Good example from the Wisky/Miami game: they just told a story about how Clay fumbled three times in the season opener against Wofford. The next week, he was made to carry the football everywhere with him during the week. ZOMG! He was singled out! Humiliated! Oh noes! Alert the lawyers!
Coach Leach? You post here? 
How about a claim, an investigation and an admission to the facts of the case by the coach? You know, like what happened in the case we are discussing.
Any Adminisrator fool enough to follow your plan would soon find himself an ex-Adminisrator explaining to a Board of Regents why the University is paying out a mutimillion dollar judgment after the “claim” became a “pattern of abuse that the school was aware of but failed to take proper steps to address” The proper solution in a case like this is to suspend the coach until an investigation is completed, which is what TTU did.
Ssssssh! I’m laying low.
Wait. I thought the investigation was conducted, and he didn’t deny the charges. This is quite a bit different from admitting to them. We don’t know how the charges were worded. It’s entirely possible that every word of them was gospel truth, but presented in such a way to make a murder case out of it. For all we know, he sat there and didn’t say a word, maybe under advice from counsel.
Fair enough. I found out later that he was suspended with pay. I find myself having to retract my statements about his suspension.
It would be interesting to know if perhaps the kid was goofing around and being a distraction while he was watching practice and this was Leach’s way of getting him out of the way and making an example of him.
Basically this all boils down to one thing for me, if the kid is being punished for being injured and the coach is trying to create a culture where players conceal injury and put themselves in harms way by playing hurt, especially with concussions then Leach needs to be canned. If the kid was acting a fool and/or generally had a poor attitude then banishing him from the field to a equipment garage as punishment is perfectly fine.
Of course it could be something in the middle where the coach just didn’t like the kid and wanted to make him do something trivial and childlike to simply satisfy his need to prove who’s boss. I’m not sure how to feel about that, I don’t think he necessarily should be punished but I certainly think incoming recruits should know what kind of megalomaniac they might be playing for. I mean I was made to sit in the hall more than a few times in High School and I don’t think my teacher needed to be suspended for it, but I also think they were crappy authority figures and poor teachers.
The thing that bothers me is the reports that the kid was not allowed to sit down. Haven’t seen those debunked yet. If true, that’s going to be hard to defend…
Why? When I played High School football the rule was that no one sat down, ever. You only took a knee when the coach gave you permission and you never sat on your hat. It’s both discipline and conditioning and it assures that all the players realize that they are not there to goof off, it’s like a job.
Now, if Leach made the kid stand in a closet or hop on one foot that’s one thing, but if he just asked the kid to follow the same practice rules as the rest of the team it’s no biggie. If they kid needs to sit down and lounge around then he shouldn’t be on the practice field at all, he should be at home or in the training room.
Players recovering from concussions were expected to stand too?
Sure, if they had been cleared medically, and were supervised by medical staff.
Because I don’t think that’s something you do to a kid recovering from a concussion. I’ve been sorta casually following some of the newer stuff about head injuries since the Chris Benoit murder/suicide thing, and I’m convinced that any concussion should be taken seriously. I’m not convinced Leach took this kid’s injury seriously.
I agree. But if the kid was cleared medically to be on the sidelines then that implies that he’s cleared to be standing and paying attention. If the kids concussion was severe enough and he had persistent symptoms then he has no business on a practice field. Since he was there I’m guessing the restriction was limited to no strenuous activity and contact.
Amid all my efforts to avoid the overexposure of this story, I did hear that Leach had a rule that even injured players had to “participate” in practices, in some manner. I don’t know any details, but I believe this was the basis for the kid not being simply sent home.
I don’t see the kid being forced to stand as “punishment.” Like others, I played High School sports and you never sat down.
Shit, my grandfather worked for 30+ years and he never sat down, sometimes for 12+ hours a day. He wasn’t in anywhere close to the shape that Adam James is in, during that time or at any point in his life.
If an injury is so serious that someone shouldn’t be standing, then they shouldn’t come to practice at all, period.
I don’t know how medical decisions are ran at the NCAA level but my assumption would be that if it was “medically necessary” for a concussed person to not “stand” for a period of more than an hour or two, Leach would have been aware of this, or at least made aware of this.
However, this is a genuine question with a factual answer: is it actually the case that with a concussion it is harmful to stand? From everything I’ve been reading the recent uproar over concussions comes about from players getting concussions one week and playing one to two weeks later. As another poster mentioned a big issue for Chris Benoit is that he suffered many, many, many concussions over his career without ever taking a break. It is the danger of the “repeat concussion” and all the terrible health and mental effects it has that has become a concern.
I’m not aware of anyone thinking it is a bad idea to use an exercise bike or to “stand erect” for an hour or two simply because you had a concussion a few days prior. I agree a concussion is a serious injury–but James wasn’t hitting, he wasn’t suited up, he wasn’t participating in full contact practice.
