Mike Leach was a genius and a weirdo in the best possible ways. The longtime college football head coach was a mainstay among the Power 5 conferences not just for his ability to shape how programs across the country viewed their offenses but his affable demeanor, stream of consciousness press conferences and willingness to allow people — players, reporters, pretty much anyone who asked, really — into his life.
After his passing was announced December 13, social media became a staging ground for tributes toward one of the most influential coaches in the game. While most of these were great, heartfelt memories of an unforgettable personality from some of the best writers in America, the best encapsulation of who Mike Leach was may have come from a graduate student at a rival school, asking about which animals he’d want to have his back in a fight.
Our last conversation was about a meme I saw on Twitter. I’m incredibly happy that our last conversation was about something so unserious, as I believe Coach Leach wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. pic.twitter.com/MszhLqa0wn
— Randy Morgan (@randyjmorgan_) December 13, 2022
Randy Morgan, per the University of Mississippi, a graduate student with PhD aspirations at the school’s Center for Population Studies, reached out to Washington State years earlier to request an interview with the head coach to discuss his innovative offense. Leach personally responded days later, talked with Morgan for hours about football and everything else, then told him to keep in touch.
So Morgan did.
As we concluded the phone call, Coach Leach made sure to remind me multiple times to call or text any time that I wanted to talk. So, from then on, I would occasionally text Coach Leach about different things.
— Randy Morgan (@randyjmorgan_) December 13, 2022
The relationship persisted even after Leach took a job coaching the most hated team in Oxford, MS. And in true Leach fashion, he not only happily answered a meme question about a wild animal battle royal, but also explained the thought process behind it. He opted to team with 15 wolves and 50 eagles against a marauding army of:
- 10 alligators
- three bears
- seven bulls
- one marksman with a rifle
- 10,000 rats
- five gorillas
- and four lions.
By Leach’s logic, 10,000 rats would be a heck of an ally, sure — but their overwhelming numbers would only be useful in a longer timeline. There’s no right answer there since no matter what you’re getting slaughtered, but it’s no surprise to see the man who helped usher in a new era of passing offenses at the Division I level opt for an aerial attack.
Leach didn’t have to answer those direct messages. He didn’t have to call a random student two time zones away to explain his offense, let alone chat him up for two hours. He held one of the busiest jobs in college athletics, juggling recruiting and gameplanning and fundraising full time.
But Mike Leach reached out to talk about whatever because that’s who Mike Leach was. He was great at all those things, which is why he was a the kind of well-liked figure who can spawn a tsunami of big hearted condolences in a sport often reserved for villains.
