RIP...

[ulukinatme]

 

[ulukinatme]

This one was good:

I walked into Coach Leach’s office in the summer of 2006 expecting to hear a pitch about why I should play linebacker at Texas Tech. That is not what happened. Instead, I got to experience the magical mind of Mike Leach. It was unforgettable.

I was one of the top prospects in the 2007 recruiting class, and Texas Tech made my shortlist of places to visit in the summer of ‘06. I’d had a couple calls with Coach Leach — they were quick and quirky. So I didn’t know what was going to happen when I landed in Lubbock.

After getting a tour of the facilities, it was time to meet the head coach. I was ushered into an expansive office, with a big desk towards the back wall. Coach Leach sat with his hands flat on top of the desk. There was a bicycle hanging from the ceiling above him.

As I approached the desk, Coach Leach didn’t stand. He didn’t even speak. He gestured to the open seat in front of his desk. I took my seat. Silence. “…uhhh hey coach” Quiet. “so… you ride your bike?” (I said while pointing to the bike hanging from the ceiling)

“Ride my bike?!” Leach replied, looking confused. “…there’s a bike on your ceiling” I said. Leach slowly tilted his head back, squinting at the object hanging 2 feet from his head. “Oh-that? Nope, don’t ride it. I just think it looks cool… …want to see a magic trick?”

“A magic trick?” I confusingly replied (still baffled by the bike-on-ceiling comment) “Yes. A magic trick. But YOU, Blake, are the magician. If you get it right, you have to commit to Texas Tech,” Leach said. “Uhhh…” “You probably won’t get it right” Leach challenged.

“Okay, deal.” I accepted the challenge and awaited instructions as Leach shuffled a deck of cards. “You say ‘red’ and I put a card in THIS pile,” he pointed to an open spot on his desk “you say ‘black’ I put a card in THIS pile.” “Red” I said. He placed the first card.

“Black red red red black…” This continued until all 52 cards were gone from Coach Leach’s hands. “Now, Blake, if you’re a real magician, then all of THIS pile should be RED” Leach emphasized, “and THIS pile BLACK.” “Yep” I said (knowing there’s no way I did this right)

Leach flipped over the first pile. All the cards were red. Whoa. He flipped over the second pile. All the cards were black. My jaw dropped. How in the world? How did he do that? I looked up. We locked eyes. Leach said with confidence: “Ready to be a Red Raider?

”I was flabbergasted. I didn’t commit on the spot — but Coach Leach had me hooked on the idea of playing for him. We spent more time talking about life (and KC BBQ) than about football. Leach made me feel like an old friend — not a recruit. I liked that.

I ended up committing to Nebraska — and Coach Leach sent me congratulations. That says something about the man. He was a goof. But the best kind of goof. He was authentic. He was entertaining. I have always admired him.

I’m not sure how many times he did that card trick throughout his career — but it stuck with me. I’ve been trying to figure out how he pulled it off. Finally I think I figured it out. Mike Leach was a magician. He brought magic to our world. He will be forever missed.

 

[T-Boone]

Sad about leech. Any ideas what his medical issue was?

 

[Bishop2b5]

I just found this nice article about Leach, and it has a lot of insights into what made him so original.

