Don’t miss interviews like today’s with Tech Pres. Dr. Guy Bailey and Tech A. D. Gerald Myers.

Take The Show where ever you go. Sign-up today and keep up with your Red Raiders and everything else you love about Lubbock and West Texas. You’ll be glad you did~

Even though Ryan Hyatt should never, never be on TV, KCBD 11 came out Friday to the studios of SportsRadio 1340 The Fan to find out what you guys were thinking about conference realignment and Texas Tech heading to the Pac 10. Y’all were great, but next time they need to show Hyatt like they did Waylon Jennings on the opening of The Dukes Of Hazard. Just his hands . . . not his face on TV.

Enjoy.

2. I don’t think the few that post on Team Leach will be the one’s liking the results today.

3.  Here’s hoping former Texas Tech pitcher Dallas Braden backs-up his perfect game from last Sunday with another solid start this weekend for the A’s. He just might end up being one of the best stories for Major League Baseball this spring if he can put together a nice start.

4.  I admit it. I’ve become a huge fan of Adam Richman and Man Vs. Food. What makes me mad is that traveling around the country covering Tech sports over the past two decades me and several other members of the travel party have been doing the exact same thing he does, we just weren’t smart enough to start a TV show about it.

5.  The Lubbock City Council voted to approve a deal with Garza County that should make it easier to begin the process of building the pipe (dream) line that will one day pump water from Lake Alan Henry to Lubbock. Uphill. This falls under the heading of “what could possibly go wrong”. Yes, we need to secure our water rights’ future and be good stewards of the land, but I still have major doubts about this project. We’ll see.

Here’s a link to the release: Tech filings.

Just for giggles, here’s the Team Leach response: Team Leach.

You can read for yourself and be ready to discuss the latest on this story Wednesday on The Show.

“There’s no place for that in sports,” Baylor coach Kim Mulkey said. “I will deal with Brittney Griner and it won’t be discussed in the media. Not me or [Tech coach] Kristy [Curry] or any player will be proud of what took place on the court tonight.”

-Baylor Coach Kim Mulkey

Mulkey is right.

There is no place in basketball or in life for sucker-punching another person. If you weren’t at the Texas Tech Lady Raider game last night against Baylor or you haven’t seen the video of Baylor’s Brittney Griner punching Tech’s Jordan Barncastle in the face then do so. Here’s some light reading for you.
Avalanche-Journal
A-J’s Column
ESPN

I’ve got to be consistent here and demand that the Lubbock County District Attorney’s office look into filing assault charges on Griner. I’ve said for years that athletes should face the same consequences as the guy at the bar if they cross the line of “acceptable risk” in a sporting event. For far too long we’ve excused criminal behavior in the name of sports. Why?

If you can’t do it to another person over a highly competitive game of shuffleboard at The Fox and Hound, why can Griner do it in front of police and others at The United Spirit Arena? It makes no sense and it is time this stupidity in our culture came to an end.

Just like Oregon’s LaGarrette Blount after the Boise State game in football received an initial season long suspension Baylor should do the right thing and sit down Griner for the rest of her freshman year. If they don’t I think we’ll continue to see this be a problem for her and the Bears both on and off the court for years to come.

If Griner can’t learn to handle her emotions now she’ll never serve Baylor or herself well in the future. I have a lot of respect for Kim Mulkey as a coach and I’m quit sure she’ll do the right thing. I wonder if the Big 12 Conference would have the guts to do anything beyond a one game suspension though. . . They hit OU’s Longar Longar a few years back with a two-gamer for a flagrant foul. What does a sucker-punch get you now in this league? We’ll find out.

Coming up later today on The Williams and Hyatt Show we’ll visit with legal experts about the chances of charges being filed against Griner and why or why not athletes get special protection. We may or may not visit with a representative of Lubbock’s D. A. office. That’s developing. See you at 3 on The Fan.

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HYATT

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. . .

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HYATT

There are a few new developments going on in the Mike Leach vs. Texas Texas legal battle. Leach has filed some new paperwork that you can read here thanks to the folks at KCBD. Texas Tech has also responded in-kind asking the court to review whether Leach can actually sue Tech. There’s a few new items mentioned in the Leach filing about Adam James and his father’s involvement in the allegations. Right now it is still all a he-said, he-said battle that is coming to a courtroom near you. Maybe.

Enjoy the reading.

Links:
Don Williams write-up
ESPN game recap
CBS Sports game recap

The first game in the post Mike Leach era goes down as a win as interim coach Ruffin McNeill made a strong case for taking the qualifier off of his name. For a guy that’s perhaps one of Leach’s closest friends it has to be awkward in a way campaigning for his job. That’s that’s the nature of the beast though. Leach is gone and he ain’t coming back. If you’re Ruffin you owe it to yourself,  your family and the players to do your best and try and get the job. He may have done just that tonight.

I think Tech officials will still look hard at other candidates including Art Briles ( who never did say he wouldn’t take the job if offered ) and Tommy Tuberville as well as a few others. All that said, Ruffin may have made a solid case that he can lead this program forward, that he can be a Leader during the games and off the field and that he can build on what Leach did and move it forward not just maintain the status quo.

We’ll have more later. For now enjoy the win. If you’re really a Red Raider fan, and not just a fan of a man, you’ll enjoy every aspect of tonight’s win and what it means to the players and the program. Tonight was  a good night. Take it for what it was.

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