somebodyshotmypaw
02-21-2023, 02:25 PM
Jamal Morrow, Washington State running back: He was always himself, and that was the biggest thing I took from him: Be who you are.
Clay McGuire, Texas Tech and Washington State assistant: There was a time at Tech where he got into rollerblading. He?d be rollerblading on the outskirts of the city on county roads and people would see him out there in jean shorts and no shirt with a Walkman on.
Isaac Dotson, Washington State safety: If you hear something about Coach Leach that sounds absurd, you can never dismiss it.
Zane Perry, Texas Tech equipment manager: I used to try to put a black belt in his locker before games because you don?t wear a brown belt with black polos, black shoes and khaki pants. He?s like, ?Quit putting that in there. I don?t care what I?m supposed to wear.?
McGuire: That was Mike Leach. He didn?t give a sh?.
Bill Moos, Washington State athletic director: I flew down to Key West to interview him. In the morning, I had it set for 8 or 9. I had everything laid out. I had renderings of the Nike uniforms. I had pictures of the proposed new football complex. Coffee, soft drinks, rolls. A knock at the door. Of course it was about 15 minutes late.
Dave Emerick, Washington State and Mississippi State chief of staff: Coach was notoriously late. Like, bad.
Moos: I had said, ?Let?s be casual. We?re in Key West.? To me, that meant take the tie off. I was still in a Hart Schaffner Marx suit with shined shoes, which was my style. I answered the door and there was Mike: cargo shorts, flip-flops, V-neck white T-shirt, three-day beard and Styrofoam spitter.
Morrow: He was not going to change for anybody.
Moos: He goes: ?Uh, uh, uh,? spit, ?uh, uh, uh, I heard we were to be casual.? I go, ?No, you look great. Did you find a place to park? It?s really busy out here.? He goes: ?Oh, I don?t have a car. I saddled up my bike and rode in.?
Emerick: He never took himself too seriously.
Moos: I go, ?Mike, I want to talk to you about my vision for Cougar football.? I start talking and within three minutes the topic has changed to Winston Churchill, George S. Patton and snow blowers in Cody, Wyo.
Bob Stoops, Oklahoma coach: He marched to his own beat of the drum, and there was no changing that.
Steve Spurrier Jr., Washington State and Mississippi State assistant: Drew Hollingshead told me this, and I?ll never forget it. He said: ?What an extremely unique gift it is to never, ever care what anyone else thinks about you. Ever. He did his own thing, dressed his own way, ate whatever he wanted, was always a mess, and he never heard anyone?s opinion of him that ever affected who he was. Never had to defend any bit about him or what he did or how he did it.? I was like, ?You know what? That?s a rare quality. I don?t know if anyone else in the world has that quality.?
Mark Mangino, Oklahoma assistant: He had an intellectual curiosity that he could not satisfy.
Luke Falk, Washington State quarterback: We were down 24-7 at Oregon State. I came in at halftime and went in the coaches? locker room. He was like, ?There?s nothing these guys are doing. We just need to go out there and beat the f? out of them. What we need to do is be calm and get after their ass.? And then he proceeds to get on Rosetta Stone or something and practice Spanish.
Drew Hollingshead, Washington State and Mississippi State assistant: It was an app he had on his phone. It would log how many days he had done it straight.
Emerick: He did it for like 984 days in a row; he was proud of it.
Hollingshead: He would remember that he didn?t do his Spanish lesson for the day and freak out because he didn?t want to ruin his streak. He would put the clicker down and start his Spanish lesson right in the middle of film.
Spurrier: We?d be in the locker room before the game and he would be over there talking Spanish to himself.
Will Rogers, Mississippi State quarterback: He would be on the sideline listening to Spanish on his headphones.
Emerick: The funny thing is, he knew no Spanish at all.
Hollingshead: Not one word. Not one freaking word.
John Cohen, Mississippi State athletic director: I was walking with Mike into our football stadium before a Thursday practice. My daughter, Jordan, who was at Wake Forest law school, just happened to call me at that minute. Mike said, ?Is that your kid who is in law school?? I said, ?Yeah.? He said, ?Let me have the phone.?
