Former Texas Tech head football coach Mike Leach is hanging out in Key West, Fla., these days, a season removed from being dismissed from the university for allegedly mistreating one of his players. Leach is currently a college football analyst for CBS, but says that he hasn’t had any coaching offers. It’s unclear if he’s even seeking them; he looks tanned and rested in a video in a recent Fox Sports interview with Thayer Evans, in which the coach seems to have lost a lot of weight, which he ascribes to biking and rollerblading around his new neighborhood.
But a hidden gem in the Evans piece is a story in which Leach, visiting Key West five years ago, almost met an untimely end while boating in the ocean. In short, he was almost bitten by an eight-foot shark. From Fox Sports:
During one of those trips Leach had a harrowing encounter with a shark. It happened about five years ago when Leach and two of his then-assistants, Dennis Simmons and Charlie Sadler, were out on a boat with Leach’s closest Key West friend, Joe “Weed” Clements.
Leach and Clements were in the shallow water, but Simmons stayed in the boat eating fried chicken, having just watched “When Sharks Attack!” on television. As he tossed his chicken bones in the water, Simmons thought he saw something move.
And he did — an 8-foot shark.
Sadler and Simmons warned Clements and Leach, who were still some 40 yards away on a sandbar. As they waded back to the boat, the shark started swimming around them in ever-shrinking circles.
With each circle, they stopped and waited for it to pass before wading closer to the boat.
“At this point, I’m thinking, ‘I’m going to lose my job,’” Simmons says. “I can see the headlines tomorrow: Texas Tech head coach eaten by shark.”
Finally, Clements made it out of the water, but not yet Leach.
“That’s when Mike acts like Jesus and starts walking on water to get to the boat,” Simmons says.
As the group pulled Leach in, they looked down in the water and noticed that the shark’s mouth was right underneath his foot.
“He’s been swimming with sharks all his life anyways,” Clements says.
Scientists say that most shark attacks on former college football head coaches occur in less than four feet of water, and I guess that’s true. Although I can’t picture one having the nerve to bite Joe Paterno.
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Leach lying low in Key West [Fox Sports]
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- metalhead65 - Nov 8, 2010 at 11:37 PM
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stay by the phone Mike,IU will be in search of a new coach at the end of the year if they are smart the idiots in charge are smart they will call you.all you have to do is win 7 games a year there and you can own the state!
