SOONERGUYS Blog

The lawyers are doing battle in Lubbock now that Mike Leach has filed his breach of contract and defamation case against Texas Tech University.  One of the claims is that the administration’s conduct was so much mis-conduct, that the state statute that caps the university’s liability should be inapplicable.  Also, Craig James has refuted a letter written by TT’s associate general counsel to the Texas Attorney General claiming that James threatened his own lawsuit against Texas Tech if they did not take action against Leach for allegedly abusing (and we use that word loosely) his son Adam.

On top of all that, the ESPN ombudsman, Don Ohlmeyer, to whom we lodged our complaint of the network’s reporting of this mess, has agreed that ESPN botched the Leach story.  In a column probably too lengthy for a television networks’ executives to read, Ohlmeyer calls the ESPN treatment more biased than balanced.  See his remarks here.

 Meanwhile, Leach has moved to Key West and his sunning himself there.  Which is what pirates do in the off-season.

-Mike

The whole Mike Leach/Craig James affair in Lubbock raises many questions, but one that has gotten little notice is whether ESPN has acted ethically in its reporting of the controversy.

After James’ allegations against Leach became public, ESPN re-assigned the color analyst to work the Nebraska vs. Arizona Holiday Bowl game, instead of the Texas Tech vs. Michigan State Alamo Bowl game to which he was originally assigned. The game had a color analyst already, but ESPN put James as the third man in the broadcast booth.

It gave James the platform to argue that Leach was threatening his son’s health, an appealing argument that was not balanced by any contrary facts reported from other sources by the network. That same day ESPN had interviewed its own employee and broadcast his story on all its network channels. For two full days all ESPN broadcast was James telling us how awful Leach was for making his son stand in a dark room.

ESPN, without any attribution or verification, then broadcast a Youtube video uploaded by a high-powered Dallas public relations firm (likely hired by the James family) that purportedly showed Adam James giving us a tour of the “closet” which was his punishment.

The word “orchestrated” comes to mind.

Then, when Leach did surface to give interviews claiming that James was a badgering Little League dad, the response to that came not from James but from an ESPN spokesman answering for James and denying the counter charges.

That’s like Fox News reporting, “A FOX news spokesman said today that President Obama is lying.” As blatantly biased as Fox News can be, it at least goes through the motions of appearing “fair and balanced” and often relies upon some non-network employee political hack that you can see and evaluate without doing it themselves.

In the first place, the ethics of ESPN in allowing the central figure to this controversy to continue his work during bowl week is highly questionable. James should have been suspended from working any college bowl game. Likewise, ESPN should have played no role in responding to Leach’s counter charges. The response made it sound like ESPN was James’ public relations firm.

By doing so, the network has compromised its integrity and given the appearance of playing favorites to one of its employees, instead of fairly reporting the news. Whether the actual treatment was equal or not, the appearance of partiality undermines not only the trust in ESPN, but the trust in the profession.

I wrote ESPN’s ombudsman Don Ohlmeyer about the network’s poor handling of this matter. I got this response:

“I cannot respond personally to all the mail I receive, but I do read and take note of all complaints. When the complaints are specific to a show or to an article on espn.com, I forward them to the producer or editor in charge of that content. When there are several complaints on the same topic, I do a weekly tabulation that becomes part of a report sent to all of ESPN’s top management. (I do the same for positive comments.) I cannot assure you that your complaints or mine will result in action, but I can assure you they are not lost in some cyberspace void. They are read, thought about, disseminated.“

OK.

Meanwhile, the ESPN errors have not gone entirely unnoticed. See:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-cutbirth/leach-incident-shows-espn_b_409270.html

Mike Leach’s firing as Texas Tech head coach has moved from a story about alleged mistreating of a player with a high profile dad, to a story about the ongoing acrimony between Leach and the university’s officials and one of its influential boosters.

Jim Sowell, a wealthy Dallas businessman and former Texas Tech regent, grew tired of the “Mike Leach Contract Soap Opera” during last year’s negotiations over a contract extension with the Red Raider coach, according to e-mails obtained in a public records request by the Dallas Morning News.

Central to the contract negotiations was the $800,000 “completion bonus” which Leach was to get this week had he not been fired. During last year’s negotiations Leach wanted some portion of the bonus vested a year in advance. Sowell adamantly opposed that and wrote Texas Tech Chancellor Kent Hance that Leach was not worth the money he was asking and could be fired after the the 2009 season.

