For the past few months, the health risks of professional football (and even youth leagues) have come to the fore, with all sorts of media and NFL bigwigs jumping into the conversation. The discussion has been a long time coming – what with studies linking concussions to depression/drug addiction/dementia/suicide in several former stars, NFL legends seeking compensation for debilitating healthcare costs and tortured retirements they claim they couldn't have seen coming, and even “tough guys” like Mike Ditka insisting that the league get serious about player health. Once Malcolm Gladwell chimed in this fall by raising the stakes and asking whether football was simply too violent for modern society, the issue caught fire.

Deadspin's Dashiell Bennett offered up his perspective in response to an episode of Hard Knocks, which he pointed to as an example of “the culture of 'toughness' that ultimately dooms so many football players to retirements filled with crippling, life-altering pain.” Bennett points the finger at coaches who beat their chests and make injured players feel like irresponsible wimps, concluding, “No matter what safety measures the league takes or the vast amount of medical training that goes into care for the walking wounded, it will never outweigh that subtle psychological game that tells athletes that injuries are for pussies.”

I've mostly been under the impression that the health advocates were winning the PR battle and that mounting injury concerns would soon begin to modify the public's perception of “toughness” in football – and, eventually, of the viability of the sport itself. But watching the public outcry in favor of Mike Leach, the Texas Tech coach accused of locking a concussed player in an electrical closet for several hours, has forced me to reconsider.

The details of the incident are still extremely hazy. It's one of those circumstances that's so strange, no one quite seems able to understand what the hell happened, or to straightforwardly ask Leach's representatives, “Wait a second, he did what?” Surely, everyone seems to be assuming, no coach would respond to a concussion by locking the player in an equipment garage and electrical closet (consecutively), demanding that he not sit down, placing a “guard” outside, and threatening to kick him off the team if he left. But that seems to be what the player, Adam James, is alleging.

And Leach's representative in the media, lawyer Ted Liggett, isn't exactly cooling the embers. Tasked with making Leach's case to the public, he has eschewed the “this is all just a big misunderstanding” defense in favor of quibbling about irrelevant details (whether the equipment room was a “shed” or a “garage”), adding useless context (how Leach likes to keep his injured players close to the action), and publicly challenging the integrity of the accuser (according to Liggett, he was just angry about playing time). On ESPN's Outside the Lines, he topped off this asinine song-and-dance routine by stating his desire to have Leach reinstated for his “11^th straight bowl game,” as if his past coaching success has anything to do with the matter at hand.

Meanwhile, on Outside the Lines, a writer for the local Lubbock Avalanche-Journal warned of the “backlash” the university would face if it fired such a popular coach. He was unable, however, to shine any light on the details of the allegations – in fact, it was unclear whether he had any knowledge of the details at all. He sure didn't have too strong a desire to talk about them.

If the cavalier attitude of the lawyer and the indifference of the local writer are contrary to widespread public opinion, I haven't seen the evidence. When I logged onto Facebook, one status from a friend at Texas Tech read,“It's 1:54 PM and Adam James is still a pansey.” Another, “It's not like he hit the kid.”

As I said, the details of the situation are still exceedingly unclear. It's certainly possible that, in the coming days, Leach will be exonerated. But it's awfully strange to watch a society that tends to presume guilt (see: Duke lacrosse) rally behind someone giving us so little reason to trust him. It's even stranger given all the recent calls to take concussions more seriously. At the very least, Bennett may prove to be prophetic: football is stuck in a “tough guy” culture, and the country that loves it so much wants a piece of the action – no matter the cost.

Update 12/30: 


Mike Leach has been fired, but it's still pretty much impossible to figure out what the hell happened here. I'm torn between two competing "gut checks":


A. No coach would ever do something as ridiculous as these allegations suggest.


B. Texas Tech wouldn't immediately fire their most popular and successful coach of all time - who resurrected the football program and put Texas Tech University on the map - if they weren't pretty sure these allegations had some merit.

I lean toward the latter for three reasons:


1. Leach is giving us very little reason to believe him. His lawyer has brashly asserted Leach's innocence without shining light on any valuable questions.

2. Texas Tech didn't just fire their wildly popular and successful head coach - they did so knowing A. Popular opinion is strongly against them, and B. They have to defend the decision in a court of law. Not to mention the legal and public relations battle the family took on as soon as they went public with these charges. Leach lacks these external measures of credibility.

3. Leach's lawyer and assistant coaches have all come out and said that James lacked effort, had an attitude, was a "softy," etc. They seem to be unwittingly supporting the notion that this is an instance of the "culture of toughness" gone wrong. The Duke Lacrosse case teaches us to be weary of jumping to conclusions like this one, where the early evidence seems to fit an easy meta-narrative, but like I said: Leach isn't exactly helping his cause here.


However this brouhaha plays out, one thing remains clear: the overwhelming reaction in Leach's favor is odd, and proves why, as the title of this article suggests, "football has a problem."

One more thing: I haven't seen an actual public opinion poll on this matter yet, so it's hard to objectify my intuition that the public has taken Leach's side. It doesn't look like ESPN's SportsNation, which tends to have polls on just about everything, has covered it yet. But a quick look at the most recent comments on the ESPN story reveal opinions like:


"This is just horrible. Craig James and his family should be embarrassed."


