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"You know how sometimes, on the last play of a close football game,   the team that's losing will keep lateraling the ball around, looping and   zigzagging all over the field in a way that you know serves some  larger  purpose, but still, from the sidelines, looks like total chaos?\r\nThat's sort of what it's like having a conversation with Mike Leach.\r\nOne early-summer day, the greatest mind in college football is sitting   in his new office in Pullman, Washington, eating almonds and talking   about, well, everything. He'd embarked a few minutes earlier on a   conversation about his new job, as head football coach for the   Washington State University Cougars, which he started last December. But   before long he'd veered off into an aside about Microsoft co-founder   Paul Allen &amp;ndash; a Cougar alum &amp;ndash; and the rock &amp;amp; roll museum Allen   started in Seattle, which got him talking about all the great seafood   that city has to offer, and why fishing in the Florida Keys is so good,   and before you knew it, Leach was off the rails entirely, ping-ponging from New York City real estate to the U.S. government's \"dry foot\" policy toward Cuban refugees and then, somehow, to the juices he makes in his Vitamix in the morning, and by the time he lands on the subject   of the best hotels to stay in on recruiting trips, it seems like the   most natural thing in the world. \"Most coaches like Marriotts,\" Leach   says with the solemnity of Martin Luther discussing the difference   between Catholicism and Protestantism, \"because they're nicer and closer   to the airport. But I like Holiday Inns. They're convenient; they're   clean; nobody messes with your bags or your car. You can just pull in   and pull out.\"\r\nWhen it comes to football, Leach is just&amp;nbsp; as  unconventional. He once  signed a kid who had kicked a 30-yard field  goal in a radio contest. In  his previous job, as the head coach at  Texas Tech, he was a gunslinging  iconoclast, probably the most  innovative play-caller of his generation.  Leach employed an offense  known as the spread &amp;ndash; an unorthodox formation  in which the players line  up several feet apart, essentially widening  the field of play, turning  every skill player into a potential receiver,  and giving the  quarterback free rein. Basically, Leach turned college  football  contests into sandlot pickup games.\r\nUnder this system &amp;ndash;  nicknamed the Air Raid &amp;ndash; his Red Raiders went from  barely an  afterthought in their own state to one of the marquee names in  the  country, winning 84 games in 10 seasons, going to 10 straight  bowls,  and leading the nation in both total offense (three times) and  passing  yards (six). Comparing the years before he arrived with the year  he  left is like comparing a pee-wee league with the varsity state  champs &amp;ndash;  300-plus more passing yards, 20-plus more points per game. Of  the top  10 scoring seasons in the university's history, all occurred on  Leach's  watch.\r\nLeach, rightfully, was hailed as a gridiron genius. He was profiled glowingly for '60 Minutes,' filmed a cameo on 'Friday Night Lights,' and received three national-coach-of-the-year awards for 2008. In just   one of many signs of his amazing reach, of the top seven passing   offenses in the nation last year, every one was designed by either Leach   or one of his former assistants. He was also a dedicated academic who   improved Tech's graduation rate from one of the worst in the nation to,   among public schools, one of the best.\r\nBut then it all fell  apart, in spectacular, near-operatic fashion. In  December 2009, a  couple of weeks before the team was set to play in the  Alamo Bowl, a  little-used Tech wideout named Adam James showed up to  practice with a  concussion. Leach had had run-ins with James before: His  father, a  bombastic ESPN talking head named Craig James, had a  reputation for  meddling, and Leach didn't like the son's entitled  attitude. When Adam  came to practice in a backward baseball cap and  sunglasses &amp;ndash; a  violation of team rules, even for injured players &amp;ndash; Leach  sent him off  the field and told a trainer to put him somewhere that  wouldn't hurt  his eyes. Not long after, it was being reported that James  had been  locked in an equipment shed and kept from leaving by a guard.  School&amp;nbsp;officials suspended Leach; he responded with a lawsuit and was subsequently fired for \"a defiant act of insubordination.\"\r\nThe controversy encapsulated all sorts of issues currently roiling   college football: the danger of concussions, the influence of big money,   the power of the media. When the story first broke, Leach was  portrayed  as the villain &amp;ndash; a tyrannical monster who valued toughness  over safety  and punished an injured player. But as more facts emerged &amp;ndash;  the \"shed\"  was actually a garage-size equipment room, the door was  never locked,  James himself texted his dad that the whole incident was  funny &amp;ndash; it  started to look more like an old-fashioned railroading.  