An American original​ ​

​

BY DAN WETZEL​ Back when he coached Washington State, Mike Leach preferred to walk to work, about a 3.5 mile trek. He was never much into driving a car. Walking (or biking or even rollerblading) felt right, and not just for the exercise, but for the randomness of life it could provide. ‌ He’d often use the time to call recruits, or friends, or boosters, or media, or whomever else popped into his forever-revving mind. He might have a single, simple question, but one hour and 14 topics later, he’d be describing the best taco he ever ate in Del Rio, Texas. That was Mike Leach. ‌ In the winter, when the snow would cover the ground, it wasn’t unusual for Leach to see some animal prints and decide to do some “tracking.” Maybe it was a deer, maybe a fox. He couldn’t help but wonder where they had gone. “I was just curious where this raccoon lived,” he once explained. ‌ This was, perhaps, the most Mike Leach trait that Mike Leach ever displayed. ‌ Capable of noticing something that others just zombie past yet also so endlessly curious that he would fully apply himself into discovery. Not knowing, or more specifically not at least trying to know, was just not possible for him, even if it meant the most famous guy in town was tromping through someone’s backyard in search of a critter. ‌ Leach passed away Monday night at age 61 following a recent health incident at his home in Starkville, where he coached Mississippi State the past three seasons. He’d battled pneumonia and other ailments all season. ‌ He leaves behind his wife Sharon, four grown children, a Bulldog team and a football community that loved him almost as much as he impacted them. ‌ Leach will be fondly remembered by fans as this colorful, eccentric character, a bolt of personality in what is too often an overly serious profession. ‌ His press conferences — just like any conversation with Leach — could flow into absurd topics from ranking which Pac-12 mascot could win a fight (“Just in terms of a beast alone, a [Colorado] Buffalo is going to be pretty hard to tangle with”) to wedding planning advice for the groom (“Stay out of the way”) to the existence of BigFoot (he wanted to believe but wasn’t optimistic). Occasionally he’d talk about his team’s third down conversion rate or something mundane like that. ‌ He had a law degree from Pepperdine and too much intelligence to just be content talking football. He seemed to spend large swaths of his day discussing pirates and military history and macroeconomics and how coffee should be consumed (“Black, it should taste horrible”) and Key West and politics and the importance of gravy at Thanksgiving and, man, you just never knew. ‌ He never did anything like anyone else. This was an innovative football mind who never really played football — he was a bench warmer as a high school junior in little Cody, Wyoming. A busy coach who found time to teach a class at Washington State — “Insurgent Warfare and Football Strategies.” ‌ During a stretch between jobs, he hosted a radio show on Sirius and decided to multitask by getting his workouts in during commercial breaks. That meant, say, hammering out a couple minutes of push-ups which left him gasping for breath as he returned to the air. ‌ If anything, the comedy act and self-deprecation took away from his impact on football. It is not too much to say that sport — from high school to the NFL — would not be played as it is if not for Leach. He was an architect of the Air Raid offense with his mentor, Hal Mumme. In the simplest terms, they tried to answer the age-old question: What if you just ran two-minute offense all the time? First it was as an assistant at small programs and big ones before Leach broke out on his own at Texas Tech, Washington State and Mississippi State. ‌ His thinking ran counter to everything — he once described how he ideally would have 10 players stretched equidistant from each other from one sideline to the other, with just the QB sitting back and picking his target. ‌ “It’d be unstoppable,” he declared, and while football rules prohibit the offensive line from spreading out that much, “The Spread” became mainstream because coaches watched his teams with a mix of curious horror and then awe. ‌ Some of its principles began to dominate the NFL — tempo, empty backfields, the value of the slot receiver, quarterbacks reading coverage at the line, going for it on fourth down and so on. ‌ Leach once spoke ambitiously about playing an entire game without calling a run, but even he never went that far. ‌ In his 21 seasons as a head coach, his teams delivered 13 seasons of 8 or more victories, a remarkable accomplishment since all three of his programs were among the least resourced in their leagues. ‌ Everyone always wondered if he and his system could win a championship, but he was too eccentric, and at times too controversial, for some schools' tastes. ‌ He pointed to the Super Bowl champs who ran some version of what he did as proof of concept. ‌ Leach was an American Original, a football savant, a guy who wouldn’t just run around barking motivational sayings — “be the hammer, never the nail” … “Swing Your Sword” — but lived it himself. ‌ He never played scared. He never shied away from being entertaining. He didn’t put on airs. He’d talk to anyone, anywhere for hours. ‌ He never seemed to consider whose sensibilities he offended, be it football or anything else. ‌ He just did it his way. ‌ Ask most football coaches what they would be doing for a living if they weren’t coaching football and you’ll likely be met by a confused look or some humble line about not being smart enough to do anything else. ‌ With Leach, it was the opposite. What would he do? How about asking what wouldn’t he do? ‌ Maybe he’d have been a lawyer or a politician or a scientist or a talk show host or a professor or maybe he’d just be that guy wandering around in the snow trying to find out where a raccoon slept because who wouldn’t want to know that? ‌ In many ways, it was all the same. A mind and a man too big for a game, now gone too soon for a sport, and a fan base near and far, that adored and appreciated him for it.​

 

[Free Manera]

I strongly recommend reading Mike's book Swing Your Sword. I was already a fan of his because I just loved his perspective on life that came through in press conferences and interviews. Then I read his book maybe 5 years ago and he became my favorite CFB personality by far.

 

[Bishop2b5]

Stuart Margolin, Emmy winning actor from The Rockford Files, passed away this week at the age of 82 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. Margolin was one of the most familiar faces on TV during the 70s, appearing in seemingly every hit show as a guest star, and having a long running role on The Rockford Files as Angel, Rockford's untrustworthy weasel friend, a role that earned him two Emmys.

 

[Irish#1]

Stuart Margolin, Emmy winning actor from The Rockford Files, passed away this week at the age of 82 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. Margolin was one of the most familiar faces on TV during the 70s, appearing in seemingly every hit show as a guest star, and having a long running role on The Rockford Files as Angel, Rockford's untrustworthy weasel friend, a role that earned him two Emmys.

View attachment 3052250

But Jimmy!

RIP Angel.

 

[Irish#1]

For you fans of 60's music we lost another one. Very accomplished drummer. RIP Dino.

Dino Danelli, drummer for The Rascals, dies at the age of 78

Dino Danelli, the drummer for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees The Rascals, died on Thursday in New York City at the age of 78.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[ulukinatme]

For you fans of 60's music we lost another one. Very accomplished drummer. RIP Dino.

Dino Danelli, drummer for The Rascals, dies at the age of 78

Dino Danelli, the drummer for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees The Rascals, died on Thursday in New York City at the age of 78.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Good Lovin' is still my jam, just a fun tune. Beautiful Morning, Groovin', Lonely Too Long, People Got to be Free were all hits that I grew up with in the 80s. RIP, Dino.

