He had a phone cam and took pictures of the room while he was in it. It did not look like those rooms. There were a lot of electrical connections in the room and it was pretty dark.
http://ballhype.com/video/adam-james-footage-mov/ Heres a video he took.
There is a lot unsaid in this story. They would not fire him for that.
Not sure about Texas but here in NC there are state employees that are not bound by the rules for most state employees. For example university professors are not bound by the rules and neither are college coaches with contracts. They call these people EPA employees - exempt from (state) personnel act.
Actually Spike Dykes bought the program back from obscurity… n ot understating Leach’s importance… Its probably going to end up with mike leach settling for 40 cents on the dollar and taking his 2 million go away and signing a “keep your damn mouth shut” clause… the real fun is when Leach sits this next year out… and then gets the Colorado job. Just an early prediction…
Who can tell whats what… the receivers coach comes out and blast James as a candy ass rich punk who he never wanted anyway…irony upon irony it was Leach to told him that he was gonna offer the kid a scholarship… Does James stay at TTU… probably not in his best interest… and a DII school is probably on his horizon… While some former players ripped him… a couple of buddies came on espn radio and backed him… the def end said that he was glad Leach was gone and the James had been treated badly… This is an ugly situation that Leach and TTU need to man up and make it go away…
That’s a bit thin. I can’t think of any case in which a court found that an employee had a right to work if an employer did not want them to, but was paying them anyway.
James’s cell phone vid is not damning. The “closet” is about 4’ by 10’, and lighted, if dimly. There’s plenty of room in there.
My opinion thus far:
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ESPN is spinning this story as sadism by Leach for all they’re worth. Their covering their guy’s ass.
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There’s no sadism in evidence. Leach is being pilloried for very mildly disciplining a player. This will change coaching policies for the worse across the entire country.
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I have heard nothing but bad about Adam James. He’s not particularly talented, he has a severe attitude problem, he’s disruptive, and he’s wanted to be babied and treated like a star receiver since he got to TTU.
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I’m confused about exactly why Leach was fired. Now, since the cruelty-and-horror story appears to be having trouble holding water, it seems he was REALLY fired for mouthing off to the chancellor of TTU. At least, that’s the angle that has emerged in the last 24 hours or so.
Further rumors from TTU are suggesting that Leach was never really “Texan” enough for TTU boosters, and that they’ve had a bullseye on him since the beginning of the season. Apparently, the plan is to have Sonny Dykes (OC from Arizona) as HC. Of course, since AZ was beaten like a rented mule last night, that may not be a realistic plan anymore.
DISCLAIMER: THE ABOVE IS INTERNET RUMOR-MONGERING. IT MAY BE 100% BULLSHIT.
- Craig James IS a helicopter dad, and a whiny bitch as well.
If he disciplined a player for being injured, mild or not, that’s wrong. But it hasn’t been conclusively established that’s what he he did.
True. To be fair, I explicitly acknowledged that point in an earlier post, but I haven’t seen ANYTHING but innuendo that would suggest that’s what happened.
I have seen spin both ways. I presented the evidence of the movies because it is not the room CNN showed. Nobody said he was held in a broom closet. But the room was almost irrelevant. It was designed to humiliate James. It was petty crap and coaches should know better.
I strongly disagree. Mild humiliation of a player is perfectly normal and acceptable. Humiliation serves to single out a slacking player, and hopefully forces him to start thinking in terms of the team again. Thus, my example of Wisconsin’s John Clay being forced to carry a football around with him wherever he went, after fumbling 3 times. I’m sure it was humiliating, since EVERYBODY on campus knew exactly why he was doing it, and I’m sure he got quite a bit of mockery and verbal abuse during that week.
But BFD. It didn’t hurt him, and he’s been one hell of a sure-handed ball carrier since then.
Guys have been assigned a football to carry around fore ever… thats wayy old… They did it when i played for the great Simeon WOlverines…(thats a joke LOL)
I think Leach has stepped on his u know what because this is involving a concussion… and since thats the latest hottest thing to look at… make rules about etc… he looks like a moron… If you have Roger Goddell (sp) taking a concussed players ability to play out of the hands of the team and the player… then standing Adam James up in a closet after a concussion smacks of stupidity… I mean… Roger staubach and Steve Young walked away because of concussions… Just not a smart move…
People, people: Leach’s firing has next to nothing to do with Adam James.
Elaborate? I mean, I said the same thing a few posts up, but I gave some details.
Just to let folks know, not every player is on Leach’s side. Link
I am not taking sides, necessarily, but the idea that folks hated James and thought Leach was blameless is simply not true. Like most stories of this nature, it isn’t black and white.
And I agree, the James incident is just the catalyst, but the chemicals have been there all along.
I note that ESPN is airing Perry’s opinion verbatim as often as they can. I’ve seen it no less than 4 times since last night. But do they read the texts of the player’s statements that support Leach? They’ve done so maybe once, about three days ago.
Spin, ESPN, spin.
And OF COURSE the chemicals have been there all along. Every coach who is not a “player’s coach” has players that hate him. It’s part of the package.
I actually am OK with the chancellor snapping Leach back, if that’s what really happened. No head football coach should ever feel that he’s bigger than the university.
But all this “OMG humiliation, cruelty, and terror” bullshit has got to go.
I actually meant “the cehmicals” between the coach and the administration, sorry for the confusion.
Even by the longest stretch of the imagination, what transpired in the “shed” or whatever is nowhere near reason enough to fire someone. Even the university’s statement said it was Leach’s refusal to takes steps addressing the issue that set the ball rolling for a firing. Add to that the rumors about the university administration’s displeasure with Leach and his despotism make James about as significant to this story as the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was to WWI.
