eccentric college football coach, has been fired by his employer of ten years, Texas Tech. Despite leading Tech to unprecedented glory, Leach's alleged mistreatment of an ESPN commentator's son has led to his dismissal.
I just got off the phone with Leach's attorney Ted Liggett. Liggett, who comes across as a genuine Texas lawyer--which is to say a real character--had some interesting things to say about Texas Tech and the coverage of his client's case.
To watch ESPN or read some of the more sensational coverage, Mike Leach locked Adam James, ESPN commentator Craig James's son and little used Texas Tech receiver, in an electrical closet as punishment for the sin of suffering a concussion. Not so, says Liggett.
Liggett said that James, who he was not shy in painting as an ill-loved prima-donna with a "helicopter dad" (an assertion he repeated in an ESPN interview here ), was in locations far from Star Chambers or Gitmo like detention facilities. Liggett scoffed: " "they called it a shed, like Jed Clampett, rats and shit."
According to him, the "shed" is in fact a garage favored by the O-line because of the ice machine it contained and its excellent ventilation. The "electrical closet" is in fact the post-game interview room for opposing coaches.
Nevertheless, the scroll running constantly below ESPN's coverage is that Mike Leach was fired for confining a player to an electrical closet.
According to Liggett, Leach's actions were "absolutely not" taken to punish Adam James. He confirmed that James suffered an injury on December 16th, which was diagnosed by a doctor as a mild concussion on the 17th. On the 18th and 19th of December, James was ordered to the garage and the shed respectively. Yet James's digs were comfortable--even coveted by fellow players, according to Liggett, and he was not isolated from his fellow players.
Liggett made a point of objecting to "two egregious falsehoods: one, that Mike was told if all he did was apologize to the James family all would be forgiven--never happened--total fabrication." The second falsehood, according to Liggett, is that "there was a letter drafted of actions that Mike could or could not do. That by signing that letter he could avoid being fired. He was never told sign this and no punitive measures would be taken."
I asked Liggett if Leach would have accepted any restrictions on his autonomy as a coach. He laughed. "The things Tech is talking about were already in his contract." A "total fabrication."
Liggett did not hide his contempt for the ESPN party line that Adam James had the support of his teammates, saying that "Craig James saying that the football players on that team are behind his son is a joke."*
Who should we believe in this drama? I tweeted a while ago that Malcolm Gladwell's article on concussions in the New Yorker had forever changed the way I watch football. No longer do I applaud a bone crushing hit by a safety if there is even the slightest helmet contact.
However, I detect in the treatment of Mike Leach the ostracization of a brilliant and eccentric coach for suspect reasons.
To be sure, if the argument that Leach's actions would have had a chilling effect on the reporting of concussions has merit, what he did can not be justified.
Yet the systematic distortion of the facts of his case leads me to wonder whether Texas Tech has not overreacted in the face of whom Adam James 's daddy is, instead of reacting appropriately to a coach out of control.
Moreover, if James is able to wrap himself in the flag of concussions, it may lead coaches to associate concussions with "lazy and entitled" players (as James has been described by former players and coaches) to the detriment of the seriousness of the problem.
Liggett is an attorney, representing his client. As a fellow attorney and fellow Southerner, I well know the mistakes of taking anything that an attorney says at face value or to take a drawl to mean either honesty or simple-mindedness. Nevertheless, the details that Liggett provides and his persistence in asserting them lead me to believe him.
More over, as Chris Brown at Smart Football references, a series of emails from former players, the current and former inside receivers coach (Adam James's position coach), the head strength and conditioning coach, and Graham Harrell, former star Texas Tech quarterback, corroborate Liggett's assertions. Harrell went as far as to describe Adam James as "spoiled and selfish," in a lengthy email reproduced by Dennis Dodd on CBS Sports's website.
Instead of jumping to conclusions, we need to find out more facts. In particular, someone needs to interview the doctor who diagnosed Adam James, in order to determine whether or not Leach's actions were out of line.
(I plan to continue to attempt to get Texas Tech's reaction. If a Texas Tech administrator or media representative is reading this, they can find my email address on my bio page.)
The consequences for Mike Leach are extreme: he's lost his job and will need to find another outlet for his passion. The consequences for Texas Tech, however, are quite a bit worse. They have lost the most brilliant innovator in college football and the best coach they could attract to their school under the best circumstances.