The emails can be read here: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/img/12-09/1231newleach.pdf

“Leach has been able to do one thing no Tech coach has ever been able to do before – make me disgusted with the Tech football program” wrote Sowell in an email to Chancellor Hance – not words you would want from a multi-millionaire booster of the program.

The hardball contract negotiations set the backdrop for what occurred this week, when the university suspended Leach after ESPN analyst Craig James complained that his son, Adam, a player on the team, was confined to a stadium mechanical room when he complained of a concussion. Doctors had reportedly cleared him to practice.

The drama got thicker on Wednesday when James used his role as commentator on ESPN’s Holiday Bowl broadcast to tell viewers his family was a “victim” in the controversy.  Interestingly, James has been discussed in Texas Republican circles as a potential future U.S. Senate candidate. 

Meanwhile, a prominent Dallas public relations firm posted a video reportedly taken by Adam James when he was kept in the mechanical room on December 20. See video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZqvajnhZDU

The firm, Spaeth Communications, was the media mind behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group that torpedoed the John Kerry presidential campaign in 2004. It is unclear who hired the firm to release the Adam James video – the James family or Texas Tech or university financial boosters.

Meanwhile, Chancellor Hance told ESPN that both the alleged mistreatment of James and Leach’s “insubordination” combined to cause the university to fire him. He confirmed that Leach’s decision to seek a court order allowing him to coach in Saturday’s Alamo Bowl was another reason he was terminated.  A university lawyer gave Leach a termination letter moments before a court hearing on the restraining order request on Wednesday morning and one day before Leach was to earn the $800,000 bonus.

Terminating someone for seeking redress of grievances in court is considered a violation of public policy and unlawful, which in this case could jeopardize any legal right the university might have to end the contract. The Texas Tech administrator’s publicized statements to ESPN can be used as evidence against the university in an employment lawsuit which Leach is expected to bring against the university.

The earlier Jim Sowell email suggesting firing Leach after the 2009 season is likewise very damning for the university. It suggests there was a plan to later dismiss him and the alleged “cause” for termination that was subsequently presented by the James incident and cited as justification for Leach’s dismissal was a mere pretext.

The conclusion one may draw from the emails is the university was offended by Leach’s hardball contract negotiations last year and decided to find any possible reason not to fulfill their end of the contract that the administration had reluctantly accepted. That may violate the school’s legal obligation of good faith which exists in all contracts in which it enters. I suspect this will be the basis of Leach’s ensuing lawsuit against Texas Tech. It will not be an easy one for the university to defend, given the emails that have already been made public by the Dallas Morning News.

Most importantly, if discovery in the lawsuit shows Sowell got involved in the Adam James incident investigation and Leach’s subsequent firing, then Leach’s lawyers can cry conspiracy and  make it extremely difficult for Texas Tech to avoid a jury finding the school liable for breach of contract.

So the university known for resurrecting the physically and verbally abusive Bobby Knight’s coaching career has suspended Texas Tech Coach Mike Leach for making a player stand in a dark “closet.”

Is it no coincidence this is occurring a mere two days before Leach would receive an $800,000 bonus if he remained the head coach on December 31, 2009?

We shift from the Bizarro World of Urban Meyer (where he’s been playing the “Where’s the Pea?” game with the Florida nuts), to Lubbock, Texas and find the Texas Tech administration seemingly moving toward sending Leach packing with no return ticket.

All because ESPN sports analyst Craig James is complaining his son, Adam, a player on the team, was mistreated when Leach made him stand in a dark equipment “closet” when he chose not to practice due to a concussion injury. (Others have disputed it is a “closet”, saying it is rather a storage building).

Oh no. Not that.

In other words, a high profile TV sports personality is throwing his weight around to get the most successful coach in Texas Tech history canned because his son’s feelings were hurt.  (Doctors have said there was no health risk to the son).

Can someone tell me when the pansies took over college football?

James was scheduled to be part of the broadcast team of the Texas Tech vs. Michigan State Alamo Bowl appearance on Saturday. But the conflict of interest was even too much for ESPN to ignore. They have removed James from the game. It remains to be seen how visible James will be on other ESPN broadcasts after this episode.

Speaking of ESPN, if we are going to suspend anyone, let’s suspend ESPN for subjecting us all to:

– Lou Holtz’ pre-season projection that Notre Dame would play in the BCS Championship at year’s end;

– A month of Bob Stoops-to-Notre Dame stories that were outright lies;

– Ignoring the Reggie Bush scandal at USC for another year, but managing to do an expose on how Florida State doesn’t have high academic standards (whoa… now that’s a revelation).

