Mike Leach, football coach with an ‘air raid’ violation, dies at age 61

Texas Tech hired Leach in late 1999, and his teams there went on to compile an 84–43 record.

In 2020, shortly after leaving Washington State for Mississippi State, Leach shared a meme on Twitter about the coronavirus, which he later deleted, featuring an image of an elderly white woman with knitting needles. The caption read: “After 2 weeks of quarantine with her husband, Gertrude decided to knit him a scarf.”

But it wasn’t a scarf; it was a noose, evoking the history of lynching black people in the Deep South. Leach apologized and was ordered by the university to undergo sensitivity training.

A defensive lineman, Fabien Lovett, who is black, transferred to Florida State, saying he felt Leach’s apology was disingenuous and the university’s response was insufficient.

Leach is survived by his wife, Sharon (Smith) Leach; his daughters, Janeen Clark, Kimberly Betty, and Kiersten Leach; his son, Cody; his father; his sisters, Lindsey Andrus, Mary Quackenbush, and Cara Williams; his brother Tim; and six grandchildren.

Leach was also known for his off-field football interests. He taught a course in the state of Mississippi on the connection between football and insurgent warfare. In addition to his autobiography, he wrote “Geronimo: Leadership Strategies of an American Warrior” (2015, with Buddy Levy).

And, fascinated by pirates, he kept a talking life-sized model of one in his office and conveyed the buccaneer theme in lectures to his players. After an overtime loss, he talked about pirates with his team for three hours. When interviewed on “60 Minutes” in 2008, he talked about another talk he had given.

“I brought his sword, this pirate sword replica, and I talked about how you are going to swing this sword?” Leach said as he wielded the weapon. He asked his players if they would handle it “out of hand”, blindly or with precision. He noted how “even the most decrepit pirates” sharpen and polish their swords, then compared that to the way players train in weight rooms.

“Your body,” he said, “is your sword.”