Adidas410s
07-24-2007, 01:23 PM
Take 2 or 3 minutes to read this...it's worth a few chuckles! ;)
The Mike Leach Interview
posted by Brian Sweany
Let the rest of the world wait for Texas Tech's Big XII media day on Tuesday. Coach Leach agreed to talk with us today.
Vital Statistics:
First season: 2000
2006 results: 8-5 (4-4)
2006 bowl: Insight (W 44-41 v. Minnesota)
2007 opener: @ SMU on Sept. 3
texasmonthly.com: How difficult is this part of the season for you? I'm sure you just want to start practice and get on with the season, but instead you have to do all of this media stuff.
Leach: It's all chopped up this time of year. I'll tell you what's tricky about it. There are so many different things, so many different directions. The period for camps is longer, so that runs into other things. Since you can't go two-a-days, everything's in a row--I don't know if that was a good deal or not. Now there's a lot of stuff happening simultaneously. We run a women's clinic, which is a pretty good deal, and a fantasy camp, which gives guys an inside look at what we do up here.
tm.com: Do those things help your program's exposure--or are they just one more thing to do?
Leach: It's probably a little of both.
[Long pause as he discusses possible flight options for an upcoming trip; background conversation inaudible. I walk down the hall and get a Dr Pepper.]
Leach: Sorry about that.
tm.com: No problem. Do you want me to call you back?
Leach: No, no, not if you can weather the periodic interruptions.
tm.com: Absolutely. You had a roller-coaster season last year, culminating with the biggest come-from-behind win in bowl history. What did all of that teach you?
Leach: That's a question I could spend a week answering. The short answer is we have to maintain the proper mindset and attitude, and that's something that could easily be taken for granted. I think what contributes to that problem are the little things: everyone needs to be giving the players the same message, and I don't think you need any variance there. I don't think we had people who didn't want things to go well, but it wasn't as cohesive as it should have been. In other words, if we had done a better job communicating, we would have done a little better. We had some dead weight on the team that we could have handled differently.
tm.com: Will it help that you have a starting quarterback who is returning for the first time since 2002?
Leach: I think Graham Harrell is really a good quarterback. And I think some of the success that the guys from the past [Kliff Kingsbury, B.J. Symons, Sonny Cumbie, and Cody Hodges] had has tended to overshadow him. Graham had one of the best years of anyone in the nation, and as you look at it, I guess most people are rating him as one of the top six quarterbacks in the Big XII. I guess those two thousand more yards he threw more than anyone else don't count as much as they used to. I guess he just did it accidentally. He lucked into those, but the other quarterbacks worked really, really hard for their yards. I don't buy any of that.
We've also got a great corps of receivers, and I'll tell you what's tricky about us: We've got a lot of new faces. We're going to be younger and faster on defense, and we're going to have one of the better secondaries that I've had. Our running back, Shannon Woods, led the conference in all-purpose yards, and if he continues to play well, he can do it again. We have new faces at the line. I think the offensive line is the most important position on offense, and I was impressed with what they did in the spring.
tm.com: That's been one of the story lines for the upcoming season. Aside from Harrell and Woods, you're not returning a lot of starters. Is there a player we're not familiar with who will have to have a breakout season?
Leach: That's tough because if I say a name, I'll probably get it wrong. Ah, I don't know. That's like when Mark Twain said, "The rumors of our demise have been exaggerated." The media have said we're not any good this season, but we're going to do what we would have done if they had picked us first: Try to win all the games.
tm.com: I have a question from a reader named Jeff who asks about the Michael Lewis profile from the New York Times Magazine in 2005. You said that during each off-season, you pick a topic--Geronimo, Daniel Boone, pirates, chimps, Jackson Pollack--and you study it. What did you pick this year?
Leach: Well, it wasn't just one topic, but I'll tell you, this year I traveled all over New England, where I'd never been. Now I've been to 49 states; Alaska will have to wait. Then I went to Germany, so I spent time reading up on stuff about Germany.
tm.com: Was that all of your vacation, assuming head coaches get vacations?
Leach: Yeah, but you're always by the phone. I got to take some "expeditions," though I'm sure the wife and kids would have liked some extra rest.
tm.com: Speaking of the Michael Lewis story, one description of you jumped out. He wrote, "Mike Leach entered the locker room with the quizzical air of a man who has successfully bushwhacked his way through a jungle but isn't quite sure what country he has emerged into." Is that accurate?
Leach: I don't know; I had forgotten about it. [Pause.] I don't know what to think about it. You just try to enjoy the journey and absorb as much as you can. Yeah, I'm sure it's an accurate description.
tm.com: You're starting your eighth season with the Red Raiders. You've never had a losing season, but you've also not made it to the top of the Big XII. How do you grade your tenure in Lubbock?
Leach: I think we're getting better. We've won four out of the last five bowls, we've gone to seven straight bowls, we've had the third best record in the Big XII over the past seven years behind Texas and Oklahoma, and that puts us ahead of some pretty good folks. But there's always more you want to do, and there are plenty of challenges ahead; it's not like we're satisfied. But as a team and a staff, we're doing the best we can.