The only truth we know for sure is that Leach has been at odds with the university administration, including the athletic director, for several years. Most of the disagreement has dealt with contract negotiations and the football program’s spending habits.

Meanwhile, Leach’s lawyer is moving for a court order that would allow him to coach in the Red Raiders’ Alamo Bowl appearance on Saturday. Once again the lawyers try to save the day.

Stay tuned. 

– Mike

Some musings while pondering my bowl picks…

Tim Tebow’s televised crying after losing the SEC championship to Alabama shows how the excessive media idolatry of Tebow the last three years is so ridiculous. It is also no wonder how our star athletes can get their priorities out of whack.

Tebow is a fine player and may be an all around good guy. But his emotional display after the loss was as childish as his long-time ranting and raving to team mates when he was winning. Some found that endearing. Most of us got worn thin from it all.

There on Saturday was big star Tim Tebow crying like a baby. His teammates were caressing him and consoling him. Didn’t they play the game too? Oh, I forgot, this is and always has been about the Tebow “dynasty”– not about Urban Meyer or the rest of the Florida Gators.

Tebows attention (what will ESPN Gameday do their weekly feature on now?) has been surpassed only by the histrionic fans’ worship of him. That has no equal in college football history.

What can one say when a state university places a plaque on campus of a current college player’s locker room speech – and the school and alums think that is OK?

Oh well. I had no idea Superman could cry. Or that Nick Saban was really Lex Luther.

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The Sooners are off to the Sun Bowl and we’re trying to decide if Tacos in El Paso are worth making the trip. We haven’t missed a bowl game since Bob Stoops landed in Norman, but given the last three bowl games our friends are yelling “jinx” and discouraging any further bowl plans.Meh.Bigger question is, will Stanford alum Tiger Woods show up for the game? Look out El Paso fire hydrants (and women)!

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I would like to blame Mack Brown for poor clock management that almost cost the Longhorns their shot at a national championship. With Texas already in field goal range the Longhorns had to rely upon a video review to keep the game clock from expiring before they had a chance to boot the game winning field goal against Nebraska in Saturday’s Big 12 championship at Jerry’s World.But I can’t blame Mack. This one was on Colt McCoy.Apparently Colt wasn’t hearing the screams of “What are you doing!” from Mack and fans of all allegiances who were watching from living rooms around the country as the clock ticked down and he was scrambling around seemingly oblivious to the time of day. When he chucked the ball out of bounds the game clock ran down to zero.

Colt just about blew it. Fortunately for him, the officials put one second on the clock. UT kicked the FG to win. But the Texas Longhorn lost my Heisman vote (OK, I don’t really have one, but I can fantasize) on that one play. Of course his average play this year wasn’t much help, but I was prepared to give him my vote for his Heisman career until he lost his mind under pressure.

And, when one examines McCoy’s play against tough defenses, the Heisman-or-not picture is even more clear. Here are McCoy’s stats against the only two tough defenses he’s played in 2009:

Against Oklahoma: 21 of 38 for only 127 yards passing, 1 TD and 1 INT.

Against Nebraska: 20 of 36 for 184 yards, no Tds and 3 INTs.

Sorry, Colt, that does not equal Heisman.

— Mike

About the time we get all warm and fuzzy over the 27-0 Bedlam trouncing and then these internet trolls roll out the “Stoops is going to Notre Dame” rumor.

They had him flying to South Bend on Sunday. Never mind he was in Norman taping his game replay show. Are these the same folks who had Stoops going to the Atlanta Falcons a couple of years ago? Or to Florida before that?

Stoops said this weekend he was not interviewing for the Notre Dame job and neither he nor his agent have been contacted. Not even Dean “there is a 67 percent chance” Blevins thinks Stoops would entertain the Notre Dame job.

I am sure there are a number of rust belt Catholics who think Stoops’ roots at Youngstown, Ohio’s Cardinal Mooney High School (that’s “Cardinal” meaning Youngstown native Edward Aloysius Mooney, the Roman Catholic Cardinal from 1946-1958, not the color “Cardinal”, ala Leland Stanford Junior University) will lure him to the Golden Dome.

These Irish have obviously been kissing the Blarney Stone.

Notre Dame has become a dead-end job. It’s where promising coaches go to ruin their careers. Just ask Gerry Faust, Bob Davie, Tyrone Willingham and soon Charlie Weis.

For Stoops it’s not just a lateral move, it’s a step backward. And he knows it.