Jordan Cohen: I don?t think I had even met Coach Leach before. He goes, ?Hi, this is Coach Leach. If you?re in your first year of law school, you?re taking this class and this class and this class right now, right?? He has it exactly right. He asked me how I liked property law. I?m telling him that it?s probably my least favorite class and I?m really not enjoying it. He goes, ?Yeah, yeah, that was a hard one.? And then he proceeds to directly pinpoint a case that you only read one time your first year of law school and never again. I can?t even remember the name of it. I think it was one of the first-ever property cases and it was about ownership of a dog or a domesticated wolf or something so random. He?s rattling off the facts of this case like he just read it yesterday.
Emerick: He knew so much about so much.
Jordan Cohen: Mind you, he?s coaching. I can hear him every once in a while say something to someone at practice. He?s actively coaching. And then he?s like, ?Well, you know, keep me posted on how property goes. I?ve got to go. Bye.? He kind of apologizes for getting off the phone like I called him.
Rob Taylor, Washington State safety: That man was funny as hell.
Eric Mele, Washington State and Mississippi State assistant: Friday night movies.
Hollingshead: He would watch every second of the movie, from trailer to the end of the credits.
Cole Madison, Washington State offensive lineman: We?d all be on the bus after the movie being like, ?Why are we staying here??
Hollingshead: And the only reason he did that is because he was genuinely curious where the movie was filmed. They don?t put that information until the very last 20 seconds of the credit.
Madison: He loved Lewiston (Idaho) so much because the movie theater popcorn guy there made the best popcorn he?s ever had, supposedly. ? So he would drive down the Lewiston popcorn guy to come to Pullman the night before a game just to make him popcorn.
Graham Harrell, Texas Tech quarterback and Washington State assistant: At Washington State, a lot of times we?d be sitting there and he?d go, ?What movies are showing? Do you think we should go watch one?? He would be like, ?Well, they?re not going to miss us.? We would go all the time in the middle of the day.
Spurrier: When we were at Oklahoma, he had a plastic bag with two slices of bread in it. Every day, he brought two slices of bread. I watched him one day. He got a piece of bread and balled it up. One whole slice of bread and just balled it as tight as he could. I can?t quite figure out what he?s doing. Is he going fishing? He?s just sitting there for a couple minutes squeezing it. Then he took the ball and he put it in his mouth and swallowed it whole. So I asked him. He said: ?Well, my wife said because I drink so much coffee and it?s not good for my stomach that I need to eat two slices of bread a day ? and I hate bread. So I ball it up and swallow it up.? OK, there you have it. That?s a great idea. I like that.
McGuire: I picked him up in Phoenix for a recruiting visit. We?d just got hired at Washington State. He?d been out bear hunting at this hunting lodge in Canada for a week. He?s got a generic sweatshirt and hat from the lodge and probably hadn?t taken a shower from the night before.
Spurrier: I picked him up at an airport once for a visit. He had jeans on, loafers, a surf T-shirt.
McGuire: We go right to the high school. This is his big return to coaching. We park in the school parking lot and there are kids out there and there?s this little foyer where the high school coach is waiting for us like 40 or 50 yards away and he can see us. He goes, ?I reckon I should probably put a Washington State shirt on, huh?? So he gets out in the middle of the school parking lot and he opens the trunk and gets a suitcase and just starts stripping off his shirt. He?s just out there talking on the phone for five or 10 minutes, with no shirt on, while the high school coach is in the foyer laughing.
Rogers: The first time I got on the phone with him, he was at Washington State and I was committed here. He just goes on this spiel. He was like, ?They don?t even throw the ball. We want you to throw the ball. Are cowbells really that cool? If you want a cowbell, I?ll go get you a cowbell.?
Harrell: He did a card trick. He just had a deck and had you say black or red. He went through the whole deck and flipped them over and they were all what I called. He was like: ?Well, you make pretty good decisions so I guess you can play here.? Then he called this person on the phone. I think it was his wife, but he called them ?The Wizard.? I had to tell him a card before he made the phone call so, like, three of diamonds. He called someone and was like, ?Hey, is The Wizard there?? The person on the other line was like, ?Yeah.? He handed me the phone and the person was like ?three of diamonds? and then just hung up. Then I leave the room, and that was the entire recruiting trip.
