There are a lot of things that are hard to believe about Mike Leach, and that are hard to believe about Mike Leach’s death. One that’s jumping out right now is that he was only 61. I don’t know what age I thought he was, and looking back through pictures, he didn’t really look like he was in his 60’s for very long. Nonetheless, it seems wrong. Even as it seems right. And besides: It’s a number that grabs you. “Dead at 61.” That’s young.
Maybe it’s that any age assigned to Mike Leach would have surprised me. 49, 55, 70—all of them, when I try the thought experiment, sound incorrect. How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are? Mike Leach probably would’ve answered with a number in the thousands, or with a color, or with the name of a tropical fish. Not, like, the technical name. A personal name. The name with which he personally referred to the fish.
Mike Leach always was out of step with time. He was called ahead of his time, he was called behind his time, his mind was in places other than the present moment and yet seemingly every thought he had was laid out in that present moment, for all the world to see. How he chose his captain. What possessed his childhood self to urinate on a dog. So much about pirates.
We didn’t, of course, know Mike Leach, myself and (I would guess) yourself either. We didn’t know the guy. We knew he was brilliant, we knew he was hilarious, we knew Craig James sure seemed like an ass and a half but we didn’t know what happened in the garage in Lubbock, or in any of the other places where Leach made enemies and/or enemies made themselves enemies to Leach. We were on the internet with him, sure. But. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t say that what we saw from him online was ever intentionally malicious, and I’m ok drawing the line at intentional malice on the day of the guy’s death. There’s this tendency we have, at least in American culture, to lionize folks when they die. It’s not the worst tendency—we have a parallel tendency to find the worst in a person when they’re alive and demand that be the only thing anyone can see—but it can lead to overstatements, and it’s a little dishonest, and it cheapens the adulation reserved for the real heroes out there. We try to define the person as “good,” to give ourselves some resolution on the matter. Good or bad, though, no one is going to adequately define Mike Leach.
My own experience of Mike Leach was sporadic and never personal. I was fourteen years old in the car back to Illinois from Notre Dame’s four-overtime loss to Pitt in 2008 when Texas Tech finished their takedown of Texas. I was 24 years old on a plane back to Minnesota from Thanksgiving in Florida in 2018 when Gardner Minshew & Co. couldn’t pull off the same feat in that year’s Apple Cup. Leach flitted in and out of the national consciousness. For a time there, he flitted out of coaching altogether, exiled to Key West (because of course the guy who could succeed in Lubbock and succeed in Pullman and we-never-really-found-out in Starkville went to the edge of our American earth for his exile, down to where our landmass first rises from the sea). Out of step with everything. Out of step with everyone. And yet…
It’s hard to find people who impacted the sport of football as much as Mike Leach did. Many are out there, I’m sure, but they’re hard to find. As it was with Leach, you forget just how large their ripples span. Sonny Dykes coached under Mike Leach. Dana Holgorson coached under Mike Leach. Josh Heupel and Kliff Kingsbury played quarterback for Mike Leach. Lincoln Riley did both. And that’s just the head coaching tree. There’s also Minshew, and Michael Crabtree, and Wes Welker, and Danny Amendola, and Tim Couch, and dozens upon dozens more, filtering out through the game like water from a river into a great big sea.
I doubt Leach knew what turns his career would take when he first started talking pirate. I doubt he knew how much, exactly, of a pirate he would become. But if pirates are ungovernable, outside the bounds of our natural control, impossible to pin down…Leach was a pirate to society. Leach was a pirate to the sport of football. Leach was a pirate to time. And today, after 61 years, he’s a pirate to the very universe, sailing God knows where. God bless him. God bless his family. God bless the memories. He gave so many.
We Will Talk About Illinois Soon
Kind of rude that Mike Leach died when he did. We’ve got a take on our Illinois take in the chamber, but now we’re worried it might get overripe. Hopefully nothing of gigantic precedence happens overnight.
No changes over the weekend to our ten teams who could win the NIT. Our official stances are…
- Memphis: Anyone can beat Auburn.
