LETTER TO EDITOR, WHITMAN COUNTY (COLFAX) GAZETTE,
FEB 20, 2020
Commendation!
As a long-time subscriber to the Gazette (58+ years), I am writing (my first-ever) to commend the Gazette and Lisa Burnett on the editorial in the January 23, 2020, issue.
Mike Leach’s behavior, particularly his public comments directed toward his players, was an embarrassment to the entire WSU community and I am amazed that his superiors tolerated it.
Thank you, Lisa and Gazette staff.
Pat Gill, Olympia
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EDITORIAL, WHITMAN COUNTY (COLFAX) GAZETTE,
JAN 23, 2020
Good riddance.
By Lisa Burnett, Whitman County Gazette Office Manager
Mike Leach, Washington State University head coach for eight seasons, has left to be head coach at Mississippi State University.
Good riddance.
The football coach of any university is often the face of the football program, and more notably, the face of the school. As a recent graduate, I was always embarrassed by our choice of coach. Leach was dismissive, crass and rude to both his players and the press.
At first when you see Leach in an interview, his monotone, expressionless responses are entertaining. When asked who would win in a fight between the Pac-12 mascots, Leach wondered what kind of mythical powers a Sun Devil has saying, “You'd have to get one of those Harry Potter activists to read up on how to kill a Sun Devil.”
These interviews are amusing, but when his dismissive demeanor in interviews perpetuates and turns rude, the amusement quickly fades.
In Leach's Texas Tech days, after a loss to Texas A&M in 2009, he blamed the player's loss on their girlfriends, saying “we’re not going to compare scores and we’re not going to listen to our fat little girlfriends.”
Following his “Fat little girlfriends” quotes, Leach and his wife Sharon published the "Fat Little Girlfriends Cookbook: A Pirates Guide to Cuisine."
Why not make a buck off publicly humiliating your players?
Later that year, Leach was suspended indefinitely from Texas Tech pending investigation of alleged mistreatment of player Adam James, who had suffered a concussion. In an interview with The New York Times, Leach described James as lazy and entitled.
Sound familiar?
Fast forward 10 years to the WSU vs Utah game Sept. 29. After WSU lost 38-13 Leach blamed his players saying they weren't tough and that, “They're fat, dumb, happy and entitled.” He continued saying the players thought they were free agents, special and pout when things go wrong.
Leach's most infamous quote has to be when he went off on a journalist after again losing the Apple Cup in 2019. Leach said, “You know you run your mouth in your little column and stuff like some sanctimonious troll...you can live your meager life in your little hole and write nasty things...” Maybe to Leach, any press is good press.
His success in football is what keeps him around. He was the first coach in WSU history to win 11 games in a season (2018). WSU was bowl eligible for the first time in a decade in 2013 under Leach's coaching. He was Pac-12 Coach of the Year in 2018.
Success can take you so far. Leach's constant disregard of professionalism and ethics is worrisome. He isn't held accountable for his actions and he rarely apologizes. With his history of humiliating his players and being rude to the press, I see him as a huge liability. May Mississippi State have luck in mitigating that liability.
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EDITORIAL, WHITMAN COUNTY (COLFAX) GAZETTE,
FEB 20, 2020
Chun's Choosing
By Garth Meyer, Gazette Reporter
WSU Athletic Director Patrick Chun has been in the job for just over two years. In that time, his two biggest decisions have drawn a contrast with his predecessor.
Chun's choice of Hawaii’s Nick Rolovich for the new WSU football coach made the case, then Kyle Smith and the basketball team's work this winter has underlined what it can all mean.
Both Chun and Bill Moos hired a football coach and a basketball coach.
Moos went with established names for both.
Safe choices, the type of picks where if they don't work out, no one can really fault you. Mike Leach, with his controversies, won a bunch of games at Texas Tech and went to a bunch of bowls (when they still were somewhat hard to make it to one). So he ultimately was a guarded selection. For basketball, Moos hired Ernie Kent, well-established, who took Oregon to the Elite Eight a few years before.
Kent didn't work out, but it was not embarrassing to Moos because essentially it was not his choice – other people had taken risks on Ernie Kent, giving him opportunities to prove up, as for Mike Leach. The two coaches had already succeeded at this level when Moos called.
Chun, on the other hand, has made his own choice.
He's using his own insight, his own instinct to discover someone new. To create a brand new coach, or two, at the Pac-12 level.
Early evidence suggests he might be pretty good at it, too.
This contrast between Chun and Moos, intentional or not, makes it about three times as easy for fans to get behind these new coaches and teams.
Especially at a place like WSU – for which its identity is undeniably as an underdog. It doesn't mean you can't win big there – Mike Price (discovered by WSU, from Weber State) went to two Rose Bowls, only one of which had a significant star player on the roster.
So WSU is an entity that has to use its own ingenuity to create success. It used to be, at least, before Leach and the expenditures of the past nine years.
Nonetheless, Chun's two moves have put WSU back to being WSU. It’s returned to being a record company that discovers its own acts.
Isn't it refreshing?
The risk of tapping new talent is, by definition, always hit-or-miss. All the while, it's engaging, it's endearing, it's inspirational.
It's leading from the front.
Genuine rooting interest has returned to full eligibility at WSU.
Good job, Mr. Chun.
Now just one small item remains.
When C.J. Elleby is introduced at Beasley Coliseum Sunday for the last home game of the year against Stanford, see to it that a particular song slips in on the loudspeakers: U2 “Stay (Faraway So Close).”