Hollingshead: He knows everybody.
Emerick: He was going to Matthew McConaughey?s wedding. He comes back and is like, ?Yeah, I saw McConaughey, but I didn?t get to spend a ton of time with him. They had all these tents that everyone lived in. I mostly hung out with Rooster.?
Rooster McConaughey, Matthew?s older brother: It was just one night, but it was all night.
Emerick: He could go to 4:30, 5 in the morning pretty easy. He wanted people around him.
Rooster: I sang a couple of George Jones songs over there at my brother?s wedding and went and sat down. He came over and wanted to visit. What an interesting guy. He was drinking tequila and water. We got to sittin? around the table. It was 1 in the morning or something. Both of us like to cuss a lot and like to hear ourselves talk. We didn?t ask each other too many questions because if you did, it gave the other guy the floor. He loved to talk about Texas high school football and he complimented me on my George Jones stuff.
Dotson: He just wanted to be everybody?s friend at the end of the day.
Rooster: As the night went on, it was down to three of us. The third guy, sh?, he was so far out of it he was talking like Chewbacca. I think ol? Leach liked it OK because Chewbacca kinda dressed like a pirate. It was the most entertaining seven hours. ? It was 8 or 9 or 10 in the morning when I left. Hell, he was still telling stories! ? He?s knowledgable about everything. I mean, gee whiz. This guy could have run for office ? and filibustered the sh? out of everybody. ?Here comes Leach, here comes Leach, pass the bill!? ? That was one of my greatest evenings I?ve ever had.
Emerick: He was at a party in Phoenix. I said, ?Coach, how did the party go?? He goes, ?Oh, it was fun. Charles Barkley picked me up.? I said, ?He picked you up?? He goes, ?Yeah, we?re friends. He picked me up.? I said, ?Where were you?? He goes, ?No, he literally picked me up and carried me around the party.?
Dotson: I think that?s what he loved about his job the most ? the group of people he was able to bring together and all the stories he was able to accumulate.
Mangino: When we got to Oklahoma, we all got rooms at the Residence Inn in Norman.
Stoops: None of our wives or families were with us yet. We were like a mini fraternity.
Mangino: The first night, Bob walked with me and came and sat in my room. He called Mike and told him to come down. We?re all sitting there drinking beer, smoking cigars and calling recruits in that room.
Stoops: Once everybody was done with hosting recruits and parents on Friday, Saturday night, we?d all reconvene at Bear?s room.
Mangino: Bear is my nickname.
Stoops: Little by little, everyone would filter out.
Mangino: Except Leach. We?re sitting there BS-ing and I?m trying to figure this guy out. He?s interesting but different. It?s about 1:30, 2 o?clock. I said, ?Mike, I?m about to go to sleep.? I get in my bed. Mike doesn?t leave. He?s sitting there drinking beer, chewing snuff and he?s laughing at Howard Stern. It?s about 3:30 in the morning. I?m like, ?When is this guy going to leave?? Finally about 4 o?clock, he says, ?See ya, Coach,? and he leaves. Next night, same routine. ? This goes on for four or five nights. That was my introduction to Mike.
Falk: He was an avid Snapchatter. He?d be in meetings and I?d see him on Snapchat.
Madison: He lived for it.
Emerick: We had a guy who played for us at Washington State named Feddie Davey and somehow Feddie turned into a rapper. He would constantly be on there watching Feddie Davey Snapchats.
Feddie Davey, Washington State linebacker: He always messaged me and wanted me to come to Key West. Bring the family to Key West and hang out with him and fish.
Emerick: He will talk to anybody about anything.
Spurrier: I used to really try to pay attention to him to try to capture what made him good. That?s really hard to do because there?s never a conversation that goes for very long where he talks about football. He talks about politics, he talks about ?
Moos: Superman ?
Mele: Sacagewea ?
Morrow: Ancient Russians ?
