Simulated Gameday Experience

In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have posted as quickly about the Leach firing as I did.  Since that post went up with my initial thoughts, there have been a few developments:

- Some current players have come out against Mike Leach and his treatment of players.  In addition, Texas Tech coach Lincoln Riley has flipped sides, now coming out against Mike Leach.  This is a change of heart from his previous defend-the-Leach

- Adam James came out with the video response to Trapped in the Closet; quite frankly, if someone hasn’t reposted this video yet as a response to Trapped in the Closet I’m going to be very disappointed in the YouTube crew, but that’s neither here nor there.  Regardless, this claims to be shot while James was locked in the closet by Leach and is shot with his cell phone.

- From the background-info department, some emails were leaked involving Texas Tech brass talking about Leach’s contract extension.  It looks like most of the discussions were relevant to the negotiations, but it’s a good insight as to TTU’s management viewpoint of Leach at the time of negotiations.

- Leach has done what you’d expect from him – launch a howitzer at Texas Tech.  This story has some of the highlights, most notably Leach’s intent to file a lawsuit.  The New York Times (last seen lobbing potential recruiting violations Tennessee’s way) was able to land an interview with Leach that kind of steals the thunder out of half the points I was planning on making, but there you go.

At this point, we’ve passed the point of absolving one party of blame.  It’s weird, but given the chance to take the high road, pretty much everyone’s opted to dive into the gutter and party.  Let’s go back to the bullet points for the breakdown of the relevant parties.

- Mike Leach: Well, he did pretty much start this by even putting himself in a position to treat a player inappropriately in some fashion.  Since then, things have spun at least somewhat out of his control, as the other parties have elected to go on the attack.  Leach’s reply was more or less what you’d expect from him; man the cannons and start launching invective.  That’s probably not the best way to avoid controversy, but considering the man’s going to be filing yet another lawsuit against his now-former employer, I find it hard to be surprised at this.

- Texas Tech Administration: So far these guys aren’t making out too well, to put it mildly.  The decision to fire Leach for the equivalent of lack of institutional control is contingent on Lech failing to execute a couple of clauses in his contract; however, by the same token they had already made the decision to fire him prior to the hearing of Leach’s injunction.  That in it of itself wouldn’t be a big deal, but the leaked emails seem to show a pattern of tolerance at best for Leach; I wouldn’t go so far as to say they were waiting for him to screw up, but there’s a chance they had the termination letter drafted right after he signed the contract.  They’re not doing a whole lot as of the last couple of days, since it’s mutated into a James v. Leach story.

- The James family: As a sympathetic figure, they’ve done a remarkable job swinging public opinion.  I’m not totally sure I understand the point of releasing Trapped in the Closet 2: Electric Bugaloo at this point in time; Leach is already fired and the only thing they gain by this is saying “hey look, this actually happened!”  Instead, they kicked up questions about video authenticity (which nobody is really touching, since that’s a quagmire) and there’s another issue that we knew was going to pop up at some point – Craig James and ESPN’s involvement.

I’ve been very reluctant to comment on ESPN’s involvement in the Leach story until I saw how they were going to react to it; so far it’s been solidly behind the James family.  This would be somewhat expected, but I’ve really taken issue with their trotting out Craig James as a football analyst for this story.  The man has a very real, very personal connection to the story – and that’s fine; the man needs to play Adam James’ father here, not an analyst.  If you want him on TV, that’s fine, but don’t ask him to offer insight as to what Leach did or how he acted since word of this began trickling out.  If you’re going to solicit opinions, don’t solicit only the opinions of players who wanted him gone; I can’t imagine that all the players under Leach resented him and didn’t want to play for him.

It’s been interesting to see ESPN adopt the role of pro-James; on some level, they’ve gotten scooped for some of the juicier Leach comments (NYT was able to land the phone interview with Leach, not ESPN, although I imagine Leach isn’t in a forgiving mood to ESPN) meaning the best stories they’re getting are the pro-James stories.  Whether those are the stories they’ve chosen to lead with I’m not sure, although they do have an interview with a trainer up that refutes James’ accounts.

On some level, I’m not really surprised this has happened.  ESPN is a nasty position to try and attempt neutrality when it employs one of the involved parties; on top of that, the main contradicting party isn’t granting them access, interviews, or anything resembling news.  As a result, they’ve been reporting stories that validate the James’ family viewpoint; the trainer story has been the first real story that refuted James’ viewpoint so far, and I imagine that’s there in part since a) the trainer was able to give ESPN an interview and b) everyone else has been reporting contradictory information.

At this point we’ve passed the realm of forgiveness, and we’re heading down the path of not being able to support any of the involved parties.  Maybe that’s the lesson here, and the only thing we really need to do at this point is just watch the carnage.

Tags: Bobby Petrino wants this job, coaching by dr. nick riviera