The Mike Leach Interview
posted by Brian Sweany
Let the rest of the world wait for Texas Tech's Big XII media day on Tuesday. Coach Leach agreed to talk with us today.
Vital Statistics:
First season: 2000
2006 results: 8-5 (4-4)
2006 bowl: Insight (W 44-41 v. Minnesota)
2007 opener: @ SMU on Sept. 3
texasmonthly.com: How difficult is this part of the season for you? I'm sure you just want to start practice and get on with the season, but instead you have to do all of this media stuff.
Leach: It's all chopped up this time of year. I'll tell you what's tricky about it. There are so many different things, so many different directions. The period for camps is longer, so that runs into other things. Since you can't go two-a-days, everything's in a row--I don't know if that was a good deal or not. Now there's a lot of stuff happening simultaneously. We run a women's clinic, which is a pretty good deal, and a fantasy camp, which gives guys an inside look at what we do up here.
tm.com: Do those things help your program's exposure--or are they just one more thing to do?
Leach: It's probably a little of both.
[Long pause as he discusses possible flight options for an upcoming trip; background conversation inaudible. I walk down the hall and get a Dr Pepper.]
Leach: Sorry about that.
tm.com: No problem. Do you want me to call you back?
Leach: No, no, not if you can weather the periodic interruptions.
tm.com: Absolutely. You had a roller-coaster season last year, culminating with the biggest come-from-behind win in bowl history. What did all of that teach you?
Leach: That's a question I could spend a week answering. The short answer is we have to maintain the proper mindset and attitude, and that's something that could easily be taken for granted. I think what contributes to that problem are the little things: everyone needs to be giving the players the same message, and I don't think you need any variance there. I don't think we had people who didn't want things to go well, but it wasn't as cohesive as it should have been. In other words, if we had done a better job communicating, we would have done a little better. We had some dead weight on the team that we could have handled differently.
tm.com: Will it help that you have a starting quarterback who is returning for the first time since 2002?
Leach: I think Graham Harrell is really a good quarterback. And I think some of the success that the guys from the past [Kliff Kingsbury, B.J. Symons, Sonny Cumbie, and Cody Hodges] had has tended to overshadow him. Graham had one of the best years of anyone in the nation, and as you look at it, I guess most people are rating him as one of the top six quarterbacks in the Big XII. I guess those two thousand more yards he threw more than anyone else don't count as much as they used to. I guess he just did it accidentally. He lucked into those, but the other quarterbacks worked really, really hard for their yards. I don't buy any of that.
We've also got a great corps of receivers, and I'll tell you what's tricky about us: We've got a lot of new faces. We're going to be younger and faster on defense, and we're going to have one of the better secondaries that I've had. Our running back, Shannon Woods, led the conference in all-purpose yards, and if he continues to play well, he can do it again. We have new faces at the line. I think the offensive line is the most important position on offense, and I was impressed with what they did in the spring.
tm.com: That's been one of the story lines for the upcoming season. Aside from Harrell and Woods, you're not returning a lot of starters. Is there a player we're not familiar with who will have to have a breakout season?
Leach: That's tough because if I say a name, I'll probably get it wrong. Ah, I don't know. That's like when Mark Twain said, "The rumors of our demise have been exaggerated." The media have said we're not any good this season, but we're going to do what we would have done if they had picked us first: Try to win all the games.
tm.com: I have a question from a reader named Jeff who asks about the Michael Lewis profile from the New York Times Magazine in 2005. You said that during each off-season, you pick a topic--Geronimo, Daniel Boone, pirates, chimps, Jackson Pollack--and you study it. What did you pick this year?
Leach: Well, it wasn't just one topic, but I'll tell you, this year I traveled all over New England, where I'd never been. Now I've been to 49 states; Alaska will have to wait. Then I went to Germany, so I spent time reading up on stuff about Germany.
tm.com: Was that all of your vacation, assuming head coaches get vacations?
Leach: Yeah, but you're always by the phone. I got to take some "expeditions," though I'm sure the wife and kids would have liked some extra rest.
tm.com: Speaking of the Michael Lewis story, one description of you jumped out. He wrote, "Mike Leach entered the locker room with the quizzical air of a man who has successfully bushwhacked his way through a jungle but isn't quite sure what country he has emerged into." Is that accurate?
Leach: I don't know; I had forgotten about it. [Pause.] I don't know what to think about it. You just try to enjoy the journey and absorb as much as you can. Yeah, I'm sure it's an accurate description.
tm.com: You're starting your eighth season with the Red Raiders. You've never had a losing season, but you've also not made it to the top of the Big XII. How do you grade your tenure in Lubbock?
Leach: I think we're getting better. We've won four out of the last five bowls, we've gone to seven straight bowls, we've had the third best record in the Big XII over the past seven years behind Texas and Oklahoma, and that puts us ahead of some pretty good folks. But there's always more you want to do, and there are plenty of challenges ahead; it's not like we're satisfied. But as a team and a staff, we're doing the best we can.