The whole mess at Texas Tech involving head coach Mike Leach and Adam James, son of ESPN college football analyst Craig James, is just sort of dark and odd.
We know Leach is quirky. We know he can be crude and sexist. It's much tougher to tell from news reports, secondhand anecdotes and a video that surfaced on ESPN but seems more appropriate for The Blair Witch Project, if he actually is a cruel sadist. Isolating a player -- even a malcontent -- with a legitimate injury is really poor judgment. And Tech officials seemed to rush through their investigation and Leach's firing in a way that looks shady, because it helped the school narrowly avoid paying Leach an $800,000 bonus.
But ESPN has some dirty laundry, too. The network owes its viewers, Tech and frankly the journalism profession a look at its own ethical guidelines. It also has to stop stonewalling new questions about Craig James' actions with flip denials from a corporate spokesman.
If allegations Leach made yesterday to The New York Times prove true, Craig James should face disciplinary action and possibly lose his job. If they don't, Leach needs to apologize publicly to the James family, drop his attempts to be reinstated and reconsider his future in college football.
In his first major interview since the incident, Leach told the Times:
Craig James called assistant coach Lincoln Riley so often to lobby for playing time, that they had a meeting with Adam James. They played him two of the messages and asked, "How would you feel if we went in there to the meeting room and we stuck speakers up and we played these two messages for the team?" ... After that, we didn't get any more phone calls from Craig, but he did proceed to call administrators.
That is a serious charge to anyone who has worked in journalism. This story isn't about Craig James, yet. But it could be real fast if Leach is telling the truth. No coach or university should have to live with a network media analyst who covers their school behaving like that. It would be a gross violation of journalistic ethics for any sports journalist to try and directly influence how any college football program is run. For it to happen where the journalist's son is on scholarship would be beyond the pale.
These allegations are easy to verify. ESPN and sports reporters should ask Riley directly if he ever recorded messages from Craig James, brought them to the school, and played them for Adam James in a meeting with other coaches. ESPN and sports reporters should ask Adam James directly if he ever attended a meeting where phone messages from his father were played. (If he says no, they should ask where he was at the time Leach says the meeting occurred.) One word answers will do.
Riley has a game to coach on Saturday. But he should come out publicly by Monday and verify in detail the content of the alleged calls. Leach should produce a signed letter by Riley and any other coach who attended the meeting that supports the story Leach told the Times. If the tapes still exist, Riley should play them for ESPN, the Times and other independent sports media.
That's how you verify a simple yet critical set of facts. If Leach's assistant coaches can't or won't verify the story he told the Times, something is very wrong with Leach and he doesn't deserve to work in major college sports. If they can and do, and if the tapes exist and support Leach's claims, then something is very wrong with Craig James, and he doesn't deserve to work in major sports broadcasting.
Everyone in journalism knows that credibility is a perception. That is why political reporters don't report on races involving their family members and why business reporters don't report on companies in which they own stock. ESPN could have avoided this whole situation by reassigning Craig James the minute his son signed with Texas Tech. The announcement that James would not be covering the Alamo Bowl -- like that is some big step by ESPN -- is so ridiculous it's offensive. It was absurd for him ever to have been near that game, Big 12 football and/or Tech athletics in the first place.
Craig James has every right to be a pestering football dad, as obnoxious as that may be. However, if he wants to exercise that right, he owes it to his network and the reputations of other reporters who work there to move into a job that doesn't have these ethical temptations or create the appearance of impropriety. News organizations routinely reassign reporters to avoid even slight impressions of conflict over work their family members do in government, business -- even sports. Why was Craig James any different?
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I am a college football fan period. Yes I have my favorite team but I watch all because I like a good game. From the start, to many things were done in the dark, behind closed doors. However, I also question why you would, as a coach, keep a lazy player with no work ethics, on your team. Why not tell him to clean out his locker and let a more deserving player/student who really wants to play get his scholarship.
Also, note that the witness on Phy’s affidavit is Craig Wells, Sr Assocate Athletic Director. So, let’s see: 1) Phy/Pincock are both employed by Tech, 2) Phy/Pincock were interviewed either by, or in front of, their bosses in the AD, 3) and it took 10-11 days to get the affidavits signed! Phy/Pincock certainly didn’t have their own counsel present, and Tech’s lawers selectively and manipulatively extracted the info out of them that they needed.
http://ftpcontent.worldnow.com/kcbd/2006/station/1231leachblack.pdf
That is the link that they kept deleting from my posts until they banned me. I written a formal letter addressed to every executive at ESPN which is going out first thing Monday morning. They are actively participating in a criminal conspiracy and they know it. Someone needs to get the FCC involved and they need to pay a hefty fine for their actions over the past 3 days. I've known the media to jaded and slanted but what they are doing with this story goes far beyond anything I've ever seen in this country.
It is interesting that espn immediately runs any account negatively reflecting on Leach as a headline story on their site and at the same time aggressively censors any factual information that reflects negatively on the son of one of their employees in their comments section.
The bottom line is that I don't know all the facts, but I am becoming very aware that espn is aggressively acting in a biased manner to make sure that only one side of the story is told.