Unless we can say that it is 1. “medically dangerous” to “stand” several days after what is described as a “mild concussion” and 2. that Mike Leach knew this, I don’t see the decision to make James stand as an improper one. If it is medically dangerous, and Leach didn’t know that, then there needs to be some institutional changes made to insure Mike Leach is aware of the medical facts before he makes decisions about injured players. If it is medically dangerous and Leach knew that, then it is improper and he should be punished (not sure if that punishment should go much further than the one-game suspension, though.)
I think it is worth noting that in the world of NCAA athletics, being told to “not sit” doesn’t really qualify as a “punishment.” That’s just what is expected at an athletic practice. I would imagine that people with other injuries (like hand sprains et cetera) who were asked to attend practices wouldn’t be allowed to sit, either. I don’t think it is a punishment but simply keeping players in the “rhythm” of their regular practices and etc so they don’t totally de-integrate from the team when it is time for them to return.
Obviously some injuries are so serious a person physically cannot stand, or to do so would cause injury or retard healing–in those cases I imagine the player does have to actually miss practices and et cetera. In fact there was a story not too long ago about a player who got into drugs and alcohol because of a semi-serious leg injury that lead to him being essentially “separated” from the team and its operations for so long that he fell outside the sort of behavioral controls that are typically present for college football players.
I also must say I find it disingenuous that Craig James defends his actions by saying it was taken in the interest of the health of all of Mike Leach’s players and that their son has the full support of the team. The only thing I’m seeing in the news from teammates willing to comment on it is decidedly not supportive of James. (link)
From the link:
And:
I’ll say this, Lincoln Riley probably has reason to “lie” for Leach. His job is probably conditional on Leach being employed at Texas Tech. However, I’ve seen a lot of coaches run into trouble over the years and while I’ve never seen a coach bad mouth the head coach while he’s still in the position, I’ve also never seen a coach say something negative about a player unless they had a very, very bad relationship with said player. By and large college football coaches like to keep a tight lip on everything, and typically won’t comment extensively about personal matters that arise with players, so for Lincoln Riley to say those things about a young man he has directly coached for several years probably suggests Adam James is a real piece of work, which makes me doubt him as a credible source of information.
As for Eric Morris, he’s a former player and while again, he might have some reason to “lie” for Leach–it would be exceptionally rare for a former football player to bash another former player without some sort of cause. These people typically try to avoid media controversy.
Riley has apparently said worse than that about James…
*In an e-mail written to the school on Dec. 26 that was obtained Tuesday by Schad and ESPN.com’s Mark Schlabach, current Tech inside wide receivers coach Lincoln Riley referred to James as “unusually lazy and entitled” and said he has been worried about James’ effect on the rest of the receivers because of “his weak and conceited attitude.”
In a separate e-mail to the Texas Tech AD, Riley wrote: “Two practices before Adam James claimed he had a concussion, Coach Leach and I were forced to discipline him for poor effort from the previous practice and poor effort during the early drills of that day. This has been a common theme about Adam’s work ethic and attitude during his entire career.”*
From ABC- TTU has fired Mike Leach.
And yet they wouldn’t grant a waiver on James’s reported desire to transfer. I just don’t understand why everyone involved is acting like 14 year old girls.
Edit upon news of firing: Well, that saves the university that $800k bonus due on the first. :rolleyes:
Well, obviously TTU didn’t think that what he did was right.
ESPN is reporting it too:
Apparently they handed a termination letter to his lawyer before the hearing. Interesting…
I expect Texas Tech’s AD ends up losing his job in the long term.
I read today that the team doctors actually said James “treatment” was medically beneficial for him.
Even if everything Leach was alleged to have done was true, this decision to fire him was a terrible decision.
I predict that most likely Texas Tech will slide back into football irrelevancy, and Mike Leach will almost certainly find a job at another school that will do well under his leadership.
I also am willing to bet that whether TT says the firing is “for cause”, Leach ends up with millions of dollars in a settlement from Tech.
So they’re going to spend millions of dollars on this, they’re going to have a decrease in the prominence of their football team–and most likely they will lose donation dollars for the athletic department. 63% of Texas Tech fans posting on their message boards (in a poll) have said they will no longer donate money to the school if Mike Leach is fired.
All because a prima donna’s rich daddy bitched? I hope not. Hopefully it had more to do with the longstanding feud inside of the athletic department between Mike Leach and the AD.
Or they didn’t like that he wasn’t signing their letters of apology etc. Or maybe they were still pissed that he forced them into lengthy negotiations over his salary after last season.
College football coach being fired doesn’t instantly legitimize any part of the argument one way or another. College football coaches get fired all the time, so fairly (Mark Mangino) and some for no discernible reason (Frank Solich.)
Time will only tell, but all indications I’m seeing suggest Leach was fired because the AD didn’t like him, and this was an excuse to swing the axe.
The timing here is a little surprising. Why fire him before the hearing, unless they thought they were going to lose, and would not be able to do it after a TRO was entered?