{"id":1775043,"date":"2022-12-14T13:02:30","date_gmt":"2022-12-14T18:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1775043"},"modified":"2022-12-14T13:02:38","modified_gmt":"2022-12-14T18:02:38","slug":"lessons-i-learned-playing-football-for-the-wise-and-witty-coach-mike-leach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lessons-i-learned-playing-football-for-the-wise-and-witty-coach-mike-leach\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons I Learned Playing Football For The Wise And Witty Coach Mike Leach"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Flessons-i-learned-playing-football-for-the-wise-and-witty-coach-mike-leach%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1775043&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Coach Mike Leach caused greatness in the people who surrounded him. Note that I used the word \u201ccaused\u201d and not \u201cinspired.\u201d Giving inspirational and motivational speeches was never his strong suit. In my experience, his speeches mostly elicited eye rolls and glances at wristwatches. \u201cIs he ever going to wrap this thing up?\u201d we asked ourselves. \u201cWe\u2019ve heard this same B.S. 10,000 times before!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And still, Coach Leach engendered greatness in his players and assistant coaches both on and off the field. Mike Leach, head coach at Mississippi State University \u2014 and prior to that, the winningest coach in the history of my own school, Texas Tech University \u2014 died on Monday. He was 61.<\/p>\n<p>I was in Coach Leach\u2019s first recruiting class as a head coach, and I played for him from 2000 to 2004. His practices were tough, physical, and even brutal at times, and there wasn\u2019t much in the way of positive reinforcement or congratulation for successful outcomes. We were expected to do our job, do it right, and then do it again, and again, and again, and again. If an individual missed a single cue \u2014 even if it was one time out of 50 \u2014 the entire team would face consequences, whether it was a verbal lashing or a generous serving of \u201cup-downs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As a player at Texas Tech \u2014 especially as a younger player \u2014 I couldn\u2019t see past the difficulty of Leach\u2019s daily grind. But as I grew older, I began to see that the dogma he monotonously and tirelessly preached to us had become integral to how I approach almost everything I do in my life, not just football. The reasons Coach Leach was consistently able to \u201ccause\u201d greatness became apparent, and I became deeply grateful for the person he trained me to be.<\/p>\n<p> <strong>Preparation for Life<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>When the ball snaps in a major college football game, it is difficult to describe how fast, intense, and violent things instantly become. Leach knew that the emotional buzz of a motivational speech would last for only a few plays. When a player has been hit hard in the mouth, and when his chest burns at the end of a drive, the key is to maintain a clear, quiet, and focused mental state. Leach\u2019s players were faster and more reflexive than others because he trained us to consistently be able to quiet our minds and just do our jobs in the face of adversity and intensity.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPlay the Next Play\u201d was one of Leach\u2019s primary mantras. Good or bad, whatever happened in the last play doesn\u2019t matter. It only matters what you do next. Clear your mind and re-focus on doing your job.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t Confuse Activity with Results\u201d was another one. Just because you showed up and got dressed for practice that day doesn\u2019t mean you actually got anything accomplished. \u201cGet Better Every Day\u201d was another one.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Football (and life, for that matter) is a game of inches. It is won at the margins, by<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I grew older, I saw that the dogma Mike Leach preached to us had become integral to how I approach everything in life &#8212; not just football.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":1775046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[4024,6919,5541,7912,6378,7843,4301,4644,8972,8971],"class_list":["post-1775043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-coach","tag-federalist","tag-football","tag-leach","tag-learned","tag-lessons","tag-mike","tag-playing","tag-wise","tag-witty"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1775043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1071"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1775043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1775043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1775046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1775043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1775043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1775043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}