What did Craig James gain from all this?
Craig James knew this isn't the type of publicity that would help him or his son and went ahead anyway because it was a real and serious issue.
The young man had a head injury. His father complained about how he was being treated. A father's priority has to be his child's health over anything else.
In the misguided pursuit of a "balanced" story we will believe the most far-fetched conspiracies. The chancellor, AD, boosters, ESPN, father and son : amazing it takes so many villains to topple a coach.
I'll tell you what I know and provide some sources for things I don't know first hand.
I grew up in the Dallas and was a math tutor for student athletes at SMU when Craig James was there. I will not slander him, but I will say that I personally have reason to believe that he carries an attitude of entitlement and arrogance. If his son is anything like him, I do not doubt Coach Leach's characterization of Adam and Craig James. I do not ask you to take my word for it, but please pardon me and others who think that Adam and Craig James are not the victims in this case.
Why don't you watch interviews of both men and see who to believe for yourself:
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=4788146
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=4783342
Now why don't you read these emails among Tech execs that look very much like this firing was planned a long time ago, and that a pretext was needed, which the James' provided:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/colleges/texastech/stories/123109dnspoleachletters.2d4b0ea8.html
Why don't you read these statements by people who know both Leach and James, and who have no reason to lie:
http://www.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/6270202/19238949
"Adam was on the baseball team his true freshman year at Tech, before he ever joined the football team, and did not make it through the baseball season because of his selfish attitude. After a baseball game in which he felt like he did not get enough playing time, but the team still won twenty to one, he came into the locker room after the game and “pouted and threw a big fit” according another player on the baseball team. A few weeks later in the middle of the season, he just stopped showing up to practices or game and quit because he was not happy about how he was being treated."
ESPN too comes across as an organization full of ex-jocks without any claim of journalistic integrity. No matter how the Leach vs TTU battle comes out, ESPN has to take action independently. For not removing Craig James sooner from any TTU analysis and letting this spiral out of control and negatively impacting its reputation, heads should roll.
Until the tape you mentioned in you essay is produced, and it is highly doubtful that it does exist or it already would have come out to help save Leach's job, we have to look at such assertions as efforts to smear the accuser. What Leach and his assistants did is very much like what accused rapists do: accuse the victim.
The university has probably had similar report on Leach before which is why they dragged their feet on his last contract. It also sounds like he was asked to apologize and he refused which is why he was terminated with cause.
But I will respond to this, if you were asked to apologize for something you didn't do, would you do it? The fact that you think this incident is what caused the university to fire him is laughable, most people knew this was going to happen, emails are out there of the administration saying they were going fire him from last year..
Okay. Actually, I have been in that position and, yes, I did apologize. Because not apologizing would have made my remaining three years in active duty service much less pleasant. And even though I knew I was in the right and I had other people to back me up, my superiors--people I respected--didn't see it that way and strongly urged me to issue an apology. I did and the matter went away.
As far as taking the word of a "selfish, spoiled kid": well, I never met him and, unlike you, I am not clairvoyant, so I am not taking his "word". I am looking at how people are reacting to this problem and what I see is an ego maniacal coach who thinks he is greater than the university.
There are many smoking guns.....I think this was fair treatment for a Liar. He's lucky the punishment for lying and cheating wasn't much more severe. I believe Leach held great restraint in punishing him. Listen to the interview with Leach on ESPN (the extended version, not the one that was shown on TV). Leach glazes over the fact that he thought this dude was faking an injury. I think he shows great restraint in not making slanderous accusations against the Jamesgang. I hope the truth comes out and is made public. This is WHY Leach will be suing the university. If he had a fair investigation, then the truth would have come out and he would still have his job. Let JUSTICE BE SERVED in this situation!!!!!
Thank you Dr. RaiderRed.
Oh, come on now. Fake an injury to get a coach fired? Please: that is so silly. Next time say it out loud before you write it down. That way can hear how silly it sounds. You still don't hear it? How exactly does faking an injury get a coach fired? If a player gets hurt and it is part of the game or practice and not directly attributable to the coach (i.e.: withholding water on a hot day), the coach is will not be held responsible for the injury; it's part of the game. But if the player gets injured on the field--pulls a leg muscle--and limps off, and the coach kicks him in leg because the coach thinks he is faking it, well _that_ is actionable. Let's say the player ISN"T injured but fakes an injury and limps of the field. The coach STILL should not be kicking him. If a coach thinks a player is malingering, there are other ways of handling it besides putting a kid with a concussion in a closet.
Would like to query your use of "ersatz" in the second paragraph, professor. Means "substitute." How is Leach's firing a substitute? Because they had other reasons to get rid of him, I could see describing his firing as convenient or disingenuous, but if there is something ersatz here it would be the Adam James situation as a substitute for the other reasons they wanted to ditch Leach.
earlier,inconsistencies from a 21 year old disgruntled football player, a father who wanted his
son to play more and was willing to use his Espn analyst position to help his case =
Advantage Leach.....
Does Craig James realize the term " Adam James" will now become synomous with "slacker
football player"???