Double T - Double Cross - Double Take : The Firing of Coach Mike Leach by Texas Tech University

The news swept from Lubbock to San Antonio and rippled across the country. The story that a university would fire its most successful coach ever on the eve of a nationally televised bowl game was so baffling that it erupted from the sports sections to national headlines. Coach Leach and the Red Raiders had departed Lubbock heading for San Antonio on Monday, December 28, 2009 to complete preparations for the upcoming post-season bowl game to be played four days later. Upon his arrival in the Alamo City, however, Leach received a stunning telephone call from Athletic Director Myers telling him that he had been suspended from coaching duties-effective immediately-until further notice. The team-after its spectacular 2008 year-had just completed another successful season, racking up an 8-4 record and making Mike Leach the most winning football coach in Texas Tech history. Not only had the Red Raiders, who had been un-ranked and mostly unnoted a decade before Leach took over, gained national recognition, but also they had done it in a style that old-school proponents of the game said could not be done. Coach Leach had had the vision, and his players had executed it right into the Top 25 in the polls. The Raiders had been flying in more ways than just on planes. Instead of working on plans for the game scheduled for January 2, Leach sat alone in his hotel room awaiting a legal decision from the 99th Judicial Court in Lubbock, a ruling that would either lift or uphold his coaching suspension imposed two days before by his bosses, Texas Tech Athletic Director Gerald Myers and University President Guy Bailey.