A Letter To Leach
November 10, 2021 | Football, Joel Coleman
Mississippi State running backs coach Eric Mele used an old-fashioned route to get where he is today.
STARKVILLE – Eric Mele put the letter in the mail and hoped for the best.
It was about 10 years ago now. Mele – at the time the special teams coordinator and running backs coach for Wingate University in North Carolina – was looking for a new opportunity. A Google search, a piece of paper and a stamp later and Mele was shooting his shot.
Veteran head coach Mike Leach was down in Key West, Florida, at his home. The pirate was out of coaching at the time, awaiting his own next chapter. He'd soon be receiving an envelope at the post office with Mele's name on it.
The rest, as they say, is history. Here is Mele's story of how a little luck, combined with a little ambition, connected him to Mike Leach.
The Origin
"I can't really put my finger on how it popped in my head or why I did it," Mele says now.
Completely out of the blue, Mele had decided to write to Leach. Mele was happy at Wingate. He had a home there. Mele and his wife, Melissa, started their family there.
Nonetheless, Mele's eyes were on career growth.
"One of my all-time favorite quotes is energy and persistence conquer all things," Mele said, referencing the well-known words of Benjamin Franklin. "Leach mentioned persistence in his book ["Swing Your Sword"] and I think that sparked something in my brain."
Mele began trying to open doors to his future by connecting with Leach. It bears noting, Mele didn't know Leach. Leach didn't know Mele.
This was, in football terms, a Hail Mary. Mele was winging it up, just hoping for a completion.
Mele had some familiarity with Leach's Air Raid offense, as well as others who'd adopted the scheme. Mele knew fellow Air Raid pioneer Hal Mumme's son. Also, Mele had helped run the offense at a prior coaching stop at Saint Peter's College in New Jersey. A friend had watched a Texas Tech practice when Leach was the head coach there and picked up some drills and brought it all back to Saint Peter's.
But again, there was no true connection between Mele and Leach. There was no real tie at all. So here went nothing.
The Letter
Mele sent an old-school letter, but he did use technology to get it where it needed to go. Mele found an address for Leach off the internet.
"I just randomly Googled it up," Mele said. "Mike Leach. Key West. Contact info or whatever and it was like, 'P.O. Box whatever, Key West, Florida.'"
Mele wasn't 100 percent sure the address was even right. He didn't spend time worrying about it though. This was just a shot in the dark after all.
"What's the difference? If it gets there or not, it doesn't matter," Mele said.
The contents of Mele's letter weren't all that eloquent. To hear him tell it, it seems as though he got straight to the point.
"It's like, 'If you get back [into] coaching, come on over here to Wingate, let's grab a beer together and you can clinic our staff,'" Mele remembered.
The letter was sent. Time passed. Mele and some other fellow coaches were later out in Oregon visiting with then-Ducks head coach Chip Kelly and staff when Mele's phone rang.
"It says Lubbock, Texas," Mele said. "I'm like, 'Who the hell is this? I don't know anyone from Texas.'"
Mele didn't answer. A voicemail was left and Mele listened in.
"Hey Eric. Mike Leach." BEEEEEEEEEEEP.
That was it.
"I was like, 'What the heck does that even mean?' Mele said.
Mele of course returned the call. Leach told Mele that if he was ever down in Florida, he'd love for the two to hook up and talk football.
"So I call my wife and I'm like, 'Hey, I'm going to Florida next week,'" Mele said.
The Pursuit
Mele made it to Key West. At long last, he had the chance to meet with Leach face to face.
"It's like 8 p.m. in Key West on Duval Street or whatever," Mele said. "[Leach is] coming from like a Key West Little League baseball game of his son's. He's got this Key West hat on. He's got the ear pods in. He was doing like a radio thing. Starting at 8 p.m., we're going to go see the first establishment on the island there...Then it's 4 a.m. So we'd gone around for eight hours just kind of talking football and getting to know each other and getting to tour the island. Just me and him."
