SOONERGUYS Blog

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