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On Mike Leach and what he gave to us

Related Topics: Gardner Minshew

His legacy will go beyond just football.

Eleven years ago Mike Leach took a chance on Washington State, and Washington State took a chance on Mike Leach.

The long tenured Texas Tech Red Raiders coach wasn’t far removed from his controversial firing in Lubbock, no matter how suspect those accusations later turned out to be. Washington State had never committed financially in the way they did to Leach; his annual salary of more than $2 million couldn’t actually be processed at first by WSU’s payroll system because it wasn’t able to make a six-digit deposit every other week.