Linking Up With Leach
A Timeline of the 34th Bulldog Football Coach's First 24 Hours
1/13/2020
Introductory press conferences are often highly formal affairs. University presidents and athletic directors sit properly in their suits off to the side as their hire speaks from the podium in a very direct manner. The goal of their pontification is clear. We’ve all wanted to make a good first impression, to be on our “best behavior.”
Then Mike Leach stepped on the stage.
Let’s be clear, Leach wasn’t misbehaved. It’s just that his best behavior may have redefined how all introductory press conferences will be judged throughout this year’s college football coaching cycle.
There were spins to show off his new wardrobe, an emphatic imitation of himself breaking down film and praise lavished upon the live mascot sitting in the front of the crowd.
Even as director of athletics John Cohen introduced him and stressed what attracted him to Leach, Friday’s atmosphere was captivating.
“We didn’t hire Mike Leach because he is charismatic, but he is,” Cohen began. “We didn’t hire Mike Leach because he has a great sense of humor, but he does. We didn’t hire Mike Leach because he is exceptionally bright, but he is. We didn’t hire Mike Leach because of his dynamic personality, but he’s got one.
“We hired Mike Leach because he’s a disciplinarian,” he continued. “We hired Mike Leach because he’s a brilliant tactician. Most of all, we hired Mike Leach because he’s a proven winner.”
But this is Mike Leach, and over his first 24 hours in Starkville one thing became clear. Yes, he’s a storyteller, but most of all, he’s a connector.
Thursday, January 9
3:00 p.m. – Bryan Airfield
A cowbell pierces the cloud-covered sky as a small prop plane descends at Bryan Airfield on the west side of Starkville. It’s premature, but there is clear anticipation among the crowd that has gathered just outside the fence. Hundreds of fans grasp the iron bars with one hand while thrusting cowbells through the gaps with the other.
Twenty minutes pass before a pristine jet streaks down the runway. This is it, the moment they’ve been waiting for. The band plays as the door opens, and out steps Leach, his own cowbell raised high over his head.
As he reaches the end of the maroon carpet that’s been laid out for him and his wife Sharon, the pair is embraced by a small group of players that, like everyone else here, have come to get a first look at their new head coach.
It’s hard to hear over the clamor of the crowd, but Leach leans in close as the conversation quickly turns to the new pair of adidas shoes he is wearing. As the players show off their own kicks, Leach reveals he really isn’t much of a collector.
“I’ve worn the same pair of shoes for probably four years,” he says.
Before leaving the tarmac, Leach heads to the fence. Amid the handshakes and congratulations, there are selfies and autographs. His left hand stays busy scribbling his name across t-shirts, footballs, photos and of course, cowbells, for nearly half an hour.
As he and Sharon climb into the car waiting to drive them to campus, he lets slip a hint of surprise.
“Now, that’s a lot of folks.”
4:15 p.m. – Somewhere Along Highway 82
MSU’s director of player development Jay Perry does his best to catch Leach up on the state of the program in Starkville on their drive to campus. Eventually the conversation shifts to stories of Mississippi native and Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Gardner Minshew.
In one year coaching Minshew at Washington State, Leach’s team led the FBS in passing offense and completion percentage. Minshew visited Starkville in the fall to see his sister, Callie, who plays on the Bulldogs’ volleyball team. He still communicates with Leach and the pair had often discussed the state of Mississippi long before Leach would begin considering his new position.
Perry does a quick drive around the university’s athletic buildings. Sharon notices and points out the video boards welcoming her husband to campus, just one more reason the Leach family feels welcome in their new home.
As the abridged tour draws to a close beside the football practice fields, Leach suddenly has a question.
“Do you guys have a sand pit? How big is it?”
His mind is already racing through how he will bring his systems and philosophies to a new program. The sand pit is just the first piece.
5:16 p.m. – Davis Wade Stadium
“Wow, that’s pretty nice.”
After a short break to unpack and settle in their room for the night, Perry has brought the Leach family to the north end of Davis Wade Stadium. Before she ever steps out of the car, Sharon is impressed.
The group unloads at the Dowsing-Bell Plaza where they’re joined by Nelle Cohen. Leach immediately heads to the marble map of the state in the middle of the plaza. Standing on the spot that marks campus, you can see his mind flashing through dozens of ideas.
This is a signature of Mike Leach. Even when he isn’t expounding upon his thoughts in his trademark style, it’s clear his mind is never at rest. He is always considering something, learning, formulating his next move.
“Where’s Birmingham?” he asks. “Tuscaloosa? Oxford? Jackson?”
The Pirate has already begun mapping out the new locales he hopes to plunder for recruits.