This wouldn't be Mele's last trip down to Key West.
[Leach] was like, 'Let's keep up,'" Mele said. "In the summer, he calls me and Hal Mumme is coming down with a couple of guys on his staff. [Current MSU offensive line coach] Mason Miller was one of them. It was about five or six of us. We were going to do a little clinic for Key West High School's coach. We toured Jimmy Buffet's studio. We had a fishing trip. Fell asleep one day with like my feet in this pool. Same thing as before. It was 4 a.m. Chickens were there. Roosters were crowing...So we did that for about three days. We just kept up."
A few months later, Leach was hired as the head coach at Washington State. He had to fill his staff. Mele made sure Leach didn't forget about him.
The Job
Mele decided to fly out to Pullman, Washington, unannounced. Leach's press conference was on a Tuesday. The following day, Mele sent Leach a text.
"'Hey, I'm at the Quality Inn in Pullman,'" Mele wrote to Leach. "He said, 'I flew in and flew out. I'm back in Key West.' I'm just like, 'Oh man!' At the time, I've got three kids. I just blew my spring break money on flying out there. I'm like, 'Shoot.' I've got to call my brother and my dad. 'I'm gonna need to borrow a couple of bucks from you guys. I've got to go back to Key West.'"
Mele was headed back southward, in hot pursuit of Leach yet again.
"That's when I think he knew he wasn't going to shake me," Mele said. "I get out there and we hang out for about two days. No itinerary. No anything. I don't even know what's going on. So the second day, we go out to eat and it's like 10 p.m. and we're finishing up. I've got a red-eye flight out in the morning. He just goes, 'Hey, I know you have a pile of kids at home. The job pays this.' It was basically half as much as I was making at Wingate. He was like, 'Want the job?' I was like, 'Heck yeah I want the job.' So I call my wife and I'm like, 'Good news, we got the job.' She goes, 'How much does it pay?' I'm like, 'Not enough, but sell the house, one of our cars and all the furniture. We're going to Washington State.'"
Here's how Leach recalled the entirety of the situation:
"I didn't have a job or anything, but [Mele] basically did it for free," Leach said. "I accepted free help and he worked his way into it."
Mele spent a little over a couple of years in an offensive quality control position from 2012 to 2014, working with film breakdown and assisting with the development of quarterbacks.
"I show up and walk in the first day and it's like, 'Here's Eric Mele. He's the new QB assistant to Coach Leach,'" Mele said. "I'm like, 'Well that's perfect. That worked out.' I didn't even know what the job was. Now I'm like his wingman. Two years of late, late nights 'til like 3 a.m. Vikings. Mafia. Pizza. Good football plays, just smattered on white boards. Had a great time. I learned a ton from him those first two years."
Mele progressively worked his way up Leach's ladder.
"It was one thing leads to the next," Leach said. "He started out working with special teams and we lost a guy then he became the running backs coach."
Mele worked with special teams from 2014 through 2017. It was 2018 when he became the head of Leach's running back room. He's been there since, first in Pullman and now, at Mississippi State.
"It's been a fun, fun ride," Mele said.
The Thankfulness
Mele says the old letter story doesn't come up much these days. There's been a lot of water under the bridge since Mele found Leach's address and started this unbelievable journey.
But if you look through Leach's phone, you'll see a sign from the original connection of Mele and Leach.
"My name in his phone is still Wingate, I think," Mele said. "I just punched it in at the time, whenever I met him."
Leach clarifies: "It's listed as 'Wingate Eric Mele.'"
Leach's Air Raid offense is refined by repetition. So it's fitting, ol' Wingate Eric found his way to Leach's side by coming after his now-boss time and time again. And it all started with a simple letter.
"I'm grateful," Mele said. "I'm grateful for the opportunity I got all those years ago. It's been a great journey. It's been awesome. I'm blessed to have the opportunity to do it and I'm trying to make the most of it."