Rumors are spreading fast and furiously among supporters of recently-fired Texas Tech University football coach Mike Leach. But are they true? I investigate.
Perhaps the most-volatile rumor floating about is that Leach was ousted in a fashion similar to the one that cost John Kerry the presidency in 2004. Albeit in a much-abbreviated fashion, they believe he was "swift-boated".
In 2004, Swift Boat Vets and POWs for Truth hired Spaeth Communications to help them communicate to the American people their immense disdain for and distrust of the senator from Massachusetts. As we all know, the effort succeeded -- thankfully, I might add.
As reported here Dec. 31, the Dallas-based firm had recently taken on a new client, Craig James. Today, I decided to find out why James, the father of Texas Tech freshman wide receiver Adam James, needed to hire a public relations firm in the first place.
CRAIG JAMES
In case youre not familiar with Craig James, let me offer a brief bio sketch.
At 49, he is perhaps best known to most Americans as an ESPN sportscaster who joined the all-sports network after a successful NFL career with the New England Patriots.
Many Texans, however, remember him both as the Stratford High School football star who set a 4A rushing record in 1978 and, during the next four years, paired up with Eric Dickerson as a record-setting backfield tandem at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
Most recently, James became well known for his role as the father whom Leach said meddled more than any parent Ive dealt with in an effort to get his son more playing time.
SPAETH COMMUNICATIONS
On the morning of Dec. 31, only hours after Leach was fired by Texas Tech Chancellor Kent Hance, Spaeths Rebecca Shaw confirmed for me during a brief phone call that her firm had posted a video on YouTube the previous evening. The video, allegedly filmed by Adam James, was posted at about the same time as the PR firm issued a news release and was accompanied by this description:
This video was taken by Adam James, a player on the Texas Tech Red Raider football team on Saturday, December 19th, after being confined by Coach Mike Leach in an electrical closet off the Press Room at Jones AT&T Stadium. James was suffering from a concussion received during an earlier scrimmage game. James was ordered to stand in the darkness until released several hours later. James momentarily turned on a light to record his surroundings with his cell phone.
After confirming with Shaw her firms relationship with the James family, I asked if she expected litigation to follow.
They dont have any idea what to expect, Shaw said, careful not to rule anything out amidst a circus of media attention given to the case.
That could qualify as the understatement of the year among football fans in the Lone Star State.
THE 'LIGHT' WENT ON IN MY HEAD
During my initial research, I failed to make the connection between Spaeth and the companys colorful background in waging public relations campaigns like the one that ruined Senator Kerry, aimed at achieving specific results for their clients.
It was only after a member of the fast-growing Facebook group known as TEAM LEACH (56,000+ members in one week) contacted me this week that the "light" went on in my head about the connection between Spaeth, its Swift Boat-style campaign expertise and some of the conspiracy theories related to the plethora of rumors now percolating in cyberspace related to the Texas Tech coaching scandal.
INVESTIGATION
This morning, I decided to investigate a half-dozen cyberspace-based rumors in an attempt to prove or disprove them.
The first rumor has it that Leach was fired because he had told one of his teams athletic trainers to lock Adam James in a dark cool place on more than one occasion as a form of punishment after the wide receiver had allegedly suffered a concussion and was unable to practice.
In a Jan. 1 affidavit, team physician Dr. Michael Phy confirmed that, in his medical opinion, Adam James had had at least a mild concussion and said that he did not instruct anyone with Texas Tech to place James in an enclosed and dark space.
In a similar affidavit signed the same day, head athletic trainer Steve Pincock recounted what reads like an accurate, exact summary of what likely transpired during practices Dec. 18 and 19.
Both affidavits, provided me by Shaw, convey messages that appear to be crafted so as to ensure both the physician and trainer remain employable at Texas Tech in the midst of an environment that is definitely hostile toward Leach and anyone who sides with the schools most successful coach ever.
FYI: Attempts to contact Ted Liggett, the attorney reported in SBNations Dec. 30 post to be representing Leach, were unsuccessful. When I contacted Smith & Liggett, P.C., this morning, I was told Liggett had left the firm about a month earlier. The receptionist was kind enough, however, to provide me with Liggetts cell phone number at which I left a message requesting a return phone call.
Leach was fired after Texas Tech Chancellor Kent Hance, Athletic Director Gerald Myles and big-time athletic booster Jim Sowell decided Leach, among other things, didnt deserve the amount of money the university was obligated to pay him per the contract the school had recently negotiated.E-mails exchanged between Texas Tech Chancellor Kent Hance, Athletic Director Gerald Myers and prominent booster and former board of regents member Jim Sowell of Dallas were published by the Dallas Morning News Jan. 2. They reveal what the newspaper described as a rocky relationship between the coach and the authors of said communications. In my opinion, rocky is too friendly a term for the tone of these messages.
Leach was fired after he refused to sign papers that would have allowed Adam James to transfer to any other school within the Big 12 or within the state of Texas, including his fathers alma mater, SMU. After the coachs firing, the young wide receiver would be able to transfer immediately without a coachs signature.
