Good morning West Texans and all you good, fine, friendly folks out there who wish you were . . .
LEACH AND TECH TO SETTLE? REALLY? COME ON NOW. . .
KCBD-TV reported Monday night that Texas Tech officials and Mike Leach might be nearing a settlement during the forced mediation phase of their public battle after Leach’s firing in late December as Tech’s head football coach. The theory goes that since Tech has a regents meeting scheduled for Wednesday before the Friday deadline for mediation that something might be in the works. We’ll see.
I still think both sides wouldn’t mind fighting it out in court, but if there is a settlement it won’t take long to determine a “winner” in this battle.
From the beginning the Leach camp has publicly wailed that it wanted all the facts to come out, that the truth was on their side and that Tech had dealt dirty to the Pirate. From that standpoint, any settlement that doesn’t include a public spilling of guts on the part of Tech would be seen a capitulation on the side of Leach. If Leach were to take any money, no matter how much, and walk away from a public court battle that would clear his name of wrong-doing in the eyes of the public then it seems to me Tech wins.
If there is a settlement for anything under a couple of million dollars that would imply that Team Leach knew it couldn’t clear the S.I. argument and that they listened to Judge Bill Sowder on the other issues and knew they were riding a losing horse, legally speaking. From that standpoint, it would imply again that the legal battle really wasn’t about getting the “truth” out, but rather it was about getting as much money for Leach as possible, with a settlement being the best way to ensure that money would come in.
From a Tech standpoint, if there is a settlement of under a couple of million dollars they win on two fronts. One, it is over. It is out of the public eye, out of the papers and the school can move on. Two, you don’t have to have the ugly public airing of dirty laundry where there would be sure to be many things come out on both sides of the ledger that neither party would enjoy, though I think Tech could endure the airing much more easily than Leach could both short-term and long-term.
I still can’t see Leach settling if his goal really is to show how wrongly he was treated and if he really does have any sort of legal standing. Heck, watching Leach coach the last decade makes me think that even if he doesn’t think he can win a dime he’d just as soon have it out in court to make his point and then move on. It isn’t like he’s going to be on the sidelines anytime soon in 2010, so why settle if you think you’ve really got something?
For the Team Leachers and the new PAC formed out of the facebook group I can only think that Leach accepting a settlement would be a kick in the gut;an admission by the Lead Pirate that he really didn’t have a spade card, really didn’t have another sword to swing and that it really was about money at the end of the day. For some of his followers, that may be the toughest pill to swallow if it really goes down like that. For many of them, they never did like to see him punt and for him to do it in court might be the hardest loss for all of them to take in all of this.
Like I said, I’m doubtful still this gets settled this week via mediation. If it does, then your winner is Tech and your loser is the Pirate banished not to Elba, but to the nether-lands of a public wanting one more fight that never came. . .
MORE LATER
HYATT
great day in the morning, an adult is once again in charge! time to forget about the rum dumb pirate who once lead our crew. he’s already walked the plank…self induced plank walking is the worst kind… perhaps too much rum once again;>)
WRECK’EM!!!