There were  emails between university administrators, in which they  discussed how  best to get rid of Leach so they wouldn't have to pay his  $12 million  contract. That he was fired on December 30 &amp;ndash; just 24 hours  before a  clause that would have paid him an additional $800,000 kicked  in &amp;ndash;  seemed to seal the case.\r\nBut all this would be revealed  only later. In the meantime, Leach went  into a sort of coaching exile.  He and his family moved to Key West,  Florida, where he spent two years  swimming and biking and waiting for  the phone to ring. A couple of  times he got close to another job, but  the stigma and baggage  ultimately proved too much. \"It was sad,\" his  wife, Sharon, says. \"Two  years in the prime of his coaching career.\"\r\nBut now he's back &amp;ndash;  a bit thinner and tanner from the Florida sun, but  with the same  perplexed, slightly hangdog expression that belies the  machinations  going on inside. He certainly has his work cut out for him:  The Cougars  haven't been to a bowl game since 2003, and in four seasons  under  their previous coach, they managed a total of just nine wins &amp;ndash; as  many  as Leach had in his last season alone. At Tech, though, he was a  master  of doing more with less, taking players the big names in his   conference &amp;ndash; Oklahoma and Texas and Texas A&amp;amp;M &amp;ndash; had passed on and   turning them into stars within his system. One indication of how much   his players overperformed is how few of them went on to the NFL, a sign   that it wasn't their talent but how Leach used it.\r\nLeach's  brain seems almost preternaturally wired for coaching football.  He  thinks about the world in deeply spatial terms and gives directions   almost like he's drawing up a play. His approach to football, meanwhile,   is nearly Zen-like in its simplicity: Get the ball where the other  guys  aren't. He first started thinking about how to maximize space back  in  the 1980s, when he played rugby, not football, at BYU. Rugby isn't   played between hash marks; the scrum happens, and then the players fan   out all over the field.\r\nLeach excels at maximizing his resources.  Among Leach's favorite  disciplinary measures at Tech &amp;ndash; one time, a  player skipped class, so he  put a desk at the 50-yard line and made him  study there &amp;ndash; was something  called the Tower of London. Players who  were late or who screwed up  would have to run around the whole campus  holding cinder blocks over  their heads, supplementing their physical  workout with a mental one &amp;ndash;  reciting Shakespeare in front of the  English building, say, or doing a  math problem in front of the school  of engineering. He hasn't done  anything like this at WSU yet, but he  can't wait. One can't help but  wonder, though: Isn't there a chance the  punishments won't be as hard?  After all, the Tech campus was one of  the largest in the country, while  WSU's is considerably smaller.  \"Yeah,\" Leach says, grinning. \"But it's  hillier.\"   One morning in Pullman, Leach is giving a speech to the team's incoming   freshmen. He lists three violations that will get them kicked off the   team immediately (stealing, hitting a woman, and smoking pot). He talks   about his own philosophy of the game. (To one defensive lineman: \"Oh,   that's the funnest one. You get to go out and just wreck stuff.\") And  to  his surprise and delight, he has nothing but praise for the  Washington  State athletic department. \"I've dealt with academic  institutions for  years,\" he tells the kids, \"and a lot of them are  merely banana  republics.\" Blank stares. \"Um, that would be disorganized  governments,  for those of you who haven't taken History of the  Caribbean.\" Leach,  naturally, has taken History of the Caribbean.  Seriously &amp;ndash; he audited a  class on it when he was a coach at Valdosta  State.\r\nIt's one of many subjects he's taken an interest in  (including, most  recently, Davy Crockett, bear hunting, modern art,  vegetarianism, and  Geronimo). The silver lining to Leach's forced  sabbatical was that it  gave him time to explore some of the things he's  curious about. He did  color commentary for CBS and hosted a radio show  for Sirius from his  home. He thought about using his journalist  credentials to finagle his  way into Cuba, but he never got around to  it. He hunted wild pigs from a  helicopter in South Texas and consulted  for a football team in France.  (\"I've always thought the French were a  little misunderstood,\" he says.  \"Even the snotty ones are odd enough to  be interesting.