First things first, if he had a concussion and was directed to sit out of practice, then Mike Leach needs to respect that. If James was complaining of headaches, the best thing to do is to sit in a dark room with little sound. The no leaning/sitting policy, if true, is ridiculous.

If Leach’s actions were a form of punishment, then hell yes he should be fired. He’s not the one putting his ass on the line every time he steps on the football field.

We all know what multiple concussions can do to an athlete (Hodge, Ali, Young, Aikman.) You are more susceptible to concussions within the healing time of an initial concussion and if James and his doctors didn’t feel comfortable with him practicing then Leach and the trainers at TT need to back off and let the experts do what they do.

We really need to wait and hear more information on this before anyone can make up their mind. I’ll be interested in Jason Whitlock’s column about this being an issue of Mike Leach’s weight…

on an email list had asked:

Some of the stories told about Bear Bryant, Frank Kush, etc. and their training and
disciplinary practices makes me wonder how sucessful those legendary coaches would be in
the 21st century. Would they also get hounded out of town (as it appears Leach will be)
for being too physical?

This was my response:

They wouldn’t exist anymore. Parents today wouldn’t stand for it. And to be honest, some of it was just plain brutality.

OTOH, complaining about being stuck in a dark room for three hours seems rather silly when they’re playing a game that requires such a high level of violence and toughness.

A while back I read a book – “Pigskin Pulpit” that chronicled Texas high school football coaching through it’s history. It’s probably one of the best football books I’ve ever read.

http://www.cornnation.com/2007/6/26/234414/587

It’s full of some remarkable stuff….. including one account of a coach having his football team swim through a pool with burning oil on top. His thought was he would teach them they could do things they never thought possible. He got the idea by having his ship blown out from under him in WWII.

When you think about the world that some of those legendary coaches lived through, it’s quite different than it is now (Captain Obvious). We think we’re in a depression/recession, but it’s nothing like it was then.

Thing is – the game hasn’t changed. It’s still the same brutal violent game it was in the 1920s, 30s and 40s, maybe even more so because of the size and speed of the players leading to more massive collisions. It still requires a lot of toughness, and coaches still have to make these guys understand that they can do things they don’t think possible, and that requires sometimes pushing them to the limit.