Hal Mumme, Kentucky coach: Why he and my ex-wife never got along ?
Morrow: Who would win between a gorilla and a tiger ?
Mumme: There are aliens but not Bigfoot ?
Hollingshead: How the fat in the butter reacts with the caffeine in such a way that it supercharges the coffee.
Emerick: We go back to the hotel lobby and it?s like 2 in the morning. I was just trying to go to bed at this point so I said, ?Coach, I need to call my wife.? I was totally bluffing; she was obviously asleep. He goes: ?OK, call her.? I?m like, ?Uhhh, maybe I don?t need to call her.? So we go up and he?s just talking. He follows me into my room. There are two beds and he sits on one of them. I doze off for 30 or 45 minutes. I wake up ? and he is still talking to me.
Mumme: We make this big trip to Florida in 1991. On the way back, we?re driving along and I looked at him. ?I think I might be able to get the job at The Citadel. How would you like that?? He looks at me and goes, ?I don?t want to play soldier.? ? He said, ?If I was going to play something, I just want to play a pirate.? He goes into this long oration about how you could have a school where everybody dressed like pirates. You could have cannon practice and swing-your-sword practice.
Kevin Kilmer, Texas Tech assistant: I was an undergrad student assistant, but he always made me feel like I was a part of it. That?s what he did with everybody. He made everybody feel like he was on their level.
Connor Halliday, Washington State quarterback: He ended up being like my best friend. Yeah, I was watching film and getting better, but I was hanging out with my friend, drinking Colombian coffee and taking dips.
Falk: I don?t think I told him nearly enough: I?m just so grateful for him.
Seth Doege, Texas Tech quarterback: This man changed my life.
Taylor: I have the utmost respect for that man.
Rogers: Even now, there?s so much that I appreciate about him that I didn?t notice until he was gone.
Mangino: He knew what he wanted in life and how he was going to live his life, and nobody was going to tell him any different. We said it as coaches, a bunch of us: ?Wish we could be like Leach and not give a sh?.?
Taylor: One of one.
Mele: Classic, man. Love the guy.
Moos: I love the guy.
John Cohen: I?m going to really miss him.
Clay McGuire, Texas Tech and Washington State assistant: There was a time at Tech where he got into rollerblading. He?d be rollerblading on the outskirts of the city on county roads and people would see him out there in jean shorts and no shirt with a Walkman on.
Isaac Dotson, Washington State safety: If you hear something about Coach Leach that sounds absurd, you can never dismiss it.
Zane Perry, Texas Tech equipment manager: I used to try to put a black belt in his locker before games because you don?t wear a brown belt with black polos, black shoes and khaki pants. He?s like, ?Quit putting that in there. I don?t care what I?m supposed to wear.?
McGuire: That was Mike Leach. He didn?t give a sh?.
Bill Moos, Washington State athletic director: I flew down to Key West to interview him. In the morning, I had it set for 8 or 9. I had everything laid out. I had renderings of the Nike uniforms. I had pictures of the proposed new football complex. Coffee, soft drinks, rolls. A knock at the door. Of course it was about 15 minutes late.
Dave Emerick, Washington State and Mississippi State chief of staff: Coach was notoriously late. Like, bad.
Moos: I had said, ?Let?s be casual. We?re in Key West.? To me, that meant take the tie off. I was still in a Hart Schaffner Marx suit with shined shoes, which was my style. I answered the door and there was Mike: cargo shorts, flip-flops, V-neck white T-shirt, three-day beard and Styrofoam spitter.
Morrow: He was not going to change for anybody.
Moos: He goes: ?Uh, uh, uh,? spit, ?uh, uh, uh, I heard we were to be casual.? I go, ?No, you look great. Did you find a place to park? It?s really busy out here.? He goes: ?Oh, I don?t have a car. I saddled up my bike and rode in.?
Emerick: He never took himself too seriously.
Moos: I go, ?Mike, I want to talk to you about my vision for Cougar football.? I start talking and within three minutes the topic has changed to Winston Churchill, George S. Patton and snow blowers in Cody, Wyo.