For those awash in the old “storied” Irish program of yesteryear, here are some facts:

At the end of the 2008 season Notre Dame had the third most wins in NCAA history (831). That’s pretty good, thanks to Knute Rockne and Frank Leahy (from your great grandparents’ generation). But the Fighting Irish record in the last 13 years is 91-68. That’s poor enough to get their two coaches fired and a third, Charlie Weis, about to be booted. Even including Lou Holtz’s 11 winning years from 1986-1996, the Irish are 221-124-2 since 1980. That’s a 63 percent winning record. Ho hum.

How does that compare to Oklahoma? During the same time the Sooners have won 251 games and have a winning percentage of 70 percent. That’s including the Gibbs, Blake and Schnellenberger disaster years.

Notre Dame has not won a national championship since 1988. And, you think Oklahoma’s bowl record is bad? The Irish have lost nine out of their last 10 bowl games, none of them being BCS Championship games. Their win in the Hawaii Bowl last year was the first bowl victory in 15 years.

Frankly, the college recruiting game has passed Notre Dame by. Next year they will have no four or five star recruits on their team. The idea they are a national university may sound good, but it means the school has no specific recruiting base from which they can draw to provide a consistent level of talent.

Texas and Oklahoma can always count on a solid recruiting base from the ripe state of Texas. Florida and even Alabama can always get recruits from their base in Florida and the Gulf Coast. Louisiana is a hot bed of talent for LSU. And on the west coast USC and the Pac-10 schools need look no further than California. In the Midwest, Ohio State University and Penn State have strong recruiting bases there and in the Northeast.

That doesn’t leave much for ol’ Notre Dame. Which means it will be important for the next Irish coach to already have a foothold in a regional recruiting area. That makes their best candidate for the next ND coach to be Brian Kelly, an Irish Catholic guy who has Cincinnati in the Top 5, coached two Division I-AA championships and is a defensive master mind. He’s successfully recruited Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

But here’s another reason Stoops won’t go to Notre Dame: The Irish ended the Sooners’ NCAA record winning streak of 47 games in 1957. Coincidentally, Oklahoma’s loss to Notre Dame to open the 1953 season was the last loss before the streak. We don’t like them. At all.

It would be like a Sooner going to coach the rival Texas Longhorns. Oh, wait….

Certainly, Oklahoma’s football team has been riddled with injuries this year. The loss of Sam Bradford and Jermaine Gresham is the reason the Sooner are not repeating as Big 12 champions.

But the reason the Sooners are on the verge of a possible losing season (if they lose to OSU and in a bowl game) rests with the inability of the Oklahoma coaching staff, including head coach Bob Stoops, to prepare the surviving players to play competitively on the road. The Sooners have lost 17 of their last 33 games on the road.

Saturday’s offensive performance in Lubbock was abysmal. Never did it look like the Sooner offense had much chance of making first downs, much less touchdowns, against a Red Raider defense that gave up 52 points to lowly Texas A&M in the same stadium three weeks prior.

The huge difference between OU’s performances at home with their lack of performance on the road shows a lack of leadership, which we are sure Stoops has been concerned about ever since Labor Day weekend in Arlington when team leader Bradford went out. But, it also shows lack of leadership on the part of this coaching staff.

Next year’s success will be contingent upon these same coaches developing Landry Jones into an effective quarterback – not just an occasionally good passer. He has not been effective this season when faced with adversity. Part of that is the failure of seniors Chris Brown, Trent Williams, Adron Tennell and Matt Clapp to rally the troops and make big plays.

But the coaching staff’s job is to develop players from day one into leaders who have the mental toughness to play on the road.. This senior class is an example of their failure to do that.

The good news is this offense is a bunch of freshman and sophomores who will not forget the lay down which occurred against an inferior team in Lincoln and the butt-kicking they experienced by a seasoned and well-prepared team in Lubbock. But it won’t matter if they don’t step up.

So Kansas players and former players are all upset because Coach Mark Mangino poked a player in the chest because he was laughing during practice and yelled to a player that he would send him back to a violent life with his “homies” if he didn’t stop talking back.

One former player alleges Mangino gave him a speech asking him whether he was going to become a lawyer like he planned or become an alcoholic like his father. A former player at Kansas State said Mangino pushed him out of his seat because he was sleeping in a team meeting.

And now KU Athletic Director Lew Perkins is investigating alleged “abuse.”

See:  http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4669621

Well, Jayhawks, if Mangino’s actions constituted some “abuse”, then wait until the Texas Longhorns get a hold of you on Saturday.

