The Saga of Mike Leach and Texas Tech: It Ends

That Johnny Cash song was written by Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor. Too bad Johnny died before they could do a duet.

I am happy. Very happy. Season ticket money will be mailed out this morning. Now lets start talking football moving forward. One last thing, I apologize to Hance as he really did step up for the Raider faithful.

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I’ve been thinking about Mike’s comments on extortion. I’m an engineer, not a lawyer, but it seems to me that if anyone representing Tech gave Leach the impression that if he did not sign the extension they would fire him, that is extortion (sign or else). Even though his statement regarding extortion was regarding future negotiations, I wonder if that statement by Leach didn’t rattle some people in regards to the current negotiation and make them more willing to come to terms.

I am also a little intrigued by the way the payout/buyout compromise came out. In the end, it is the average of the $1.5M max payout proposed by Tech and the $500K buyout proposed by Leach ($400K/yr). Maybe it is a gesture of trust by Tech: we trust you not to leave so we are taking away the buyout, you trust us not to fire you. But it is almost like they are opening the door, telling him to be looking for another job, they have a short list, just let us know when you are interviewing so we can prepare and part on amicable terms. Or perhaps it is a test to get Leach to prove he wants to stay by taking away any discouragment to leaving. If he passes the test in 3 years and continues to perform well, he gets the fat long term deal he has been wanting.

I am very interested to see who they bring in to replace Littrell. Maybe a co-offesive coordinator/running back coach? Someone they can groom to take the reigns if the Captain abandons ship?

has been amazing. With this blog and all those who contributed or commented, the ride has been incredible. Seth, you have provided, I think, the best portal to Texas Tech sports, especially football, that is available in any medium. We all thank you for your devotion to this great university and all the athletes who represent it on the court, field, course or track.

One thing I have to remind myself is that those athletes are still young, impressionable and still in a growing process, mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. It can be so frustrating at times to see them make poor decisions or mistakes that tend to cost the team in some way, but that is just a part of their growing up. You have t times had to remind some of us about those facts and we all appreciate that. It tends to enable all of us to have a more level-headed approach to things and that is why this is such a great blog. Some of the ‘visitors’ from other blogs tend to get a little out-of-hand at times, but when they have been around a bit, they start chilling out as well. So, when you have those ‘visitors’ showing up on a regular basis, it really shows that your blog is appreciated by them as well as all the Tech bloggers.

Good job, Seth. I look forward to another year of great interfacing with all those who chime in to your site.

Oh, and let me remind everyone, it is Gerald MYERS, not MEYERS…….I do appreciate it when someone spells my name correctly, so I try to do the same for others. If i fail somewhere on that, please let me know so I may correct myself as well. Thanks.

I’m a diehard OU fan but I was really pleased to see this resolved. To be honest, I want to see Mike Leach continue to succeed, and I would hate to see Texas Tech fall. It’s been great to see Tech grow really competitive, and that’s a direct result of Leach’s work (as everyone will admit). We need the Big 12 in general, and the South in particular, to stay strong.

Glad you guys were able to still be in a happy place when all this was done. See y’all next year, and here’s to hoping we both kick some Longhorn a** when the time comes.

there was no need for it to have dragged on for so long. Once compensation was generally agreed to, it was apparent that the parties could’ve negotiated this thing out in hours — which is precisely what happened. The amount of give on all four of the now notorious clauses, by both sides, pretty obviously indicates that people started drawing lines in the sand waaaaay too soon.

My thoughts on all four:

1) Notification. We were moving towards this throughout. Permission (not to be unreasonably withheld) with the penalty of for cause termination without it is simply too restrictive for most contract employees to tolerate. Mike Leach has no duties to Texas Tech or me or fans independent those found in a contract, and it simply is not a crime of moral terpitude for employees to seek better employment. The school’s big issue, per their statements, was that they got embarrassed to find out from the Seattle Times or whomever that Leach was interviewing with the University of Washington. And I totally understand their position, Leach should’ve notified them so they could at least respond with a statement of “We’ve spoken with Leach and are aware of this.” A lot of people (not here, but elsewhere) were packaging the permission thing as necessary to keep Leach’s wandering eye in check, but Myers told Leach in an email last year that he understood if Coach wanted to seek out other jobs. No employer thinks employees will remain at their jobs indefinitely only for the vague concept of “loyalty.” This is a fine compromise for both sides; the school won’t have to suffer that embarrassment again, and, for Leach, written notification is clear and easy to follow. Did we really want a fight down the road when Myers or whomever withheld permission and we get to enjoy a public legal battle over the “unreasonably withheld” portion?