- Notre Dame: Anyone can lose to Shaka Smart.
- Clemson: Oh WAIT. Wow. Alright we’ll circle back.
- Wyoming: If you don’t give Jeff Linder time, you’re a butthead and an idiot.
- St. John’s: Biggest risk continues to be undeserved conscription to the NCA* *********t for a 10-1 team whose best win is the overtime one against Syracuse. Those are blowout-loss-in-Dayton numbers right there.
- Illinois: Man I want to talk about Illinois so badly.
- UAB: Good time to lose convincingly. Really assuaged our concerns.
- Tulane: Excuse me, sir. Please lower your voice. Tulane is still having a moment. The Cotton Bowl: Ever heard of it?
- Oklahoma: Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are doing a great bit this year where they are exactly the same team, with just a few stylistic differences. It’s like when twins take tests for each other. Thankfully, we have very shrewd eyes, and we can tell them apart, but you’d be forgiven for thinking Oklahoma State is on this list.
- Dayton: The Flyers showed life on Saturday for the first time since back when we didn’t realize how bad SMU is. Necessary timing, too. We were about to call the cops to check on ‘em.
Ok, Clemson got smoked by Loyola. We’re still gathering information, obviously, but some things can’t wait. Some actions demand immediate reactions. This is one of those actions. If you lose to a team we kicked off our hard-to-exit list, and you get punked by that team, you’re done. Clemson, welcome to Vanderbilt & Loyola-land. Go take some time and think about what you’ve done.
Who joins the list? You saw it coming. You know exactly who’s getting in here. At two games above .500, shorter by an inch and weaker by a pound, it’s the Oklahoma State Sooners (we can’t tell them apart that well). Welcome to the club, Pokes.
Good for the Kids, Bad for the Other Kids
If you want to read more about the Chris Beard situation, the arrest details are out there. Really sad. Among the dozens of other sad aspects, Texas’s basketball players are still playing basketball, just without the guy who brought most of them to Austin and told their parents he’d look after them. Without their leader. Who allegedly did a very, very bad thing that was probably very surprising to those who thought highly enough of him to put themselves in his care.
So, it’s understandable that people were happy for the Longhorns players when they pulled off the escape from Rice last night in overtime. At the same time, though, what about the Rice players? It’s not like they’ve got it easy. They’re still playing for Rice.
Smooth Sailing, Ken
Navy fired Ken Niumatalolo, and let’s all agree that there has never been a name mismatch as severe as “Niumatalolo” and “Ken.”
That’s not what we’re getting at here, though. What we want to say here is that ESPN quoted Niumatalolo today as saying AD Chet Gladchuk fired him at his locker after the loss to Army on Saturday. “I was a little bit numb prior to him saying that, so most of it I couldn’t comprehend, I’m just like, ‘Chet, why don’t you take some time to relax.’”
Imagine having the perceived job security to tell the person firing you to chill out for a minute. If you’re Gladchuk, you have to go through with the firing at that point, but you’re definitely regretting it. That man at that locker is calm under pressure. Wow.
In other coaching carousel developments, Purdue’s hiring Ryan Walters to replace Jeff Brohm, which is a big shift from offense-focus to defense-focus, since Walters was running the defense this year for Illinois, and that was a good defense. Feels like a big identity change, but I wonder how that works in practice. Zigging while others zig, too, so long as Purdue’s in the Big Ten West, but maybe they’re just getting ready for the world where USC and UCLA are in the Big Ten and they’re no longer mostly peers with Iowa and Wisconsin.
I Would Love to Be Described as a Mutt and a Mongrel
Not, like, in a racial way. That’d be weird. I just like the scrappiness it implies. There’s a little mongrel down the coffee shop from me right now and it’s a vibe. Fargo’s great, this isn’t a knock on Fargo (Fargo is my dog, if you’re a newer reader—she’s a bernedoodle). But there’s something about a little mongrel.
Chunky Cream: Can It Kill You?
