Mike "The Pirate" Leach

I heard an interesting comment on ESPN radio yesterday. Someone who knew The Pirate said that he wasn't obsessed with football the way most coaches are. It was what he did, and he was really good at it, but in the end, it was his job. He had other interests and never felt that he should wait to pursue them. I'm glad he had that perspective early enough to live a complete life.
 
MarineUKFan said:
Have seen where the family is moving in (from wherever they are) to be by his side. This was from a couple of posts I saw last night. Been expecting to hear the worst already today, so I guess we can be hopeful in that regard.

Hang in there, buddy!! You kinda made UK football a smidge famous back in the day with the air raid and Tim Couch.
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Hits me as hard as it does you. Mumme and Leach were at my son's alma mater, Valdosta State, before they were at Kentucky. I remember those years well. They put the Blazers on the DII map. Kirby said he has fond memories of Leach and Mumme recruiting him out of HS.
 
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Yall @5th Quarter gotta read this whole thing, Couch on Leach "“The biggest thing I remember about Mike is that he would get up in front of the team and we’d be supposed to be going over film and he would start talking about everything but football. He’d want to talk about some war or pirates or just any topic, and we’re all sitting around like, ‘Who in the world is this guy?’


Article intro: The passing of Mike Leach far too soon will reverberate throughout college football. But one place where the shock waves probably hit a bit harder than normal was Kentucky. Long before he was the boss at Mississippi State, Leach, in conjunction with his friend Hal Mumme, first gained national prominence as the offensive coordinator at Kentucky.
When Leach and Mumme joined forces, Leach had coached 3 seasons, 1 as an offensive line coach at Cal Poly, 1 as a linebacker coach at a JUCO, College of the Desert, and 1 as the head coach of the Pori Bears of the American Football Association of Finland. Not exactly a typical resume for a future SEC head coach. But then, that was always part of Leach’s charm — no collegiate playing experience, a law degree from Pepperdine, and a tendency toward utter randomness and hilarity.

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Leach coached with Mumme for 3 years at Iowa Wesleyan and 5 more at Valdosta State. When Kentucky athletic director CM Newton, desperate to rebuild the long-dormant Kentucky football program, took a flyer on Mumme, a Division II coach, he also got a hell of an offensive coordinator in the bargain.
Mumme and Leach inherited a 4-7 Kentucky team that had averaged 12.6 points and 217.8 yards per game in 1996. Forget a 3,000-yard passer, Kentucky had never had a 2,000-yard passer. The Wildcats hadn’t won more than 6 games since 1984. They weren’t just bad, they were boring.
In 2 seasons together, before Leach moved on to Oklahoma for a year as a coordinator and then became a head coach, Mumme and Leach set the UK record book on fire and laughed at the ashes, with help from standout QB Tim Couch, who had spent his freshman season trying to run the option under Bill Curry.
Couch broke UK’s single-game passing yards record in their first game together in 1997. Couch passed for 3,884 yards that season and then 4,275 in 1998, an SEC mark that stood until Joe Burrow broke it in 2019. In 1998, Kentucky scored 37.9 points and gained 534.2 yards per game. Behind Couch, a Heisman finalist in 1998, the Wildcats also became must-see TV, even if the lack of a defense never moved the Wildcats beyond 7-5.

www.saturdaydownsouth.com

Kentucky's Mike Leach stories are as epic as his Air Raid offense

Tim Couch remembered thinking: 'Who in the world is this guy?' Mike Leach called James Whalen by his number, not his name. A look back at Leach's lasting legacy in Lexington.
www.saturdaydownsouth.com
 
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