Bob Stoops, Oklahoma coach: He marched to his own beat of the drum, and there was no changing that.
Steve Spurrier Jr., Washington State and Mississippi State assistant: Drew Hollingshead told me this, and I?ll never forget it. He said: ?What an extremely unique gift it is to never, ever care what anyone else thinks about you. Ever. He did his own thing, dressed his own way, ate whatever he wanted, was always a mess, and he never heard anyone?s opinion of him that ever affected who he was. Never had to defend any bit about him or what he did or how he did it.? I was like, ?You know what? That?s a rare quality. I don?t know if anyone else in the world has that quality.?
Mark Mangino, Oklahoma assistant: He had an intellectual curiosity that he could not satisfy.
Luke Falk, Washington State quarterback: We were down 24-7 at Oregon State. I came in at halftime and went in the coaches? locker room. He was like, ?There?s nothing these guys are doing. We just need to go out there and beat the f? out of them. What we need to do is be calm and get after their ass.? And then he proceeds to get on Rosetta Stone or something and practice Spanish.
Drew Hollingshead, Washington State and Mississippi State assistant: It was an app he had on his phone. It would log how many days he had done it straight.
Emerick: He did it for like 984 days in a row; he was proud of it.
Hollingshead: He would remember that he didn?t do his Spanish lesson for the day and freak out because he didn?t want to ruin his streak. He would put the clicker down and start his Spanish lesson right in the middle of film.
Spurrier: We?d be in the locker room before the game and he would be over there talking Spanish to himself.
Will Rogers, Mississippi State quarterback: He would be on the sideline listening to Spanish on his headphones.
Emerick: The funny thing is, he knew no Spanish at all.
Hollingshead: Not one word. Not one freaking word.
John Cohen, Mississippi State athletic director: I was walking with Mike into our football stadium before a Thursday practice. My daughter, Jordan, who was at Wake Forest law school, just happened to call me at that minute. Mike said, ?Is that your kid who is in law school?? I said, ?Yeah.? He said, ?Let me have the phone.?
Jordan Cohen: I don?t think I had even met Coach Leach before. He goes, ?Hi, this is Coach Leach. If you?re in your first year of law school, you?re taking this class and this class and this class right now, right?? He has it exactly right. He asked me how I liked property law. I?m telling him that it?s probably my least favorite class and I?m really not enjoying it. He goes, ?Yeah, yeah, that was a hard one.? And then he proceeds to directly pinpoint a case that you only read one time your first year of law school and never again. I can?t even remember the name of it. I think it was one of the first-ever property cases and it was about ownership of a dog or a domesticated wolf or something so random. He?s rattling off the facts of this case like he just read it yesterday.
Emerick: He knew so much about so much.
Jordan Cohen: Mind you, he?s coaching. I can hear him every once in a while say something to someone at practice. He?s actively coaching. And then he?s like, ?Well, you know, keep me posted on how property goes. I?ve got to go. Bye.? He kind of apologizes for getting off the phone like I called him.
Rob Taylor, Washington State safety: That man was funny as hell.
Eric Mele, Washington State and Mississippi State assistant: Friday night movies.
Hollingshead: He would watch every second of the movie, from trailer to the end of the credits.
Cole Madison, Washington State offensive lineman: We?d all be on the bus after the movie being like, ?Why are we staying here??
Hollingshead: And the only reason he did that is because he was genuinely curious where the movie was filmed. They don?t put that information until the very last 20 seconds of the credit.
Madison: He loved Lewiston (Idaho) so much because the movie theater popcorn guy there made the best popcorn he?s ever had, supposedly. ? So he would drive down the Lewiston popcorn guy to come to Pullman the night before a game just to make him popcorn.
Graham Harrell, Texas Tech quarterback and Washington State assistant: At Washington State, a lot of times we?d be sitting there and he?d go, ?What movies are showing? Do you think we should go watch one?? He would be like, ?Well, they?re not going to miss us.? We would go all the time in the middle of the day.