Amazing how hard it is for people to accept at face value what they are told is happening. I guess that’s a product of our modern society somehow. Sad, really.
I propose the following counter-theory, in my opinion equally likely (actually much MORE likely to be true) to be true based upon what we have had presented.
Coach Leach thinks Adam James is a prima donna. Not happy about his work rate, among other things. Said James suffers a mild concussion, and returns to practice with a doctor’s note. Coach thinks James is goldbricking, playing the concussion up in order to avoid having to work. Coach decides to show James that trying that comes with a cost. So he proceeds to put him in a dark place (everyone knows that dark environments are good for people who have had concussions, right?) and make him stand, because during practice he’d have to stand, right? And just to emphasize the point, the kid is watched, and upbraided for leaning on something when checked, at which point the coolers are dragged out of the room. Two days later, thinking that the point has not yet sunk in, and that James is still gold-bricking, he repeats the treatment, but this time chooses a darker, smaller room to stick him in, but is forced to move him when it turns out that the noise level is uncomfortable for someone (I’m too much the skeptic to believe it was out of concern for James that he was moved; probably the watchdog complained of the noise). So they move him to the next best location, drag out all the furniture just to emphasize the point again. By gosh, that’ll larn that boy!
Now, I’m not a fan of trying to motivate youth through humiliation anyway. I’ve never coached that way, and I never will. I think carrots are much more effective motivators than humiliation sticks. But I will agree that simply engaging in mild humiliation treatment to emphasize to a player that he’s not “entitled” is nothing to be fired over, or even suspended from duties over. I’ve written to Christine Brennan of USA Today today, emphasizing that nothing this kid experienced was “horrifying” as she termed it in her column today. He should suck it up and learn from the experience.
(Side note: the bit with the ball is not humiliation, per se. It’s a very pointed reminder to the running back just how important it is to keep hold of the rock. The fact that it has a mild factor of humiliation might serve as cherry on top of the whipped cream, but it’s not a “punishment” that consists of nothing buy humiliation.)
But the key here is, as I stated WAY early in this discussion, why the coach decided on THIS day, after receiving THIS doctor’s note, to treat this player THIS way. It reeks of punishment for daring to suggest that he should be limited from practice as a result of a concussion. If so, it shows very poor judgment on the part of the coach. And it certainly would have me as a player (James or anyone else on the team who saw what happened) wonder what would happen if I ever brought to Coach Leach a note limiting me at practice for a mild concussion. Which is, as has been noted by some here, and was apparently stated to Leach in a meeting with him, not a good thing.
Now, I would tend to agree that everything that has happened after the allegations were made reads like a classic battle of egos/powers. Coach was asked about what he did, was unrepentant, was asked to apologize to the player and his family, refused, was asked at the same time to commit to certain corrective measures designed to prevent a further occurrence, and refused that also. For this refusal to comply with the directives of his superiors he was suspended from his duties (hey, you know what? If MY boss tells me to do something and I don’t do it, guess what happens to ME, you know?? Why the surprise? Why the sympathy?). He refused to take that suspension, and instead fought back both through the press and through legal action. His employer, having had enough, decided to terminate his employment contract. Again, in my mind, not a real shock under the circumstances.
And as for the condition about influencing doctors opinions, do you think the University just came up with that idea out of whole cloth? “Hey, I know! Let’s throw something in there about not pressuring doctors! Yeah, that’s good!!!” I mean, really. :rolleyes: Obviously they either believe he’s done it in the past (not a real shock), or would be tempted to do it in the future (perhaps in part because of his having gotten something out of the doctor in writing).
Now, you will notice I’ve not said whether or not anything at all should have happened to Coach Leach. Perhaps he’s as innocent of the accusations as anyone could be. Maybe there’s some hint of truth to them, but it didn’t really go down the way the player alleges it did. Maybe a lot of things. But there are only two people who know exactly what all happened, and only one of them knows why he made the player do what he did. Still, the University did investigate, and did request some remedial measures. And in the absence of some solid evidence that they did that for some reason other than their knowledge of the probable facts, I think I’ll avoid jumping to the conclusion that Coach Leach did no wrong.
Oh, and folks, rampant speculation on Alumni websites is NOT evidence. :dubious: :rolleyes:
Nailed it.
Thing is, nobody wins in this situation.
Leach is probably the one that will recover from it the quickest. His reputation is tainted, but I think he’s going to get paid a good chunk of change, sit out a year, and end up coaching somewhere in 2011. That somewhere might be LSU, which would actually be a considerable step up from Texas Tech.
Texas Tech will go back to being a mediocre at best team for the foreseeable future. Big time coaches are going to be reluctant to go there for a few years, unless they get someone that already has ties to the program or just really wants to coach in Texas. Recruiting season starts to heat up real soon, and they have no coach.
James is hosed. He’s not a great player anyway, but now, nobody is going to want him and his dad to deal with at the college level. Whatever eligibility he’s got left will probably be spent at Tech, and he ain’t gonna get drafted by an NFL team. Too many other guys out there with similar talent and less baggage.
I respect your opinion, but your entire interpretation hinges on the above statement, and is pure speculation (not that I’m saying that my interpretation is any less based on speculation, but that your argument is also based on “facts” which are not in evidence).
It MAY have occurred the way you suggest, but there are quite a few other, equally probable, alternatives. To me, it reeks of a snotty, self-entitled kid who, perhaps, was standing on the sidelines, distracting other players, goofing off, and, after being called out, was eventually punished by being put in “solitary”.