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Finding my inner pirate
Published: 8/3/2011 8:24 PM
Last Modified: 8/8/2011 5:03 PM

Mike Leach. STEPHEN HOLMAN/Tulsa World file

Considering I'm from Texas, I must sheepishly admit I've only seen about 60 seconds of the "Friday Night Lights" television series.

The one segment I have seen featured Texas Tech coach Mike Leach playing a random guy at a gas station looking for directions to Lubbock.

Once Leach realizes he is talking to Dillon East coach Eric Taylor, he tells the show's main character that "he has lost his inner pirate" and shows the fictional coach the proper way to "swing his sword."

Love him or hate him, Mike Leach is rarely boring.

Recently, Leach has been on a signing tour for his aptly titled book, "Swing Your Sword."

His tour wrapped up in Oklahoma City last weekend. You can see his interview with the Oklahoman here.

From the excerpts of the book I've seen, Leach pretty much takes a free shot at his former bosses at Texas Tech, ESPN and the James family.

I would be surprised if Leach reaches the BCS level as a head coach again without at least one stop in between. Other teams would negative recruit him to death. I understood Texas Tech fans who wanted to keep him, but how exactly do you go into a recruit's house when your basic explanation for the James saga is: I didn't do it, but even if I did the kid was a daddy's boy who deserved it.

Personally, I have a soft spot in my heart for Leach. I met him once before he became a garden variety paranoid, control-freak coach with a strange fascination for pirates.

The winter he accepted the Texas Tech job he spoke at a high school coaching clinic at Gulf Greyhound Park in La Marque, Texas. Unlike former Oklahoma coach Gary Gibbs, who was also in attendance, Leach couldn't have been more friendly.

Right before I could ask my first question, Leach stopped me and said, "Can I buy you a beer?" After I declined, Leach asked me to hold on a second so he could hit the nearest concession stand. A few minutes later, beer in hand, Leach took the stool next to me and off the interview went.

I hope someday soon Leach can regain his inner pirate.

Reader Comments

6 Total

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CharlieTimmons (last year)

The difference between Coach Eric Taylor and ex-coach Mikey Leach is that the fictional Coach Taylor deals with reality while Leach lives in a self involved fantasy world. How else do you explain someone thinking it's just "creative punishment" to order an injured, concussed player to stand for hours in the dark, more than once!

Leach is a delusional, egomaniacal control freak who let ego get out of control. That's why in Lubbock, Red Raider fans are now calling him "The Charlie Sheen of Football."

bbsbest (last year)

I'm from Lubbock and I've never heard anyone call Coach Leach that. In fact he had the most successful book signing at Barnes and Noble that they've ever had. And I'm hearing that is the same at every book signing he's had.

In fact, I read a independent poll that said over 87% of the people polled in this are thought he was royally screwed over by Hance and his cronies.

In every thing I read, most of the comments are way favorable to Coach. The are a few same old boring comments from a very few same old hate mongers that love to bash him for whatever reason. Maybe they get paid to do that. I don't know but most people in Lubbock are tired of their antics and way childish ways. It's really kind of sad. I think the only reason they do it is hoping for someone to notice them. But like most bullies on the school yard, they have no idea how to go about making friends so they just try and appear tougher than anyone else. Pathetic.

CharlieTimmons (last year)

I live in Lubbock & everyone I know now calls Leach either "Captain Litigious" or "The Charlie Sheen of Football" but that's among Red Raider fans, season ticket holders & alumni.

Now if you're part of the Leach camp that hires PR firms to promote that extremist group the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal mockingly nicknamed TeamLooney, yeah those delusional morons lie, censor and make up stuff all the time. They're in denial just like the idiot head pirate. Funny thing is the vast majority of those clowns never went to college and are what Red Raider fans call "T-shirt fans", not the actual season tickets holders, who last year set a record in support of Tommy Tuberville after attendance dropped an average of more than 3,000 per game during Captain Lawsuit's last season.

All just more proof the real Texas Tech fan base was tired of Leach's antics even before the dummy messed up one last time and got himself fired.

bbsbest (last year)

Blah, Blah, Blah same old hate rhetoric from the same old people with nothing to back it up or support it or back it up. Even Texas Monthly says Leach is the most popular guy Lubbock ever produced. Buddy Holly wasn't even that loved by Lubbock when he was alive. Sorry to get your hair on you legs all raised up there boy.

mgpeters (last year)

It's not hard to believe that Leach was railroaded by the upper levels of leadership at Tech. But at the same time, he didn't help his own case by being way too eager to have his name mentioned with every coaching opening and some of his odd behavior.

I like Leach, but he didn't really handle the James situation very well.

RoyRogers (last year)

Speaking of JamesFamily..what's happened to "Daddy'sLittleBoy"? N-O-T-H-I-N-G, and that's what will continue!
Leach's style was definitely different..and TTech found a God-Send Way Out of their contract. So simple to figure.

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Tulsa World Sports Editor Michael Peters has nearly 20 years of daily newspaper experience. A 1993 graduate of Texas A&M, he worked at papers in Bryan-College Station, Texas, Beaumont, Texas, and Galveston, Texas, before joining the Houston Chronicle as High School Sports Editor in 2008. While in Houston, he coordinated coverage of the 2008 Texas Class 5A state football championships and the 2011 NCAA Men's Final Four.

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