'We're not going away': 12 years later, Mike Leach still wants to crush Texas Tech in courtroom
Mike Leach’s feud with Texas Tech has lasted 12 years, spanned several courtrooms and resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees.
Soon, that battle will include one football game, a backdrop to a saga that began with the 2009 for-cause firing of Leach, who is now coach of Mississippi State. Leach has no intention to stop the legal melees as he tries to recoup the $2.5 million. The next stage could be in federal court, according to Wayne Dolcefino, a Houston-based attorney representing him.
Either way, when Mississippi State (7-5) and Texas Tech (6-6) play in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl in Memphis on Tuesday (5:45 p.m., ESPN), Leach will get his day on the field, where there will be a clear winner and a finality that has been lacking in the dead ends of Texas courtrooms.
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At the center of it all is the $2.5 million that Leach feels Texas Tech still owes him after terminating his contract.
To the Texas Tech administration, the incident is in the rearview mirror. The university’s stance is succinct: “The courts ruled on the Mike Leach matter in 2014,” a Texas Tech spokesperson said in a statement. “We have resolved this issue and have moved forward. We are excited about the upcoming bowl game and the future of Texas Tech football.”
As for Leach, however, brevity is rarely the first arrow out of his quiver. And his determination has led to a series of legal cases against Texas Tech and those at the university, aiming for payback for what he perceives as wrongful dismissal.
“There will be more litigation coming,” Dolcefino said. “There will be. And sooner rather than later. Because we’re not going away.”
How did it get to this point? It started in December 2009, when a wide receiver named Adam James suffered a concussion and had to sit out of practice.
The start
There’s little dispute about the base details of what happened at two practices in December 2009. Seeing James on the sideline missing practice because of a concussion, Leach told Steve Pincock, the head football athletic trainer, to get James off the field.
Leach told Pincock to “lock his (expletive) (expletive) (expletive) a place so dark that the only way he knows he has a (penis) is to reach down and touch it,” according to court records. And when Leach was asked by a Texas Tech investigator about that alleged quote, the coach said: “That sounds like me. If I didn't say it, I wish I had.”
For two practices, James was instructed to stand in the dark, first in an equipment shed and next in a media room with the chairs removed. James did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.
Craig James, Adam James’ father and at the time an ESPN commentator, approached Texas Tech about his son’s treatment. He wanted Leach to be fired, according to court records, and he appeared to threaten a lawsuit if that outcome didn’t occur.
Texas Tech President Guy Bailey asked Leach to write a letter of apology to James and his family. After Leach refused, Bailey suspended him on Dec. 28, 2009.
Meanwhile, the university opened a brief investigation into the matter — which it claims was cut short after Leach filed a temporary restraining order against Texas Tech, seeking to coach in the Alamo Bowl. Leach’s lawsuit, in addition to his airing of frustrations to the media, led Texas Tech to turn the suspension into a firing.
According to court records, Bailey said he and athletics director Gerald Myers decided “the relationship was probably broken.” They fired Leach for cause on Dec. 30, 2009.
“Mike fired himself,” Texas Tech Chancellor Kent Hance told the Texas Tribune in 2012. “When an employee tells you to go F yourself, you know, that’s not a good sign that he’s gonna work with you."
Hance didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story.
The money
The firing date is important in this saga. Had Texas Tech waited until Dec. 31, 2009 — one day later — the school would’ve owed Leach a retention bonus of $800,000, in addition to $1.6 million in other incentives.
He hasn’t let that go.
“They still owe me for 2009, the last time they won nine games, so maybe they’ll deliver the check,” Leach said earlier this month. “So we’ll see what happens (at the Liberty Bowl).”
The chances of that check materializing are slim. The Seventh District Court of Appeals of Texas concluded Texas Tech couldn’t be sued for wrongful termination, citing sovereign immunity, which prevents a state entity from being sued for monetary damages. And the Texas Supreme Court in 2012 rejected Leach’s appeal without an opinion.
“The (Texas) Supreme Court ruled he’s not going to get any money,” Hance said in 2012. “He’s been obsessed with this for a couple years now. I think Mike’s a good coach. I hope that he moves on with his life. He’s got a job now. I just wish him the best, but we’ve moved on a long time ago.”
Leach hasn’t moved on.
