The appellation “American original” is thrown around excessively and cheaply, but it absolutely fits the late Mike Leach, who died Tuesday due to complications from a heart condition. There has never been another college football coach like him, and there will never be one like him now that he’s gone. The Mississippi State coach’s profession is more drab today because of his loss.
Leach was eccentric, brilliant, fearless, funny, sometimes mean, always unconventional. In a time when coaches are increasingly (and boringly) homogenous, he came out of an irregular mold that was broken immediately upon his arrival. Only Leach could have blazed a trail from playing rugby (not football) at BYU to earning a law degree at Pepperdine to becoming arguably the most influential offensive coach of the 21st century.
He was an unapologetic maverick who talked a different game, coached a different game and marched to a different drumbeat. He would walk about seven miles roundtrip to work every day while at Washington State, often using the time on the journey home to make late-night phone calls to reporters that could veer almost anywhere. His mind was a random subject generator.