The quartet heads inside the stadium where they are joined by Jay Logan and Brent Frey of MSU’s event and facility management department. Their first stop is at the wall of cowbells recognizing donors to the north end zone renovation project.
Leach asks for the full story behind State’s cowbell tradition – Logan happily obliges him – then reminisces on the first time he encountered the raucous atmosphere that is Davis Wade on a Saturday. He remembers the sound of the bells from his time as an assistant at Kentucky, almost as clearly as those now famous recollections of the visitor’s locker room in Starkville.
As they wander through the locker rooms and tunnels, Leach shares his memories of some of the best and worst facilities he’s been in as a coach. He shares laughs with Logan and Frey before the conversation eventually turns to baseball.
Surely, Leach is aware of MSU’s proud baseball history, but whether he is or not, it’s clear he recognizes the love of the game that is shared by his present company. He leans into it. The stories begin flowing.
He’s a fan of the Los Angeles Angels from his time in law school at Pepperdine. He was just 15 minutes from Dodger Stadium at the time, but he’s always been a bit of a contrarian so he opted for the team’s arch rival. His tour of the Gridiron Club draws comparisons to a similar venue in the Seattle Mariners’ stadium. He’s read Ron Polk’s book and the praise for the former Diamond Dawg coach is effusive – Leach has even modified his practice structure to mimic Polk’s constant movement.
The tour ends in MSU’s recruiting lounge, constructed just two years prior to Leach’s arrival. He pauses to view the collection of past Bulldog helmets on the wall. He asks for the history of the logos on each as he further immerses himself in all things Mississippi State.
On their way out of the stadium, they pass through the Golding Family Media Center.
“This is the nicest postgame press conference place I’ve ever seen,” he says. Then adding to his overall impressions of the stadium, “Everything here is new and clean. That shows a lot of pride.”
6:00 p.m. – George Sherman Clothiers
“My expertise on this is literally zero.”
Leach defers to his tailor and Perry on whether he should go with a blue, gray or maroon suit. In the end, he settles on the very first option he was presented with as he entered George Sherman’s clothing shop. It was a perfect fit after all, so why question it?
The shoes and tie on the other hand, offer more debate and more of Leach’s personality on display.
“I usually go with the dark one, but that doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing,” he says of the tie selections.
When he’s presented with a pair of possible shoes, he has just one question.
“Are they fast shoes or are they slow shoes?”
While he walks through the store trading stories of legendary MSU coach Jackie Sherrill with the proprietors, he suddenly interrupts his tale with a decision on the shoes.
“Oh, I’m fast as hell now.”
That’ll do it. The wardrobe is set. Sherman takes a few final measurements to ensure the suit pants will fit and selects a pair of socks before posing for a photo.
6:27 p.m. – Leo Seal Jr. Football Complex
Leach is headed to his first team meeting. He catches his breath, attaches a microphone to his collar for the HailState Productions team standing by to document this moment and steps into the meeting room with John Cohen.
“We’re going to do some things here that are different than other teams do, and we’re very proud of that because we expect our results to be different than the other guy,” Leach said. “I don’t think anyone came to play Division I football at a great university like this to just be the other guy down the road. To achieve any of that though there’s got to be incredibly hard work. This will be a demanding offseason, and I would like to think it’s going to be the hardest one you’ve ever had. We all have to be ready to work and work incredibly hard.”
It’s a short speech, but by his own admission he isn’t much of an opening statement type of guy. He’d rather take questions. He’s asked where he’s from. It’s a simple question, one that anyone else might answer quickly, throwing out the nearest major city or even just a state, but this is Coach Leach.
“I always say that I think people are from wherever they went to high school because that’s where I think I grew and developed the most in my life.”
He’s from Cody, Wyoming, but after explaining his take on high school and personal growth, the doors are open. Questions start flying down from every row of the auditorium. Eventually, he’s asked if he ever played college football.
He didn’t. In fact, Leach is one of five Division I football coaches not to have played the game collegiately. He explains that a broken ankle his senior year of high school derailed any football plans he may have had, but while in undergrad at BYU he took a rugby class. That sparked his love for coaching, and he played rugby throughout his time in school.
Leach still records games from Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Great Britain overnight to watch later. If anyone wants to learn the rules of that game, he’ll gladly let them join him.
Friday, January 10
10:20 a.m. – Old Main Academic Building
Leach and Perry climb into a small electric golf cart outside the football facility and head across campus. This morning, State’s new football coach will meet a few unsuspecting students in class. Along the way, the pair trades opinions on their law school experiences. Leach’s least favorite class was Wills and Trusts. He preferred Product Liability.
Upon arrival, Perry informs him that he’ll be speaking to a government class. Leach is thrilled by that. After all, he started his college career as a political science major before pursuing his law degree.
