Sharla, he makes me so mad I want to take a piss on his best dog
Mike Leach and Texas Tech's administration are caught up in a loveless West Texas marriage.
They're showing all of the signs.
Recently, Mike has been jogging a little, hitting the tanning bed, bought a new pair of Chinos, wearing a little Olde English Gentleman (two slaps on each cheek, a little bracing residue on the little gentlemen). Lingers just a little too long over his coffee at the diner near that pretty little waitress who blew in from Seattle. Meanwhile, Texas Tech is working on a facility facelift (West Texas microderm abrasion - put your face out of a moving car during a dust storm) and a new set of perky football tits to lure new suitors. And, hey, is that mascara and lip gloss just to go to soccer practice? Tech's got her pretty little eye on that hotshot assistant manager at Jim's, the one that wears popped collars and doesn't drone on and on about pirates and cicadas.
But, but what about the children!?!??
Don't worry kids. Your old man probably isn't going anywhere. You probably won't end up with a cloying stepdad that you call awkardly by his first name and who calls you Sport-o. As in, "I never dropped three balls in one night against Permian, Sport-o!"
Here's why nothing is going to happen: Mike Leach still interviews like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man with a horse tranquilizer suppository. And Texas Tech might throw some 36Ds on its hard-livin' frame, but she's still a 47 year old chain smoker with more lines on her face than the wait at the ladies room and an intelligent preference for bad bar lighting.
Mike Leach is an overachieving idiot genius; Tech has West Texas pluck and a tolerance for eccentricity. Yes, Tech's administration is being unnecessarily heavy-handed and petty; yes, Mike Leach's agents vastly overestimate his broader market appeal; neither side realizes they're a match made in dysfunctional Heaven.
So let me break it down for both parties as an informal arbitrator...
Mike: you can't get another job. Seriously. You scare the crap out of corporate suits. This is one of the reasons that I like you.
Tech: you can't hire anyone better. And you've never wanted a corporate coach. One of the reasons that I like you.
Now, both of you kiss and make-up.
You possess the firm foundation of most successful marriages: a shared inability to upgrade.
Together forever!