Spurrier: When we were at Oklahoma, he had a plastic bag with two slices of bread in it. Every day, he brought two slices of bread. I watched him one day. He got a piece of bread and balled it up. One whole slice of bread and just balled it as tight as he could. I can?t quite figure out what he?s doing. Is he going fishing? He?s just sitting there for a couple minutes squeezing it. Then he took the ball and he put it in his mouth and swallowed it whole. So I asked him. He said: ?Well, my wife said because I drink so much coffee and it?s not good for my stomach that I need to eat two slices of bread a day ? and I hate bread. So I ball it up and swallow it up.? OK, there you have it. That?s a great idea. I like that.
McGuire: I picked him up in Phoenix for a recruiting visit. We?d just got hired at Washington State. He?d been out bear hunting at this hunting lodge in Canada for a week. He?s got a generic sweatshirt and hat from the lodge and probably hadn?t taken a shower from the night before.
Spurrier: I picked him up at an airport once for a visit. He had jeans on, loafers, a surf T-shirt.
McGuire: We go right to the high school. This is his big return to coaching. We park in the school parking lot and there are kids out there and there?s this little foyer where the high school coach is waiting for us like 40 or 50 yards away and he can see us. He goes, ?I reckon I should probably put a Washington State shirt on, huh?? So he gets out in the middle of the school parking lot and he opens the trunk and gets a suitcase and just starts stripping off his shirt. He?s just out there talking on the phone for five or 10 minutes, with no shirt on, while the high school coach is in the foyer laughing.
Rogers: The first time I got on the phone with him, he was at Washington State and I was committed here. He just goes on this spiel. He was like, ?They don?t even throw the ball. We want you to throw the ball. Are cowbells really that cool? If you want a cowbell, I?ll go get you a cowbell.?
Harrell: He did a card trick. He just had a deck and had you say black or red. He went through the whole deck and flipped them over and they were all what I called. He was like: ?Well, you make pretty good decisions so I guess you can play here.? Then he called this person on the phone. I think it was his wife, but he called them ?The Wizard.? I had to tell him a card before he made the phone call so, like, three of diamonds. He called someone and was like, ?Hey, is The Wizard there?? The person on the other line was like, ?Yeah.? He handed me the phone and the person was like ?three of diamonds? and then just hung up. Then I leave the room, and that was the entire recruiting trip.
Hollingshead: He knows everybody.
Emerick: He was going to Matthew McConaughey?s wedding. He comes back and is like, ?Yeah, I saw McConaughey, but I didn?t get to spend a ton of time with him. They had all these tents that everyone lived in. I mostly hung out with Rooster.?
Rooster McConaughey, Matthew?s older brother: It was just one night, but it was all night.
Emerick: He could go to 4:30, 5 in the morning pretty easy. He wanted people around him.
Rooster: I sang a couple of George Jones songs over there at my brother?s wedding and went and sat down. He came over and wanted to visit. What an interesting guy. He was drinking tequila and water. We got to sittin? around the table. It was 1 in the morning or something. Both of us like to cuss a lot and like to hear ourselves talk. We didn?t ask each other too many questions because if you did, it gave the other guy the floor. He loved to talk about Texas high school football and he complimented me on my George Jones stuff.
Dotson: He just wanted to be everybody?s friend at the end of the day.
Rooster: As the night went on, it was down to three of us. The third guy, sh?, he was so far out of it he was talking like Chewbacca. I think ol? Leach liked it OK because Chewbacca kinda dressed like a pirate. It was the most entertaining seven hours. ? It was 8 or 9 or 10 in the morning when I left. Hell, he was still telling stories! ? He?s knowledgable about everything. I mean, gee whiz. This guy could have run for office ? and filibustered the sh? out of everybody. ?Here comes Leach, here comes Leach, pass the bill!? ? That was one of my greatest evenings I?ve ever had.
Emerick: He was at a party in Phoenix. I said, ?Coach, how did the party go?? He goes, ?Oh, it was fun. Charles Barkley picked me up.? I said, ?He picked you up?? He goes, ?Yeah, we?re friends. He picked me up.? I said, ?Where were you?? He goes, ?No, he literally picked me up and carried me around the party.?
