In the midst of his team trying to get back on track after a 52-30 loss to Texas A&M, Mike Leach did something he’s extremely good at, and it probably isn’t even intentional.
The idiosyncratic Texas Tech coach found a way to keep things light-hearted during Monday’s weekly press conference, at least with the media.
It’s just part of Leach being Leach.
What he opened up about is just too funny and quirky not to share with people. It was Leachism gold, if you will. If you’re looking for an Xs and Os column about the mood of his football team and everything entailing that, this isn’t it.
So here we go.
With Tech playing Kansas next, Leach fielded a question about a Jayhawk defensive back interestingly named Lubbock Smith, a redshirt freshman who actually plays on a regular basis.
“I think they did it deliberately because they knew at some point on our schedule they would play us,” Leach said tongue-in-cheek. “I think they’re deliberately taunting us, and I think that that’s something our players should make note of and perhaps use for motivation as opposed to listening to their fat little girlfriends and how great they are.”
A few seconds later, as I was thinking about how often he elicits laughter at any given moment, I asked if he ever pondered being a stand-up comedian.
The next few minutes proved, once again, that Lubbock is home to the most unique football coach in America.
First, he answered the question, saying he’s a “little self conscious,” for standup, but then he admitted that expanding on a particular subject is a strength of his.
And then he highlighted that strength, going off on a tangent about how people are tickled by “repetitious humor” and using movie examples such as “Zombieland,” “Dumb and Dumber” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” — although he couldn’t exactly recall the latter’s title.
“Once you see one zombie get blasted and then it’s like, ‘All right that’s pretty good, OK,’” Leach said. “Then three more zombies blasted. ‘OK that’s good too.’ OK then six zombies get blasted or eight. ‘All right I’ve got it,’ now let’s do something different.’ Then the whole movie goes on. Same way with flying dragons, swinging tigers or whatever that was about.
“Yeah, ‘OK I saw he did that flip too didn’t he?’ Then 15 minutes in it’s like, ‘All right I got it.”
Then he shifted from theatrical repetitious humor to practical jokes.
“Pies in faces are like that,” he said. “These people I’m talking about, like if I put a pie in this guy’s face, I mean they’ll laugh, ‘Ha-ha-ha-ha.’ Then two pies, then they begin to lose control, ‘Oh three pies?’ I mean they’ve just lost it. Then if you wait a mere 15 seconds before delivering another pie on somebody, oh my gosh! That is even extra funny.
“I can even spot in the audience there’s some people like that.”
What’s funny is, he sounded like a comedian. Honestly, Leach could have a double career if he wanted to. All he has to do is write a list of all these little pet peeves of his and share them with the world. Even if it’s during a guest lecture or speech, it doesn’t matter. The fact that he is who he is and discusses things like this openly and without a filter deserves a chuckle in itself.
This is a Division I football coach donating more than a third of his weekly press conference to pie throwing, zombies, falling out of chairs, fat girlfriends, hitting people on the head with rubber hammers and so on and so forth.
He wasn’t done though. He went on to say that those who enjoy repetitious humor probably rank Dumb and Dumber (1994) as their favorite movie.
Even though he said he believes those that do won’t admit it. I’ll admit it, it was my favorite for a while after its release. And I still consider it a favorite. I mean, resisting a classic exchange from Harry (Jeff Daniels) and Lloyd (Jim Carrey) was hard to do, especially the first time around.
I think the following lines from the tag scene gets Leach’s point across.
Lloyd: You're it.
Harry: You're it.
Lloyd: You're it, quitsies!
Harry: Anti-quitsies, you're it, quitsies, no anti-quitsies, no startsies!
Lloyd: You can't do that!
Harry: Can too!
Lloyd: Cannot, stamp it!
Harry: Can too, double stamp it, no erasies!
Lloyd: Cannot, triple stamp, no erasies, Touch blue make it true.
Harry: No, you can't do that... you can't triple stamp a double stamp, you can't triple stamp a double stamp! Lloyd!
Lloyd: [hands over ears] LA LA LA LA LA LA!
Harry: LLOYD! LLOYD! LLOYD!
I can definitely see how that wouldn’t be funny the second, third, fourth time around.
Moving on, Leach wrapped up his thoughts by saying how he’s envious of certain people’s ability to find entertainment in the simplest form.
“I’m a little disappointed,” he said, “because watching the joy that they get out of that and how entertaining that is to them, I can’t help but be a little bit jealous that after the first one, I’m almost done with it. After the second one, I’m totally done with it and after the third one, now I’m impatient with it. I can’t help but be jealous of those where the whole jubilation accelerates.”
Add it to the list of Leachisms, somewhere in between dating advice, predicting the weather and playing Chewbacca at left tackle.
www.jjuriaan.com/Glossary_of_Poetic_Terminology_-_Part_III.docAre you implying that Coach Leach is a misogynist?Definition of misogyny: to HATE women.