 

[IRISHDODGER]

Good Lovin' is still my jam, just a fun tune. Beautiful Morning, Groovin', Lonely Too Long, People Got to be Free were all hits that I grew up with in the 80s. RIP, Dino.

Love “The Big Chill” soundtrack. Great tunes and a the ultimate Boomer Movie.

”Groovin’” is my favorite Rascals song. RIP

 

[Jimmy3Putt]

I remember watching Cheers a bit growing up, but I only remembered the blond actress that played Ted Danson's love interest. My first exposure to Kirstie was in Star Trek 2: Wrath of Khan I think. It's been awhile but it felt like they were pushing her as some kind of hot replacement for Spock. Wonder why that died on the vine? The only other thing I remember her doing was that Amish movie. Cancer is a bitch. RIP.
[Edit] Richer or Poorer with Tim Allen.

Not looking it up, but I think she was in the talking baby movie with Bruce Willis?
Or maybe that was Travolta?

I remember Cheers though. That was in my wheel house as a pre-teen must watch show back in the day. Her replacing Diane wasn't as big an impact as Woody coming in for Coach, but I remember it being an improvement.

She gained a lot of weight too.

 

[ACamp1900]

Look who’s talking,… Travolta

 

[Tejas]

Bruce Willis was the baby

 

[T Town Tommy]

Tom Browning of my beloved Cincinnati Reds passed at 62. He used to swing by the bar after games and sit with us just to talk. Amazingly, he was more interested in us and our backgrounds as young men than he was discussing baseball. He took a genuine concern about where we went to college, our majors, life plans, etc. Always respected that as I got older. Here's to Mr. Tom Browning... rest in peace.

Tom Browning, former Reds pitcher who threw perfect game in 1988, dies at 62

Browning spent 12 seasons in the majors and helped the Reds win the 1990 World Series

www.cbssports.com

 

[NDohio]

Tom Browning of my beloved Cincinnati Reds passed at 62. He used to swing by the bar after games and sit with us just to talk. Amazingly, he was more interested in us and our backgrounds as young men than he was discussing baseball. He took a genuine concern about where we went to college, our majors, life plans, etc. Always respected that as I got older. Here's to Mr. Tom Browning... rest in peace.

Tom Browning, former Reds pitcher who threw perfect game in 1988, dies at 62

Browning spent 12 seasons in the majors and helped the Reds win the 1990 World Series

www.cbssports.com

Ah this sucks - Mr Perfect. When he started a game he usually finished the game. I has a sad...

 

[Rasputin]

Terry Hall, British ska legend, lead signer of The Specials and Fun Boy Three, has passed at 63 after a brief illness.

Fun Fact: Hall wrote The Go-Go's classic single, "Our Lips Are Sealed" after a brief romance with Go-Go's guitarist Jane Wiedlin.

 

[chisea03]

Steelers Hall of Fame running back Franco Harris dies at 72

 

[Irish#1]

Way too young. RIP Franco. The Immaculate Reception still lives as one of the greatest if not the greatest plays in NFL history.

His death comes two days before the 50th anniversary of the play that provided the jolt that helped transform the Steelers from also-rans into the NFL’s elite and three days before Pittsburgh is scheduled to retire his No. 32 during a ceremony at halftime of its game against the Las Vegas Raiders.

 

[Sherm Sticky]

RIP Franco Harris…as others have said 72 to young to have passed.

 

[chisea03]

UFC Legend Stephan Bonnar Passes Away At 45-Years-Old​

 

[Bluto]

Terry Hall, British ska legend, lead signer of The Specials and Fun Boy Three, has passed at 63 after a brief illness.

Fun Fact: Hall wrote The Go-Go's classic single, "Our Lips Are Sealed" after a brief romance with Go-Go's guitarist Jane Wiedlin.

Oh damn!

One of the best bands even. Used fall asleep listening to these guys.

“All you punks and all you teds
National Front and Natty dreads
Mods, rockers, hippies and skinheads
Keep on fighting 'till you're dead”

 

[ACamp1900]

Terry Hall, British ska legend, lead signer of The Specials and Fun Boy Three, has passed at 63 after a brief illness.

Fun Fact: Hall wrote The Go-Go's classic single, "Our Lips Are Sealed" after a brief romance with Go-Go's guitarist Jane Wiedlin.

Missed this,… wow

 

[chisea03]

Brazilian soccer legend Pelé dead at 82

 

[zelezo vlk]

Eternal rest grant unto him O Lord


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[NDty9]

🥺🙏🏽🙌🏽🇧🇷 ….. one of the greatest to ever touch the ball!!! Legendary human, on and off the field!

REST IN PEACE PELE!

 

[Irish#1]

The roots of soccer popularity in the U.S are tied directly back to Pele.

 

[Sea Turtle]

 

[NDRock]

I’m not sure Sylvester Stallone gets enough credit for taking down the Nazis and ending the Cold War

 

[Irish#1]

Barbara Walters has went to the big news room in the sky. Pioneer is ladies journalism.

 

[ulukinatme]

I can only hope Barbara's first interview in the afterlife is Norm. RIP.