{"id":1378,"date":"2010-01-11T22:36:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-11T22:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2010\/01\/11\/winning-isnt-everything"},"modified":"2010-01-11T22:36:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-11T22:36:00","slug":"winning-isnt-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=1378","title":{"rendered":"Winning isn&#8217;t everything"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/mike-leach.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5425617422280843906\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/01\/3d705-mike-leach.jpg?w=226\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>I&#8217;ve been struck by the rationale of those who think that Texas Tech did former head football coach Mike Leach wrong when it fired him.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div>The pro-Leach reaction comes from those who seem willing to give the coach a pass just because he was a winner at Tech. The weird behavior, the strangeness, the insubordination he exhibited when he declined to do what his bosses wanted him to do doesn&#8217;t matter because he won far more games than he lost during his decade as head coach at Tech.<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>What if he had been a losing coach? What if his teams went 3-9 every year instead of 9-3? Would the Red Raider faithful have nearly as much compassion for the guy? I don&#8217;t think so.<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Leach could have saved his job if he had done two simple things: accepted his suspension quietly and signed the directive that stipulated that any measure to discipline a player over an injury needed to come with a physician&#8217;s signature. He didn&#8217;t do any of that. He stuck it in his bosses&#8217; eye &#8212; and paid the price.<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>From my vantage point, Leach&#8217;s employers did what employers always do when their subordinates defy them openly.<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Their &#8220;mistake,&#8221; if you want to call it that, is that they canned a winning football coach whose teams filled Jones Stadium. <\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been struck by the rationale of those who think that Texas Tech did former head football coach Mike Leach wrong when it fired him. The pro-Leach reaction comes from those who seem willing to give the coach a pass just because he was a winner at Tech. The weird behavior, the strangeness, the insubordination &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=1378\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Winning isn&#8217;t everything<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}