Everyone has that friend that likes to tell jokes but never knows when to stop.  Yes, you know the guy I’m talking about.  He has a few one-liners in his back pocket before he arrives to dinner and thinks he is working the crowd, when in reality everyone just wants him to shut up.

At first you feel the need to give that friend a courtesy laugh, but eventually he becomes so annoying that you want to backhand him in the face.

Well, for whatever reason, the people and the media in Lubbock aren’t like you and me.  It appears they’d rather humor the irritating friend.

For 10 years now, people have become intrigued over Leachisms and continue to humor the coach with courtesy laughs at things that quite frankly aren’t funny and are way played out.  I can understand the initial infatuation and intrigue to Leachisms–I get it–but this stuff has been going on for over a decade, it’s nothing new.

Are these random, off-the-wall, dryly delivered comments ever going to get old to anyone else?

In a conservative town like Lubbock where wearing your pants below your crack is frowned upon, why are people so amused with a Division One, Big 12 head coach talking about zombie movies, fat chicks, and funny movies after one of the most embarrassing losses in recent history?

The pirate’s recent catch phrase is his reference to player’s “fat girlfriends” and the praise which they receive from them–a bad joke that has been used multiple times by Leach since the loss to the Aggies.

I am not one of the people that think it’s an offensive statement, but I just don’t see why it is so funny.

Every time I see a member of the local media waste ink by amusingly analyzing Leachisms I feel like I am watching a wealthy CEO get his ass kissed by his co-workers at a business cocktail party.

I know I am going on a rant and getting repetitive, but seriously, is this getting old to anyone else?

It is no secret that I used to work for The Daily Toreador and had a “falling out” following an article I wrote about the pirate after the loss to Houston.  (For those that missed it, I called Leach’s reference to his players as narcissists hypocritical.)

Following that article my editors were called to the office of some of the hierarchies who told them that I had no right to write negative articles about the pirate because I didn’t attend practices or press conferences (among other things), but went on to say that if I wanted to write something positive then that would be fine.  I guess credibility is OK when you are positive, but not OK when you are critical.

I want to make it clear that beat writing will never be my thing because I think that it has become very PR-like and it isn’t something that appeals to an opinionated, pompous, loud mouth like myself.

In an article written Tuesday in The Daily Toreador by a good friend of mine wrote an article that left me puzzled, troubled, and at a loss-for-words–a rarity indeed.

The article was called Leach on Pie Throwing, Fat Girlfriends, Zombies.  I want to make it clear I have the utmost respect for this writer and, next to Don Williams, I think he is the best “real sportswriter” in the city of Lubbock.  However, this article was something that belonged in a comic book rather than a sports page.

It was a short story about Monday’s press conference in which the writer expresses his amusement and infatuation with Leach’s unorthodox humor.  The writer even asks Leach is he has ever considered comedy and concludes by saying the pirate could easily be a stand-up comedian if he wanted to.

I am very pessimistic (and maybe a little bitter), but I simply do not understand the amusement in dry-humored, repetitive sarcasm, especially in the midst of a shaky quarterback situation, a very important game against a desperate Kansas team this weekend, and an embarrassing home loss to Texas A&M in the rear-view mirror.

Why in the heck would one of the most talented writers in all of college media feel the need to write an article like that after a loss?

There is no way that he really thought these comments were that funny.

During my lifetime I have outgrown the chili-bowl haircut, ninja turtles, and Pogs, and after ten years of the same old dry-humor, I think “Leachisms” are now on that list.

Maybe I need a better sense of humor.  Maybe I take the college football head coaching images too seriously.  Or maybe ten years of the same dry humor has merely lost its luster in my eyes.

I guess I just don’t get it anymore.