Dotson: I think that?s what he loved about his job the most ? the group of people he was able to bring together and all the stories he was able to accumulate.
Mangino: When we got to Oklahoma, we all got rooms at the Residence Inn in Norman.
Stoops: None of our wives or families were with us yet. We were like a mini fraternity.
Mangino: The first night, Bob walked with me and came and sat in my room. He called Mike and told him to come down. We?re all sitting there drinking beer, smoking cigars and calling recruits in that room.
Stoops: Once everybody was done with hosting recruits and parents on Friday, Saturday night, we?d all reconvene at Bear?s room.
Mangino: Bear is my nickname.
Stoops: Little by little, everyone would filter out.
Mangino: Except Leach. We?re sitting there BS-ing and I?m trying to figure this guy out. He?s interesting but different. It?s about 1:30, 2 o?clock. I said, ?Mike, I?m about to go to sleep.? I get in my bed. Mike doesn?t leave. He?s sitting there drinking beer, chewing snuff and he?s laughing at Howard Stern. It?s about 3:30 in the morning. I?m like, ?When is this guy going to leave?? Finally about 4 o?clock, he says, ?See ya, Coach,? and he leaves. Next night, same routine. ? This goes on for four or five nights. That was my introduction to Mike.
Falk: He was an avid Snapchatter. He?d be in meetings and I?d see him on Snapchat.
Madison: He lived for it.
Emerick: We had a guy who played for us at Washington State named Feddie Davey and somehow Feddie turned into a rapper. He would constantly be on there watching Feddie Davey Snapchats.
Feddie Davey, Washington State linebacker: He always messaged me and wanted me to come to Key West. Bring the family to Key West and hang out with him and fish.
Emerick: He will talk to anybody about anything.
Spurrier: I used to really try to pay attention to him to try to capture what made him good. That?s really hard to do because there?s never a conversation that goes for very long where he talks about football. He talks about politics, he talks about ?
Moos: Superman ?
Mele: Sacagewea ?
Morrow: Ancient Russians ?
Hal Mumme, Kentucky coach: Why he and my ex-wife never got along ?
Morrow: Who would win between a gorilla and a tiger ?
Mumme: There are aliens but not Bigfoot ?
Hollingshead: How the fat in the butter reacts with the caffeine in such a way that it supercharges the coffee.
Emerick: We go back to the hotel lobby and it?s like 2 in the morning. I was just trying to go to bed at this point so I said, ?Coach, I need to call my wife.? I was totally bluffing; she was obviously asleep. He goes: ?OK, call her.? I?m like, ?Uhhh, maybe I don?t need to call her.? So we go up and he?s just talking. He follows me into my room. There are two beds and he sits on one of them. I doze off for 30 or 45 minutes. I wake up ? and he is still talking to me.
Mumme: We make this big trip to Florida in 1991. On the way back, we?re driving along and I looked at him. ?I think I might be able to get the job at The Citadel. How would you like that?? He looks at me and goes, ?I don?t want to play soldier.? ? He said, ?If I was going to play something, I just want to play a pirate.? He goes into this long oration about how you could have a school where everybody dressed like pirates. You could have cannon practice and swing-your-sword practice.
Kevin Kilmer, Texas Tech assistant: I was an undergrad student assistant, but he always made me feel like I was a part of it. That?s what he did with everybody. He made everybody feel like he was on their level.
Connor Halliday, Washington State quarterback: He ended up being like my best friend. Yeah, I was watching film and getting better, but I was hanging out with my friend, drinking Colombian coffee and taking dips.
Falk: I don?t think I told him nearly enough: I?m just so grateful for him.
Seth Doege, Texas Tech quarterback: This man changed my life.
Taylor: I have the utmost respect for that man.
Rogers: Even now, there?s so much that I appreciate about him that I didn?t notice until he was gone.
Mangino: He knew what he wanted in life and how he was going to live his life, and nobody was going to tell him any different. We said it as coaches, a bunch of us: ?Wish we could be like Leach and not give a sh?.?
Taylor: One of one.
Mele: Classic, man. Love the guy.
Moos: I love the guy.
John Cohen: I?m going to really miss him.