2) Buyout/Termination. I know this is technically two clauses but their just different sides of the same coin, which makes them ideal negotiation points. A buyout exists to protect the University from the employee’s premature termination of the contract, and the termination clause protects the employee from the employer’s early termination. Since Mike Leach was sitting on a contract worth 1.6M guaranteed, there just wasn’t any way he would sign a contract worth 1.5M guaranteed because that would essentially be him giving the school 100K. He’d be worse off siginng the contract than getting fired! Leach’s counter-offer to the school of 40% was based on his previous contract, which had a 500K buyout clause. He came way down to 16, but the school came way down to 0 from 1.5M on the buyout. I view termination/buyout clauses as liability shifting for breach, no problem there, and both parties effectively said they weren’t going to try and shift liability. Mike Leach, becauseh e already had a contract worth 1.6M guaranteed, wasn’t going to come down from that number, couldn’t reasonably come down from that number. And the school wasn’t going to go down on a buyout clause if 40 of his contract was guaranteed. I thought what was going to happen was the school would go up to 40, but raise the buyout, but they did the opposite; they came way down and so did Leach. His guaranteed money is now 2M, which increases the school’s liability by just 400K after signing the contract. And the 2M decreases by 400K every year, so they’ll be exactly where they are right now, in terms of liability for employer breach, a year from now. Another fine compromise, more creative than the one I’d envisioned. When the school was chest bumping about the 1.5M/1.5M termination/buyout clause, and how fair it was, I thought they were married to getting some money out of Leach if he bailed.

3) Licensing rights… this was always a red herring. It’s just funny money shifting. Leach’s old contract guaranteed him a lot of salary per year that was offset by any money he made from licensing, and if he exceeded the amount he could keep the extra. The problem was the money was so high (starting around 1M) that Leach had no incentive to market himself, because there’s no way he was going to exceed the amount. He earned something like 10K a year as a result. What I imagine happened in their “meeting halfway” is that they increased his base salary (which was 300K every year under his old contract) and lowered substantially his guaranteed outside income so that Leach would have a bigger incentive to market himself. If he can conceivably out-produce the top dollar amount on the outside income thing, Leach would do a lot more gladhanding and marketing. The school just signed a big deal with Learfield and I’m sure eveyrone thinks Leach is a marketing cash-cow. These licensing rights are just money-shifting clauses in all the other contracts (Mack Brown has a substantially higher base salary but no independent licensing rights, I think Bill Snyder contracted out his licensing rights for a set fee per year). Leach didn’t technically have his licensing rights under his old contract; every penny he made in outside income offset his salary from the school, so it was a wash. What the school is trying to do is to get Leach to market himself more so that they pay him less. But the incentive needs to be there for Leach as well, so if the guaranteed money is lower, he’ll market more, make himself some money, and save the University some money as well. There’s no reason some 3rd party shouldn’t be paying substantial parts of Leach’s salary (and therefore freeing the athletic budget) because I think in reality… he is a marketing cash cow! Who doesn’t want more Mike Leach?

I still maintain that I thought the school’s negotiation ploy of FINAL OFFER was chicken-shit and small-time, but now I have to reevaluate whether or not it was ineffective… the right negotiation strategy is the one that gets a deal done, and their negotiating posture got a deal done. They ultimately came off their FINAL OFFER, obviously, but I did notice that Leach’s counter-offer to their FINAL OFFER came down SUBSTANTIALLY on the income he was asking, so it at least got his attention.

I still think both sides could’ve gotten where they are today much, much sooner absent that FINAL OFFER nonsense. The four notorious clauses were pretty obviously negotiable when presented as non-negotiable. If the salary was the part that the school wouldn’t — and didn’t — budge on, they should’ve just said that and presented the new four clauses as negotiable.

Enough bitching, we got where we needed to get, so I’m thrilled. Kudos to both parties for getting this done.

I want to thank Seth for excellent coverage. Every morning I checked DTN to keep up to date on this entire process and I was never disappointed. I used to blog about sports, and I know how exhausting it is to write over and over and over again about a subject that is unpleasent. No Tech fan wanted to linger on this negotiation, but Seth manned up and did it day in, day out, and superbly. I would’ve gone numb much sooner, and we owe Seth for sticking through it for the benefit of readers. It was great work.

And it’s over!

It occurred to me last night that maybe Kent Hance played this out and it ended exactly the way he hoped (less all of the bad press over the past 30 days).
I was talking with my brother and suggested that maybe he never intended to keep the buy-out clause for Coach Leach in the contract, but needed something to give in order to keep the Media Rights clause. It’s been reported that the new marketing company is a competitor with IMG.
Given the $28M agreement, you know the new marketing company (can’t remember the name) would be demanding that coach Leach be on board. So maybe the administration gave in on the $300K-$1.5M buy-out they never expected to get in the first place to keep everything positive and moving forward on the $28M contract they just signed.
Of course, we’ll never know for sure. But I thought it interesting enough to speculate among fellow Raider fans. Happy to have the Captain signed!!!