Big 12 Head (Coach) Cases: The Nation's Nuttiest
College football is more than chest-painting, screaming fans and oversized young men crashing into each other at high speed. (Although those are two of its good points.) Look deeper and you'll discover personal, dramatic elements that rival any in pop culture, from Battlestar-Galactica-level intrigue to characters as deep and complicated as those on Mad Men.
The coaches of Southeastern Conference will tell you they have the market cornered on strong personalities and bitter rivalries, but don't be fooled. Alabama's Nick Saban, Tennessee's Lane Kiffin, Florida's Urban Meyer, and South Carolina's Steve Spurrier are all good-looking guys trying to get under each others' skins, like a gridiron version of Real Housewives. The real wackiness takes place around Texas and the Big 12.
Mike Leach, Texas Tech: For his long track record of antics and unpredictabilty, Leach takes the crown as the daffiest coach in the league. He's appeared on a Lubbock TV station doing the weather and given out dating advice on his call-in show. But the most well-documented is his pirate obsession. In a 2005 New York Times profile, we learn that each off-season, Leach "picks something he is curious about and learns as much as he can about it: Geronimo, Daniel Boone, whales, chimpanzees, grizzly bears, Jackson Pollock." One year it was pirates, and that seems to have stuck. There's a life-size pirate statue in his office, and he appears on the cover of September's Texas Monthly wearing an pirate eyepatch.
Mike Gundy, Oklahoma State: Leach's only real competition for overall nuttiness is Gundy. But where Leach is low-key and mystifying, Gundy is loud and abusive. Gundy secured his ticket on the crazy train two years ago with an epic post-game tirade against a sportswriter for disparaging one of his players. The "I'm a Man" rant is now so ingrained in pop culture that my kid and his friends were quoting from it in their rehearsals for "A Midsummer Night's Dream." When a teenage acting troupe is quoting your stuff, your antics have made it to the big stage.
Mark Mangino, Kansas: While Leach and Gundy are the league's top head cases, the Jayhawks coach is dealing with more corporeal matters. Packing close to 400 pounds on his sub-six-foot frame, Mangino is an unmistakable figure on the KU sideline. There's a certain tragedy there, however, for someone who might be the league's best coach. College football is about image, and coaches are the most public face of each program. If he were even 100 pounds lighter, the Mangenius could have his pick from any number of high-profile coaching jobs. As it is, he's the best football coach that a basketball school has ever had. On the other hand, it did inspire the adorable Baby Mangino tribute.
Texas fans will get to see all three this season as Leach and Mangino bring their teams to Austin and the Longhorns travel to Stillwater to play OSU. But don't get too smug, Longhorn fans. Your own Mack Brown has been known to lay the passive-aggressive act on thick, although it's abated somewhat since the national championship trophy went up on the shelf.
So keep an eye out during the games this fall. There's drama on the field, for sure, but the men on the sidelines -- and their attendant quirks -- often determine the outcome.
