It’s been a day of mourning in the college football sphere, with fans and media lamenting the loss of Mississippi State coach Mike Leach, who suffered a fatal heart attack over the weekend. A pioneer often credited with inventing—or at least bringing to mainstream popularity—the prolific “air-raid” offense that would become his calling card, Leach was a fan favorite revered for his irreverent musings and quirky, at times, absurdist sense of humor, commenting on everything from his favorite Halloween candy to who would win an Anchorman-style free-for-all between Pac-12 mascots (broken down in painstaking detail).
Among other eccentricities, Leach, who never played a down of college football (instead, he was a rugby player) and quietly earned a law degree before he broke into coaching, was utterly fascinated by pirates, an intellectual curiosity that developed into a rallying cry of sorts (not dissimilar to Ted Lasso’s “Believe” poster prominently displayed in AFC Richmond’s locker room), urging his players to “swing their swords,” playing with the same fearlessness and reckless abandon of looters plundering for buried treasure.
“Pirates function as a team,” the pirate buff once said, using the high seas as a metaphor for the chaos and lawlessness that takes place between the lines each and every Saturday during football season. “There were a lot of castes and classes in England at the time. But with pirates, it didn't matter if you were black, white, rich or poor. The object was to get a treasure. If the captain did a bad job, you could just overthrow him.”
As a tribute to Leach, the university flew a pirate flag outside Davis Wade Stadium in Starkville, lowering the Jolly Roger to half-mast in honor of their late coach.
Athletic director Bracky Bett confirmed Tuesday the Bulldogs will resume practicing later this week in preparation for their upcoming bowl game against Illinois, with defensive coordinator Zach Arnett serving as interim head coach. “The players are 100 percent behind playing this bowl game and doing what Coach Leach would expect them to do," Brett expressed to ESPN college football reporter Chris Low. "We all know that's what Coach Leach would want, and it's what we should do."
In the kind of eerie coincidence that will make you believe in a higher power, the ReliaQuest Bowl will be played January 2nd at where else but Raymond James Stadium, home of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
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