Now Texas Tech has compounded the problems of being a small school in an unglamorous location by appearing to treat personnel unfairly. The odor of Leach being fired just ahead of a contract date that would require Texas Tech to pay him an additional $800, 000 is foul smelling. There are high fives all around at Big-12 opponents Oklahoma and Texas.
As a college football fan, I root for the Miami Hurricanes (Daddy's alma mater and my team growing up), the University of Florida (my alma mater), and (when they aren't playing the other two) Florida State (my law school). The only other college team I regularly rooted for and was interested in was Texas Tech. No longer.
*Minutes before I posted this, ESPN had an interesting exchange between Lou Holtz and Mark May. Both expressed bafflement at the action taken by Texas Tech and were quite sympathetic to Mike Leach. May, however, repeated the line (denied by Liggett) that Texas Tech gave Leach an opportunity to apologize.
I welcome comments, criticism, and questions, which can be directed to the email address located on my bio page.
Update: Two fascinating documents have emerged. Courtesy of Coaches Hot Seat, we have Mike Leach's contract with Texas Tech. Thanks to @bcuban on twitter for bringing it to my attention. And via Smart Football and courtesy of the Dallas News, we have emails between Texas Tech administrators--including one pleading for them to act rationally and not be consumed by their annoyance with "city slicker Yankee agents." You cannot make this stuff up.
Update 2: I recommend this article by Michael Felder of In the Bleachers. Describing himself as "not a Mike Leach fan," whose "Pirate Act is stale," Felder goes on to conclude that James and Leach are both victims of AD Gerald Myers's desire to get rid of Mike Leach. An interesting argument.
Follow Bart Motes on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bmotes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Methodist_University_football_scandal
Let's start with this.
1) He had an elevated heart rate on top of the concussion.
2) There is a training facility right? So why not send him there?
3) This isn't a "timeout" this it is a non medical judgment that he was malingering
4) You minimize the injury but let's spin this out. James collapses and dies. How does this conversation go in court. You had him standing in the equipment shed why? You're a lawyer, you tell me how that plays out.
5) Have you ever played or coached? I've coached at a much milder level, so much smaller I hesitate to even mention it, but I've been an educator for almost 15 years and while I recognize the loss of temper from the coach I also recognize that he blew it. That he decided, with no degree in medicine, that James was being lazy, how do I know that, becuase the coach has pushed that meme as much as he possibly can. He is talking about it, he had his assistants say it in writing, he has people like you out there pushing his version which is that the kid is some how to blame because the coach blew a gasket.
6)The coach has NEVER place another player in that shed. This action represents a complete departure of normal and best practices.
How can you back up anything you just posted?
There was the time he had no regrets about receiving the biggest fine in Big 12 history for claiming Texas Tech lost to Texas because the head official lived in Austin, the officials were incompetent and the conference wanted Texas in the BCS.
He also stood by his statement blaming his players' "fat little girlfriends" for the team's 52-30 loss to Texas A&M. Forget everything else wrong with this comment, Mike Leach is calling someone else overweight?
Then there's his banning his players from having Twitter pages, suspending Brandon Carter, a team captain who had commented about the season on Twitter and claiming his absence wouldn't be missed; and saying he'd monitor their Facebook accounts to see if they were giving away the deep, dark secrets of his football program..
Players have died as a result of mistreatment by coaches and there's something wrong with any parent who thinks their kid being is abused and doesn't speak up.
Also, I watch ESPN-they is no constant stream that Leach got fired 'cuz he locked Craig James' kid in a closet. There is a lot of chatter of how he had an acrimonious negiotiation for his contract extension and he was due $800K if he was still coach on 12/31, a wording I find fascinating.....
A former player, Mikey Peters, says that Leach wouldn't let him play after he suffered a concussion despite the player's pleas to the contrary.
http://www.kcbd.com/global/Story.asp?s=11745273
"I bleed Red and Black and bleed Mike Leach," says Peters who played under Leach. He suffered a concussion during the 2002 Texas A & M game and says Coach Leach's primary concern was his health and wellness. "I'll never forget that. I didn't practice nor did I play the next game. I even tried to beg them and they said no we need you for the long haul and not right now," says Peters about the way the staff handled his injury.
The tone on ESPN has changed considerably in the last 24 hours.
It was another player who was tweeting about Leach being late for a team meeting. Brandon Carter was suspended for smashing his helmet and ridiculing Leach in the locker room after a close loss against U. of Houston. These are matters of team discipline and fall under the prerogative of the head coach. Otherwise, Leach is known as a fun coach with one of the highest graduation rates in the country. As opposed to, say, Mack Brown, whose teams have one of the highest crime and lowest graduation rates in the nation.