A friend called me yesterday and left me at a loss for words. Moments earlier, he’d watched a barista he knew and trusted pour a bunch of chunky heavy whipping cream into his drink. The barista visibly recoiled at the sight of the chunks, but after looking at the carton, moved along and served my friend the drink. No mention of the chunks.
Was the drink safe?
This is the question that left me at a loss for words. I love dairy, but I have to confess: I’m not as much an expert as I’d like to be.
Thankfully, I am an expert on taking the first Google result as gospel, and according to a site called eHow, the chunks could just be butter (delicious) but you can only know that if the heavy whipping cream isn’t smelly or sour. In my friend’s situation, he had no way to know. It was already in a flavorful drink! Could have been butter, but how was he to know.
Also, I confirmed, and we’re not supposed to drink sour milk. I kind of assumed that, but you know what else curdles? Like eight derivatives of milk, right? Isn’t that how we get a lot of milk products? Letting them curdle? I’m sure there’s more. Again. Not an expert. But certainly an aspirational one now.
Josh Jacobs Was the Deez Nuts Saban Guy
No, no, Josh Jacobs and/or Nick Saban are/is not in the news. I just remembered that we found out about Nick Saban’s love of Deez Nuts jokes because of Josh Jacobs, of all the players. What a distinction. Right after I become a bona fide dairy expert, I’m gonna become a Wikipedia editor and make this a big deal on Jacobs’s page.
Imagine a LeBron James Trophy
The NBA MVP trophy is now named after Michael Jordan, which finally settles it. No more debates. Who knew this would be how we finally ended the morning talk show industry?
Obviously, the question here is what LeBron James’s trophy would look like if he got to have one designed with his wishes in mind. My guess? It would feature him having a lot of friends. That would be the message of the trophy: “This guy? People like him.”
The Sens Are Rolling, But
Tim Stützle got hurt. Upper body. Unclear what more than that, but he was grabbing his arm and it was in a sling after the game. Brett Leason was penalized for the hit. By the refs. Unclear if the universe has doled out its own punishment yet.
Besides that, though, yes: Rolling. Five points in three games, up out of last in the Atlantic (or at least into a tie for last—I don’t know tiebreakers), eight points out of playoff position with a long way to go still before the halfway point.
More happy points: Alex DeBrincat got the goggles last night, and while there still doesn’t seem to be a clear song being used the way “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” once was, at least there isn’t a bad song. Also, Josh Norris could be back within the next six or seven weeks. Also also, Cam Talbot pitched a shutout. Also also also, Ryan Reynolds met with Gary Bettman and seems to have charmed him, which isn’t the worst thing in the world. We want Reynolds involved, right? I do, at least. Increases my personal brand as a Sens blogger. Screw the rest of you (just kidding please don’t exile me I swear I care). Also also also also, the Sens called up Rourke Chartier, and I know very little else on that matter, but what a name.
Dat Burnley Doe
Ok, we mentioned that Burnley won on Sunday, but we didn’t mention how they did it:
They shitpumped Queens Park Rangers. All those rangers? From the Queen’s park? They lost badly to the Burnleys. It was quick, it was emphatic, Burnley’s at the top of the table and the lads aren’t looking back. Three points up on Sheffield for first, eight points up on Blackburn for avoiding needing to play in the play-off to get promoted, nine points up on Norwich for actually avoiding needing to play in the play-off to get promoted (Blackburn is bad and we only included them earlier to show we know the standings).
Next match is on Saturday at home, and it’ll close out the first half of the season. I like that Christmas is the halfway mark. Just like Harry Potter, in which the Christmas scene of each book famously occupies the exact middle page. Must be a British thing.
**
Viewing itinerary for the evening:
6:30 PM EST: Furman @ NC State (ACCN)
7:00 PM EST: Princeton @ Iona (ESPN+)
9:00 PM EST: Memphis @ Alabama (ESPN2)
Pitino, Penny, and Kevin Keatts. Princeton/Iona’s the Game of the NITe. It’s Tigers vs. Yalers for the Ivy League, though with the tournament at Princeton, it’s fair to be skeptical of the auto-bid potential there.