“My father hated attorneys,” he tells the class. “So I’ve got a little rebellion in me, and I said I’m going to be an attorney.”
He’s asked about the class he taught at Washington State along with Senator Michael Baumgartner, probably by a hopeful future student. He says he enjoyed it more for what he learned than what he was able to teach.
“Those guest lecturers were worth way more than me. We had a guy, who was instrumental in busting the Shoe Bomber and the Boston Marathon Bomber, from Homeland Security. We had an Air Force survival specialist and people who had been in Afghanistan. I would sit there, and as soon as my part is over, it’ll get interesting. It was just captivating.”
Leach also reveals how he became so enamored with pirates to the point of earning “The Pirate” as a nickname. One day while bestselling author Michael Lewis was working on a story about Leach, his players revealed that he had given a passionate speech about pirates and their swords.
“The sword was a metaphor for their bodies,” he explained. “Are you going to swing it passively or throw it around wildly and leave yourself exposed? Are you keeping it sharp and practicing with it to perfect your skills? After that pirates just jumped out everywhere.”
He’s embraced it. Fans have sent him t-shirts, flags, even a pair of Mickey Mouse ears from Disney World with a skull and crossbones on them. But the highlight is a talking pirate statue the stands outside his office.
People can walk up and press a button to trigger the sound effects, but Leach enjoys leaving it on the motion-sensing setting, especially late at night.
“As lame as it sounds, hearing your wide receiver coach squawk because the pirate scared him late at night while you’re watching film was pretty cool.”
10:59 a.m. – Lee Hall
President Mark Keenum raises the shutters on his fourth-floor office windows. He beckons to Leach to come stand next to him and take in the best view of campus.
Leach’s first meeting with Keenum is filled with more stories. By now you’ve noticed, this is a constant for the 58-year-old football coach.
Keenum mentions the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential library on campus, and Leach reveals that he went through a phase where he was fascinated with Grant and the Battle of Vicksburg. He’s read Grant’s memoirs and studied Lincoln.
That’s another thing about Leach. Name a significant athletic or historical figure, and you can almost be sure he has read their book. He’s always learning. He averages a book a month and estimates he read at least a portion of more than 60 titles in the last year.
They reach a wall of football helmets and cowbells. Leach comments on his newfound knowledge of the tradition as Keenum picks up his very first cowbell from his childhood.
“I was asked once what my earliest memory of my life is,” Keenum said. “My first memory is my dad listening to MSU football on the radio. That experience is common for many of our fans.”
On his way out of the office, Leach notices a photograph of Keenum whitewater rafting in Colorado. It’s a small thing that many might not notice while surrounded by so many artifacts of the university, but for Leach it’s another entry point to connect through.
The stories continue to flow, choppy, brisk and ever-changing, like the water of the rapids until staff members have to remind the men that there is a press conference today, and it starts in less than 30 minutes.
11:37 a.m. – Leo Seal Jr. Football Complex
Leach returns to the football offices just in time to change into his new suit and meet with Cohen and Bill Martin, the athletic department’s spokesperson, before he heads down the hall to be officially introduced.
Four minutes past noon, he enters the multipurpose room at the front of the building to the thunderous applause of a capacity crowd and a national television audience. For the next 43 minutes, he fields questions that circulate around some his more iconic statements on mascots, locker rooms, insurgency and of course the football-centric items of coaches, transfers and offensive schemes.
Even once the event is officially over, he continues to field questions from media members in a corner of the room for another 20 minutes. As he exits, he’s greeted by a fan who has patiently waited by the door with a copy of Leach’s book. Leach signs it, poses for a quick photo and heads upstairs.
1:04 p.m. – Leo Seal Jr. Football Complex
There’s one last thing to do before Leach can head back to his office and get down to the grinding work of preparing a football program for its next season. Upstairs a photo studio has been set up. It’s time for his official headshot and the images that will adorn billboards and marketing materials for the next seven months until the Bulldogs kick off again in Davis Wade.
After a series of portraits in both a suit and gameday attire, Jak, State’s live mascot, does his best to steal the spotlight. Leach takes the leash for a few photos with the beloved bulldog then returns him to his handler while peppering her with questions about his breeding, lifespan and personality.
As Jak retreats from the set, Leach is handed a football for his final poses. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices the canine locked onto the football. Leach laughs. He quickly wraps up the shoot and heads directly to the pup to offer him the ball.
Mike Leach, the connector. Even with a bulldog.
Story by Brian Ogden
Photos by Aaron Cornia and Austin Perryman
Video by Mitch Bernardo
Copyright Mississippi State Athletics. Not for commercial use or reproduction.