Goodbye Mr. Pirate

As a fan of the Tech hoops program, I started watching the football team as well. With the Houston Oilers long gone and the Houston Texans just starting, I never really cared about football. I was a hooper, but I began watching the football team and I became an instant fan.

The Red Raiders football team was different from the Bob Knight basketball team. The football team was high-octane run and gun, putting up some crazy offensive numbers and they were coached by this wild and crazy guy named Mike Leach.

Leach’s teams were so much fun to watch, and he became known as the pirate head football coach. He was even once given a life-sized statue of a pirate by coach Knight during their time together at Texas Tech.

The Red Raiders mantra became known as “Swing Your Sword” a book he also would later write.

Leach wasn’t shy about saying what was on his mind at all times, once after a loss to Texas, he spent nearly the entire press conference complaining about the officials, a topic highly taboo in sports which resulted in the biggest fine in Big 12 history.

During another press conference he went on a rant about his players’ “fat little girlfriends” after a loss to Texas A&M, but oddly enough resulted in a winning streak the following few weeks.

While his press conferences were must-watch TV, it’s his style of football that became legend.

Leach is also partly responsible for some of the football people have come to know and love. He might not get the credit, but his “air-raid” teams with the Red Raiders have spawned a generation of football.

Kliff Kingsbury played for Leach, and would eventually coach at Texas Tech and is now a head coach in the NFL. Lincoln Riley played for Leach and is not the USC head coach and his quarterback just won the biggest award in college football. Sonny Dykes was an offensive coordinator for Leach and he’s now the head coach at Texas Christian University and his team is heading to the college football playoffs.

This unique ground-breaking coach is no longer with us, dying on Monday after a short hospitalization from complications from a heart condition his current school Mississippi State said.

While I haven’t followed Leach’s teams in a few years, every once in a while you’d see a good rant on Twitter or ESPN from him.

Football unfortunately got a little less colorful now that the pirate has gone to Davy Jones’s locker.