Mangino may be out as KU coach. Mostly because he’s lost five games in a row. Saturday night in Austin will make it six. The purported “abuse” of his players is a pretext to the AD wanting Jabba The Hut Mangino to pack up. It’s just now Perkins has some other reason to boot the 2007 Associated Press Coach of the Year.

What this really says, though, is that the complaining football players on campus in Lawrence are weak. Their response to adversity is to whine about it. These are the guys who got into a physical fight with their own basketball team (and likely lost).

It also says these players aren’t taking their “job” very seriously. Yes, I said “job”, because that is what they do in return for a free education. Laughing? Sleeping? Talking back at coaches?

And, who is to say that a college football coach, who may well be the first person to challenge a ghetto kid to make something of himself (like becoming a lawyer) rather than repeat the steps of his father and wallow in a world of alcohol and despair, is not doing the right thing for that youngster in the long run?

Of course it may well be that Mangino is a time bomb about to explode. He may have some anger management problem. But, has this just developed? As Mangino said this week he is not doing anything he hasn’t always done.

The KU athletic director wasn’t eager to investigate his coach when KU was 5-0 and 16^th in the AP Poll earlier this season. I guess yelling at players is only bad when you’re losing.

And, don’t forget, those effete national sports writers (Eg., Jay Mariotti) who are all aghast at the alleged Mangino antics are the same ones who crowned Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame member Robert Montgomery “Bobby” Knight the “General”. Now you want to see anger issues?

Oklahoma became bowl eligible Saturday with its sixth win. Before you mutter “so what?” let me just say this qualification obtained against Texas A&M was the most important the program has had in several years.

It allows this football team – wrecked by injuries and inconsistent play from young talent – to get another mini-season of practices in before returning in the spring to begin the 2010 campaign. And, boy, do they need it. (Practice must help – Travis Williams had no illegal procedure penalties against him Saturday).

So don’t get any idea that the Sooners will turn down an Independence Bowl invitation – the equivalent of the former Poulan Weedeater Bowl. Extra practices in Shreveport are a lot more beneficial to these Sooners than sitting around with mom and pop watching the 34 post-season bowl games on the living room TV set.

Besides, a Holiday Bowl bid seemed more likely after Saturday night.The Sooners became bowl eligible with a bang. QB Landry Jones moved closer to rebuilding his reputation that was gutted by five thrown interceptions a week before in Lincoln. He threw for a career high 392 yards. Meanwhile, RB Demarco Murray looked like a Heisman Trophy candidate with 224 all-purpose yards and two touchdowns.

The Sooners finished the game with 51 unanswered points. The nation’s longest home winning streak was extended to 29. And in so doing, some of the funk in which Sooner fans have engulfed themselves has eased. Sure, a 6-4 mark at this point in the season is a huge disappointment. But, after the crash that the Nebraska loss represented we wondered if the plane was going to burn.

It didn’t burn on Saturday – although there was a little flicker in the first quarter – and the Sooners are a little more optimistic about traveling to Lubbock next week to face a stubborn but equally disappointing Texas Tech Red Raiders. In the meantime, who is this O’Hara guy kicking extra points?    — Mike

Needless to say, that thing called “Sooner Magic” is something that OU had in your grandfather’s day.

On the field where Sooner Magic first materialized, the Sooners lost 10-3 on Saturday to Nebraska in what may be the most pathetic performance since some guy named Blake was coach. Only difference is, Oklahoma didn’t play four different quarterbacks like then.

One was enough. I don’t want to beat up on the young Landry Jones, who is still a redshirt freshman thrust into the job because the Heisman winner has a bum shoulder, but he stunk up Memorial stadium in Lincoln – throwing five interceptions.

We can start calling him record-making Landry. He owns the school record for most touchdowns in a game AND the most interceptions thrown.

Oklahoma went without scoring a touchdown for the first time since 1998.

With this loss the Sooners season is officially crashed. Whether it burns depends on whether Stoops and the gang can figure out how to turn an inept offense into one that can score in the red zone. Moving the football wasn’t the problem. OU out-gained NU 325 to 180 yars. And, the Sooners had plenty of opportunities, thanks to an outstanding Oklahoma defense and a pedestrian Nebraska offense. They just threw them away. Literally.

Texas A&M comes to town on Saturday. I suspect the home crowd will support the offense to four or five touchdowns and the Sooners will win easily.

But then comes another road trip to Lubbock (play the doom and gloom music every time the Sooners have to get on a bus). Despite the Red Raiders’ woes this season you know their villagers are lighting the torches already to set fire to the rest of the Sooner season.