Mike Leach will never coach another college football team after his tenure at Texas Tech University ends.
The man committed professional suicide when he empowered his lawyer to acquire a hearing today in hopes of procuring a stay against Texas Tech's decision to suspend Leach following charges he forced Adam James to stand in a darkened equipment shed because James wouldn't be practicing after suffering a mild concussion and now defends that decision as 'treatment'.
What school will ever hire Leach when he can't take his medicine like a man? When you engage your employer in the manner Leach has over the university's decision to suspend him, the list of schools willing to hire you gets short fast and looks eerily similar to the list of drivers you'd bet your mortgage on dethroning Jimmy Johnson next year.
Two schools of thought here. One, Texas Tech overreacted and suspended the coach. Not very plausible but playing devil's advocate, Leach reacts by hiring his lawyer to haul Texas Tech into court to try to convince a judge to issue a stay against the school's decision and thus allow him to coach in a rather meaningless bowl game against Michigan State? Not 'Yes Man' material by any stretch. On the other hand, assume Leach did exactly what he is accused of and Texas Tech took the needed corrective action. Leach's reaction is to empower his lawyer to wrangle a hearing to try to force the employer, Texas Tech, to allow him to coach?
Either way you look at it, it's hardly legendary in merit as it reflects on Leach. The day colleges start embracing and further, hiring coaches who run to the ambulance chasers when they don't get their way is the day there's a legitimate playoff system in major college football, too. Put another way, it's never going to happen.
There's more than a few dirty secrets in college athletics, and one of the biggest is the ways and means employed by coaches to regain a scholarship they wish they had not given out to a player they've long given up on. Often a student-athlete drowns in accusations of poor effort, cantankerous attitude and is described as a cancer in the hopes the student-athlete will quit, thus releasing his scholarship back to the coaching staff, soon to be handed out to the next can't-miss prodigy. See Alex Legion for a refresher regarding can't-miss prodigy, if you can catch him on his way out of Champaign, Illinois.
Perhaps James is one of those kids, simply a bad fit in one school's program. The problem is as long as James goes to practice and shows up as expected, Texas Tech foots the bill. To drive a student-athlete from the program, coaches often ride the athlete into submission and while I can't confirm this as an absolute truth, this publicly-held spectacle certainly shows many of the familiar symptoms of this practice.
I confess I don't know much of the Adam James situation specifically, but when I covered the Big Ten and Michigan and before that, the Mid-American Conference and Eastern Michigan (sorry Jason Whitlock; my school, not yours) as a reporter, I never heard of any student-athlete being forced to sit in a darkened equipment shed as 'treatment' for a concussion. Later, when I was contracted to work as a college football official, I saw some coaches employ a lot of over-the-top tactics but nothing that comes close to putting a player in a shed. I'm further buoyed by the fact that Craig James is a well-known national commentator at ESPN and former football standout at Southern Methodist University. There's no way he subjects his son and himself to the high level of public scrutiny that comes with such an accusation if it isn't true and he doesn't feel compelled to protect his son's well-being. Further, this is a coach who told reporters his players shouldn't have listened to their "fat little girlfriends" after the Raiders dropped this year's game to rival Texas A&M.
In short, Leach might be least liking to be heard singing Aretha Franklin's R-E-S-P-E-C-T anytime soon.
Regardless of who's right and who's wrong, it's obvious being forced into a dark equipment shed doesn't constitute 'treatment' in any physician's book for a concussion. It's certainly not going to show up in the AMA's guide to treatment and anyone who believes otherwise is only fooling themselves.
Mike Leach, like another famed coach with a history of anger management issues who coached his final basketball game at Texas Tech, will not be hired again.
Regards...
~T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries and a three-sport official.
I agree with everything you write, but I would bet dollars to donuts that he will have a job within 12 months. Schools now days look at one thing: Wins. He would tel them it was the first time he ever had a problem like that (somewhat true) and his relationship with Tech had become contentious because of his interest in the Washington position last year. Colorado will be open next year, some job in the SEC, anothe PAC 10 school; trust me, he'll be out of work shorter than your average citizen in Michigan.
Posted by: Mike | December 30, 2009 at 14:31