In the bizarre timing department: Less than a month ago, Texas Tech fired football coach Mike Leach for seeking an injunction to force the school to permit him to coach in the Alamo Bowl after suspending him for allegedly mistreating one of his players, the Texas Tech Law Review has published an article by the ex-coach, A Legal Education Applied to Coaching College Football, 42 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 77 (2009). In light of subsequent events, much of the article is jarring:
I felt fortunate to go to law school. I looked forward to a promising future. I soon decided that after I graduated, I would not only work to fix my own problems, but I would work hard to help others fix their problems. I have found that by coaching young student-athletes, I can help them to fix their problems, achieve their goals, and grow into the best people they can possibly be. Even though many years have passed since I received my Juris Doctorate, my law school education continues to have a tremendous impact on my abilities as a successful college football coach. …
A law degree is a degree in problem solving. My Juris Doctor has helped me solve a number of the problems I have faced throughout my coaching career. …
[T]he application process for law school taught me many lessons that apply to football. For instance, medical school is harder to get into than law school. Once you enter medical school, however, they try to keep you there and help you work through any adversity. Law school, on the other hand, handles things like we do in college football. We select the best and the brightest athletes, and then we try to run them off the day we get them on campus. This was precisely my experience in law school. Both law school and college football view it as important to harden and battle test your charges the best you can before you turn them out into the real world. We recruit and select only the best of the high school and junior college athletes we can find, get them on the team, and then we try to cut them. Coaches feel it is better to learn lessons from within rather than out on the street. I believe there is something solid to this kind of thinking. If you are going to represent someone in the most trying times in their life, and be their advocate, then you should be someone who has the toughness to act on their behalf. I certainly think that from a mental and emotional standpoint, law school is a great way to prepare for this level of cutthroat preparation. …
[I]n law school, life, and college football not everyone is going to like you. Law school was good preparation for going on the road in the Big 12 Conference and playing Texas A&M in College Station, the University of Texas in Austin, and the University of Oklahoma in Norman. I embraced reciting cases if I was prepared, because I enjoyed the give and take with the professor. I was not particularly concerned with offending someone. This was tough for some fellow students, however, and I know several that quit. Certain individuals could not deal with having to stand up in front of people to recite a case, not to mention handle the combative nature of the comments and questions from the professor and fellow students. …
Just like college football, and anything else in life, it takes a certain amount of treachery and adaptation to be successful. In the world of recruiting top-quality athletes you are sometimes the victim of misinformation and sabotage. You need the ability to react to the situation and educate individuals. This ability will allow you to put your best foot forward and help the student-athlete make the best decision he can about the program that is right for him. …
It is also important in the midst of all the intensity, energy, effort, fascination, gratification, drudgery, and boredom of law school that you maintain perspective. It is easy to let the constraints of law school get out of hand. As a result of these challenges, you see people develop drinking, gambling, drug, and marriage problems due to the level of intensity that goes along with the experience. When I was in law school, as kind of a battle cry when things got tough, we would chant “I love law!” to one another. Your fellow classmate may respond, “You got to love the law!” Unfortunately, the chant was not enough to prevent some individuals from breaking down under the pressure. …
When I look back at everything I have done in my life, earning my law degree remains one of my proudest accomplishments. The best description of a law degree is that it is a degree in problem solving. There are a lot of problems in the world right now. Find the problems you are passionate about and go solve them.
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