\") He also spent a  week on the set of the movie 'Battleship' &amp;ndash; he'd met the director, Peter Berg, while working on 'Friday Night Lights' &amp;ndash; and recently Berg said that he was basing the plot for the FNL movie on Leach's firing.\r\nHis new home has already embraced its oddball coach. When the  university  first announced Leach's hiring, demand for tickets crashed  the website.  The campus bookstore can't keep his memoir, Swing Your  Sword, in stock.  When he goes out, kids constantly ask him for photos,  and he obliges  every one, usually quizzing them for a few minutes about  where they're  from and what they're studying &amp;ndash; rarely, if ever,  talking about  football.\r\nLeach has said that Tech still hasn't  paid him for the 2009 season, and  his lawsuits against Craig James,  the school, and ESPN are still working  their way through the courts.  Earlier this year James ran for U.S.  Senate in Texas' Republican  primary, and Leach, on a book tour, couldn't  help but sneak in a few  digs. He autographed one book \"Anybody but  Craig James for senator,\"  and another with \"Craig James is a douche.\" In  any event, it's clear  whose side most Texans are on. When the 'Dallas Morning News' conducted a poll asking voters whom they'd prefer as their senator,   James or Leach, they chose Leach by a margin of 20 to one. James   eventually finished with four percent of the vote. The   next day, Leach is in his office with a couple of assistant coaches,   talking about recruits. They're way ahead of where they expected to be   so far ahead of signing day. Leach's special-teams coach, Eric Russell,   feels his cellphone vibrate. It's a recruit.\r\n\"You better give me  some good news,\" he says. The kid talks on the other  end. \"You're a  Coug?\" says Russell.\r\n\"That's awesome. We're fired up.\"  He hands the  phone to Leach, who tells the kid what an honor it will be  to coach him  and how much fun they're going to have, and then hands it  back. \"All  right, bud,\" says Russell. \"If you need anything, just give a  shout,  that's what I'm here for. Tell your folks congratulations &amp;ndash; I  look  forward to meeting your mom.\"&amp;nbsp;\r\nHe hangs up the phone. \"Shit. I hope his mom's not dead.\"\r\nRecruiting is one of Leach's big worries at Washington State. The   closest town of any significance is Moscow, Idaho, a few miles east on   Highway 270, but it may as well be Moscow, Russia, to an 18-year-old.   He's hoping a current $80 million stadium expansion will help. So will   the windfall from a $3 billion TV deal the Pac-12 recently signed, which   will provide WSU an extra $12 million a year to play around with &amp;ndash; a   big chunk of which went toward Leach's $11 million contract. Which is   another great irony: The same TV network that Leach is suing for helping   run him out of his last job is partially responsible for landing him   his new one.&amp;nbsp;\r\nLeach spends the rest of his day attending to the  peripheral  responsibilities that make up the bulk of a coach's  off-season. He has  some player meetings, gets his photo taken for a  bobblehead doll. He  sits in on a demo for an impressive new 3D-video  system, developed by a  WSU engineering professor, which the university  hopes might  revolutionize the way coaches and spectators see the game.  (Leach,  talking to another coach about it later: \"You can check out the  tuba  player over here, zoom in on this hot chick over there&amp;hellip;.It's kind  of an  incredible deal.\")\r\nIn a lot of ways, Washington State looks like the kind of place in which Leach might thrive. The administration seems to be hands-off, committed to   winning but also giving him free rein. From early appearances, the stage   may be set for a perfect comeback story. Leach says his goals for 2012   are the same as they are every year: Work as a team, do your job, and  be  the most excited to play. But listen to him talk with players and   coaches, and it's clear that he's aiming a little higher: He wants to go   to a bowl, he wants to break Pac-12 records, and, most of all, he  wants  to win, and win by a lot.   But first, he has one last  vacation. He and Sharon are flying to Key  West in the morning; they  have to take three flights, and they're  leaving at 4:30 am. They'll be  there all month, until practices start up  in August. As a matter of  fact, Leach says, come on down and visit.  \"It's awesome,\" he says. \"The  snorkeling is off the charts.\" They've got  a nice little bungalow near  the middle of town; it's an easy bike ride  to the movie theater or to  his favorite bar. It's really easy to find.  \"So you know where Schooner  Wharf is?\" he says. \"OK. So from Schooner  Wharf, you go three blocks&amp;hellip;\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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