I have no means of proving or disproving this rumor without input from Leach or his attorney, but I wouldn't blame Leach for being reluctant to allow Adam James to transfer to SMU or any other school within the described restricted area. After all, if the freshman is as good as so many of his detractors say he thinks he is, the coach couldnt afford to equip opponents or schools with whom he wages annual recruiting battles with such a blue-chip stud, right?
Leachs firing came as a result of a well-orchestrated swift boat-style campaign, conceived by the folks at Spaeth, that involved scripting the aforementioned lock up story as a premise for Chancellor Hance to fire the coach for cause, thereby relieving the university of its obligation to continue paying Leach the remaining $10 million remaining on his contract.
Again, I have no way to confirm this one, but I do know that, according to Spaeths Shaw who confirmed it for me via e-mail this morning, Craig James hired the PR firm Dec. 23 -- a full five days after the alleged shed incident and seven days before Leachs firing. Factor in the aforementioned e-mails and affidavits, and one can fully understand how this rumor got legs under it. Proving it, however, is a whole 'nother matter.
Another rumor involves the possibility that (1) Craig James, Chancellor Hance and unnamed others are involved as investors in a plan to construct a wind farm somewhere in West Texas and (2) that relationship might have played a role in Hance's decision-making regarding Leach.
If true, this might explain Hances willingness to play such an integral role in the scheme. Though Hance has not replied to an e-mail I sent to him this morning, booster Sowell did reply to three questions I sent his way via e-mail.
When asked whether he or any of his companies had ever had a business relationship with Spaeth Communications, Sowell replied, No.
When asked whether he or any of his companies had ever had a business relationship with Craig James, Sowell replied, No.
Finally, when asked to describe his role in the decision-making process that lead to the universitys decision to fire Leach, Sowell used a single word to deny such a role: None.
Additionally, Shaw replied to my inquiry about a business relationship, saying Craig James is not involved in any business relationship with Chancellor Hance. It's worth noting, however, that Shaw never answered two other important questions I asked: 1) "Why did Craig James hire your firm?" and 2) "Did (Craig James) know that Mike Leach was about to be fired?"
The final rumor floating around Texas political circles is that Craig James is being groomed by Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison to replace her in the U.S. Senate. If the senator wins the Texas governorship in 2010, Craig James will reportedly seek to replace her this year. If she loses her run for the statehouse, the political wannabe will run for her Senate seat when she retires in 2012.
While Shaw could not -- or, perhaps, would not -- confirm Craig James interest in a Senate run, she did confirm that Merrie Spaeth, founder of Spaeth Communications, is a close friend of Senator Hutchison. If, indeed, Craig James has political ambitions and is being groomed by the senator, it would make sense for the senator to connect him with Spaeths firm.
Developing...
Rumor #7
Texas Tech players have “Fat Girlfriends.”
What makes sense is not attacking a player who has had a concussion.
Evidently concussions only matter if you’re an NFL player?
Thank goodness there was someone looking out for the student.
All the rest is bullcrap.
Go ahead, flame away. No doubt to some being a winning coach is more important than the safety of a player.
What? Not one affair, stripper or hooker even mentioned. What kind of conspiracy is that?!
But seriously, that Leach just seems like a really arrogant jerk to me, just like the chancellor said.
Again, the press keeps using Swift Boating in the wrong way. The Swift Boaters were telling the truth. As time goes by, the legacy is that they were lying and “spreading rumors” in order to beat poor John Kerry. It makes me really mad.
Leach was in Vietnam?!
I am a Tech grad and Leach supporter.
None of this had anything to do with Leach’s treatment of Adam James which may have been humiliating but was in no way harmful to the young mans medical condition.
This was the culmination of a long running power struggle (aka pissing match) between Leach and the GOB (good old boy) network that runs Texas Tech. If they had gotten their way they would have fired him last year after he went 11-1 and had us at #2 in the nation.
Trust me this goes back almost to the beginning of Leach’s career at Tech when the administration hired a PI to follow him around based on a rumor that he was a drunk and was closing down the bars every night.Since then there have been many other instances of this bunch attempting to subvert Leach’s effort to run the football team in his own way.
This the same bunch that allowed Bobby Knight to publicly humiliate the then University Chancellor at a local grocery store with nary a disciplinary peep out of anyone.
Leach is not blameless in this. He essentially dug his own grave by refusing to play the game but the bottom line is they were looking for an excuse and Leach gave them one.
Bump for your info in case either of you are interested.....
Perhaps the most-volatile rumor floating about is that Leach was ousted in a fashion similar to the one that cost John Kerry the presidency in 2004.
Just curious......... What does a photo of KBH and the UofH group have to do with James and TT? Why even bring the UH into the discussion?
That said I’d find it hard to believe that KBH would be trying to manage her sucessor when she is up to her eyeballs at best in trying to manage her on campaign and affairs relating to the primary coming up in 55 days on Mar. 2.
Today’s good coaches have to wear many hats besides coaching. They have to be father figures, smoozers, fund raisers and politicians.
I don’t get this gasping outrage of having a yahoo player with a MILD concussion sent to a dark place during practice. Somehow I thought Texas Tech was above this stupid girly man drama.