“If Texas Tech had an ounce of class, they would fly in the (Board of Regents to the Liberty Bowl) and they would deliver him a check,” Dolcefino said. “If they had an ounce of class, they would do that. Here’s the perfect opportunity. And Coach would shake their hands tomorrow and say, ‘No hard feelings.’ ”
The litigation
When Leach hired Dolcefino in 2017 to investigate Texas Tech, Dolcefino sought background on what led to Leach’s firing.
On Oct. 9, 2017, Dolcefino requested “any completed investigation into the alleged mistreatment of Adam Jones (sic) by Mike Leach.” The university responded that there were no documents regarding any alleged mistreatment of Adam James — or Adam Jones, for that matter.
The primary reason those documents don’t exist? An investigation wasn’t completed, “as the completion of the report was interrupted by the litigation ensuing upon Coach Leach's termination.”
“I think it’s actually an insult to the word investigation to call that an investigation,” Dolcefino said. “That was a firing looking to have an investigation as an excuse. They never did a real investigation. It was all of two or three days.”
The public records request was one of a number of legal battles.
In addition to the temporary restraining order Leach requested in 2009, he pursued a wrongful termination lawsuit that was eventually dismissed from the Texas Supreme Court in 2012, and he took Craig James to court in 2014.
Leach alleged Craig James, ESPN and Spaeth Communications, Inc. — a PR firm James hired during the media blitz — forced the Texas Tech administration’s hand to fire him through defamation and improperly interfered with his contract.
But the Seventh District Court of Appeals of Texas determined Leach’s firing wasn’t due to outside pressure.
“Leach cites us to no evidence from which a rational juror can reasonably deduce that the University's president and athletic director actually succumbed to pressure exerted by James or others on his behalf,” chief justice Brian Quinn wrote in his opinion. “Nor does he attempt to illustrate that a rational juror could infer that calling a concussed player a ‘(expletive) (expletive) (expletive)’ and requiring that athlete to stand for long periods of time in a darkened room since he was ‘a distraction’ who ‘defied team rules’ was insufficient basis to warrant discipline or termination.”
The latest development came Sept. 30 in Dolcefino’s suit against Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, after Paxton didn’t respond to Dolcefino’s complaint that Texas Tech had overcharged him for record requests.
The court ruled that Dolcefino hadn’t proven his case, but he and Leach aren't finished.
“We’re going to investigate Texas Tech in every nook and cranny that comes to us, so they understand that this is part of the price you pay when you cheat someone,” Dolcefino said.
“Is there an avenue to file somewhere else in Texas? Maybe. Unlikely, but we’re looking at it,” Dolcefino continued. “Is it now the time to go to federal court and argue that our civil rights are being violated, because we can’t get justice? I don’t want to make it sound any more serious than that, but people go to federal court when their civil rights are violated. It’s very clear that no one is going to hold Texas Tech accountable for their blatant disregard for public records laws.”
The game
When Leach was asked about any personal significance attached to Mississippi State’s matchup with Texas Tech in the Liberty Bowl, he downplayed those feelings. But in a conversation with Dolcefino, the complicated nature of Leach’s memories in Lubbock were clear.
He loved his time coaching Texas Tech. He finished with more wins (84) than any coach in school history, and he led the Red Raiders to a bowl game in all 10 seasons. When Leach and Dolcefino were at a book signing in Lubbock last year, hundreds of people came, still appreciating Leach more than a decade after he was fired.
“He knows he’s playing against a school he had really great feelings for and did really great things for,” Dolcefino said.
But as the lengthy court history exhibits, the disgruntlement toward those at the helm of Texas Tech remains, the people who fired him for a cause he doesn’t believe was there.
“Coach Leach is the all-time winningest football coach at Texas Tech, and that’s special,” said Kirby Hocutt, who is now the athletics director at Texas Tech. “He is a great coach who I have a tremendous amount of respect for. Things happened at Texas Tech a long time ago. … A lot of folks have great memories about what Coach Leach accomplished with the football program at Texas Tech.”
The ending to his tenure doesn’t negate those 84 wins, but it does sour it. And the ongoing legal melee, as Dolcefino and Leach seek additional avenues to haunt the Red Raiders, makes for a messy backstory to Leach’s first game against Texas Tech since his ouster.
“Every major football team around the country has fired coaches,” Dolcefino said. “No one did what Texas Tech did. It is the weaselly-est thing anyone could ever do, and they can’t live that down until they pay him. Whoever wins in the Liberty Bowl ain’t gonna change the history of that program. They aren’t going to be able to go back and say, ‘Well, we beat one Mississippi State football team, so the curse is over.’ The curse ain’t ever gonna be over.”