Fat little girlfriends? Sit far away from the sidelines. Cheerleaders call the players, coaches and refs far worse.
The regurgitated remarks about Leach mistreating any player are completely unsubstantiated.
The man is a throwback to the days of Woody Hayes and people aren't going to put up with that kind of misbehavior anymore.
He changed the name on QB Taylor Potts' jersey to Nick because he thought Taylor wasn't a masculine enough name.
He had Edward Britton sit at a desk on the field in 30 degree weather and snow flurries because he missed a practice session.
He suspended Marlon Britton for a Twitter message.
Leach didn't deny doing what James claimed, he simply refused to believe he did anything wrong.
As far as ESPN goes, they have given more time to Mike Leach bashing Adma James and his family than to the James family's side of the story.
And thanks to Texas Tech fans posting Adam James home address on the Internet and the threats the kid has received, Celina County has had to beef up patrols around his home.
Leach always said he admired the teamwork shown by pirates and that "if the captain did a bad job, you could just overthrow him."
Consider yourself overthrown, Mr. Leach, I just hope no school I care about brings you aboard.
Rick Neuheisel got a job again....
Bob Huggins got a job again....
But one of them can't handle an electrical closet for a few hours? What was wrong he couldn't text his friends about the keg party that weekend? Our grandparents worked in coal mines and steel mills for a living, is this what we have come to?
But honestly folks, If I was a parent, I wouldn't want my children to play a sport where concussions are so readily accepted as part of the game. Isn't that the real abuse thats taking place every day on football fields across America?
Jonathan V. Porcelli in Brooklyn
I find the scenario of mentally explaining my decision making process in court to be very inspiring when I'm making tough decisions in the ER. Leach should have thought about this in that way, too.
Mr. Leach refused during his brief suspension to cooperate with the University investigation.
He refused from what I've read to sign a memorandum agreeing to new procedures going forward, and he refused to apologize to a student who rightly or wrongly felt psychologically abused by a Teacher/Coach who has a supervisory role over the youth.
If a College English teacher locked your daughter in a dark closet because he felt she wasn't writing Essays with enough passion. Would you be okay with that?
The school is a business and has to follow state and federal laws on workplace violence, and harrassment and than it also has to comply with the many educational regs with regards to treatment of students.
IF LEACH had put his ego aside a few times here, he wouldn't have gotten fired. Suing your boss never ends well does it?
Thank you for your comment.
You simply cannot lock a student in a room under any circumstances. There is no defense for it. If I had done that as to another student during the standard hazing rituals of a fraternity and was discovered by the school I would expect to be expelled. If a teacher locked a student in a room for misbehaving in class I would expect them to be fired. How can some people justify it when it comes to sports?
Neither James nor the university has asserted that he was locked up anywhere. I wonder where you got that information.
If you have to have a guard posted outside it makes little difference if the door is actually locked. But I suppose you are right, the door was not locked, he was simply forced to stay in a room with a posted guard outside to make sure he did not escape.
Apologizing is free, it costs nothing. Its worth is priceless.
If you had locked my kid in a dark closet whether he was the star of the team or a 3rd stringer,
you and I would be doing a lot more than just talking about an apology.
All the attorney is saying is that he wasn't guaranteed that if he apologized the whole affair would be over, they probably still wanted to discipline (read suspend) him but also wanted him to apologize (which he refused to do). May have kept his job if he apologized, we will never know.
It seems that several players had issues with the coach and that this was not an islolated incident.
I've read several articles about him and I can't imagine this man who had the college football world by the tail doing what he is accused of.
I think some egos had taken a bruising and this was a way to get back at the coach.
I really hate this it as I have been a fan of the university since moving here and a fan of Coach Leach.
I believe that Texas Tech is going to regret what they did..as they should....
Petitions are already circulating to get the atheltic director, Gerald Myers, fired. Myers dislikes Leach because Leach prefers to focus on football instead of jumping everytime Myers whistles. Myers wants Leach to do nothing but be the keynote speaker at fundraisers.
Leach is quirky and eccentric and does not want to do any public speaking. Preferring to spend his time on football and recruiting and his hobbies.
The president of Texas Tech is getting a dose of reality as well as someone published his email address in the Lubbock Avalanche Journal newspaper comments.