What does the recent death of a game-changing college football coach in Mississippi have to do with Key West?
Turns out, quite a bit.
Mike Leach was not only the head coach at Mississippi State University when he died Dec. 12 at age 61 following complications from a heart condition. He was not only a mastermind credited with rethinking the entire game with his Texas Tech “Air Raid” offense. Leach was also a Key West resident, Eaton Street homeowner, Harpoon Harry’s regular and island ambassador, who had even applied to coach Key West High School football back in 1996.
“But our brilliant administrators turned him down, saying he was overqualified,” Leach’s longtime friend Jack Niles told the Keys Weekly on Dec. 13 from his office at Niles Sales & Service car dealership in Key West.
“He spent more time here in Key West than he did in Starkville, Mississippi,” Niles said. “He was an incredible man with an incredible mind. He was a football savant.”
Former Key West High football coach Jerry Hughes agreed.
“I remember when he left Texas Tech, he’d ride his bike over to watch our practices here in Key West,” Hughes said. “He’d watch from afar until I realized who he was. Then I invited him to help us with practices. He’d work with our quarterbacks and attend some coaches’ meetings. But what people don’t know is how much he loved Key West. Having a beer and a fish sandwich at B.O.’s was his definition of a perfect day. There’s never going to be another guy like Mike Leach.”
He was offensive coordinator for Valdosta State in 1996, but the Key West coaching job “would have allowed him to do his favorite thing in his favorite town,” Andy Staples writes in a tribute to Leach for theathletic.com. “Had they given him the job, Leach probably never would have left. He probably would have spent the rest of his days drawing up plays while the palms swayed. He and wife Sharon would have walked to Harpoon Harry’s and dined while laughing at all the tourists running to look at a giant buoy.
“Robbed of his dream job, Mike Leach instead had to settle for changing the way nearly everyone at every level of football studies offense. His impact flowed down from the collegiate ranks into high school football and up into the NFL. He brought the Air Raid to the mainstream, showing everyone in the sport that teams could overcome talent deficits (or enhance talent advantages) if they spread the field, juiced the tempo and tolerated a healthy degree of risk on fourth down,” Staples continues, ending his article with, “If those people at Key West High had known how badly Leach wanted their head coaching job back in 1996, all that offensive magic might have remained confined to one little island. Instead, it spread all across the football world.”
Leach became head coach, Staples writes, at schools where it was typically tough to win: Texas Tech, Washington State and Mississippi State. But he did win. Repeatedly.
“The two-time national coach of the year was in his third year at Mississippi State. He led the Bulldogs to an 8-4 record this season,” CNN reports. “Leach compiled a 158-107 overall record in 21 seasons – 10 at Texas Tech, eight at Washington State and three at Mississippi State.”
He also gave interviews to sports writers while on a fishing boat in Key West, both in person and by phone, discussing all manner of topics, from the intelligence of fish, his fondness for Neil Young music, his favorite fish sandwiches and his recommendations of Key West guesthouses.
Niles recalled hosting a 2021 Fourth of July party in Key West that included Leach and his wife, Sharon, along with Florida State University baseball coach Link Jarret, who previously coached Notre Dame’s baseball team.
“He was one of a kind,” Niles said, recalling the time he saw Leach and Sharon walking from Lower Keys Medical Center on Stock Island, across U.S. 1, to get a fish sandwich on Stock Island. “He stopped to record a quick video of congratulations for Link Jarret when he got the job as head baseball coach at FSU. He was irreplaceable.”