"For having him stand in an air conditioned dark room? Gee the horror."



"This story's bottom line: Daddy was frustrated that his son was not getting playing time because he is not talented and so Daddy took it out on the coach. And Texas Tech let Daddy do it. Texas Tech is a disgrace!"



"Without Leach TT has no recruiting class."



"As a Tech grad and fan all my life, I am heartbroken. How can three men make a decision that some many Raider faithful were against? My relationship with Texas Tech University will never be the same. God bless you, Coach Leach. Thank you for putting Tech football on the map."



"Espn needs to fire Craig. And the Tech fans need to beat the crap out of both his kids there"


Obviously, there's some selection bias there: the brightest and most levelheaded analysts aren't exactly trolling the ESPN comments threads. But it is surprising how overwhelming the reaction is: on that "most recent" page of comments, only a small handful are remotely sympathetic toward the player, and dozens are downright vitriolic.

Finally, updates from the Facebook friends I mentioned earlier:

"...Leach got fired?! If I was a Tech fan, I'd raise hell against the James family."

"RIP The Golden Era of Texas Tech Football 1999-2009. Oh, and Gerald Myers you are a douche and the entire James family are giant pansies. I hope Adam James doesn't return to LBK EVER and doesnt get a second of playing time at the Alamo Bowl. ESPN HD- Every Special Player Needs His Daddy."

Update #2, 12/30:

One last thing before we put this one to bed. I'm finding it harder to believe that this is simply a case of an underperforming player trying to exact revenge on his overbearing coach:

1. If it was, I'd expect to see a far more united locker room against the player. But despite the overwhelming popular opinion that continues to pour out against James (just read ESPN's account of the court house atmosphere when Leach's firing was announced), that's not what we're seeing. If this was some big misunderstanding, or some isolated instance, I wouldn't expect to see comments from current players like:

"I have no complaints about this decision. [Leach] put Adam [James] in a shed like an animal. Like an animal in a cage. That was bull," defensive lineman Chris Perry said. "You call other players. I think it was a good decision. We have our pep back now. We practice hard this week. We had less stress this week. You know why? Because he's gone."

"The players make this team, not one coach. As Adam's friend, I didn't like it at all what [Leach] did. He was my brother and I didn't agree with it. I don't know why [Leach] did that.”

"I do agree and I'm supporting Adam and what he's doing because it's the right thing to do...And so do most of the players...It wasn't just about Adam. It was always a negative vibe."

I'd expect to see a lot of meandering about how it's an “administrative matter” and “between the player and the coach.” Clearly, this is not something that Adam James completely pulled out of his ass. If nothing happened, current players wouldn't be talking about James being “put in a shed like an animal.”

2. In Ivan Maisel's article about how there are “no winners” in this situation, he makes the point that, by coming forward with these allegations, Adam James effectively poisoned his reputation in the locker room. He might be right. But maybe – and the above quotes from current players lend credence to this idea – James came forward precisely because he made the judgment that the other players would have his back. Doesn't that seem more likely than the “cut off your nose to spite your face” explanation of James ruining his own career at Tech just to get revenge? Wouldn't any college football player be striving to maximize his ability to play and weary of alienating his teammates?

And perhaps most convincingly, why would current players – if attacking Leach is really such a poison pill in the locker room – risk their reputations with their teammates by coming out and defending James, especially now that the issue is already moot?

3. The madder Texas Tech fans get, the more it highlights how crucial Mike Leach was to this program. He's the program's all-time winningest coach and is absolutely pivotal for its recruiting efforts. It could be decades before Texas Tech is this good again. That's why I don't buy the “Texas Tech was looking for reasons to fire him” argument. He may have gotten on the administration's nerves, but you don't just “look for reasons” to kick your breadwinner to the curb and deep-six your most nationally visible program back to the Stone Age. Not when Leach's “indiscretions” were things like contract disputes and various megalomaniacal tendencies – not, as was the case when Indiana fired Bob Knight, disciplinary issues that forced the administration's hand (you probably recall that Texas Tech is the university that controversially hired Knight after he was fired at Indiana, and the university that looked the other way every time Knight wandered into another controversy).

The more passionate the reactions from Tech fans, the more I realize how important Leach was to this football team and this school, and the more unlikely I find it that the school would fire him without a damn good reason.

4. In some regards, it seems like Texas Tech's administration was searching for reasons to retain Leach. They sent him a letter that outlined future guidelines for player treatment; while seemingly indicating a willingness to meet Leach halfway, Leach unfathomably declined to agree to its terms. Interviews with Chancellor Kent Hance and statements from the school paint the picture of an administration willing to talk and a coach too hard-headed and arrogant to cooperate. I thought Chancellor Hance's conversation with ESPN's Rece Davis was the most telling interview so far:

“Usually, when we tell somebody there's a problem, they work with us. And sometimes we have to tell the parent that the student was wrong. But anytime someone's physical activity is limited because of an injury, you need to be very careful what you do with them. And that's what I wanted Mike to do, and he chose not to. I took up for him last year, when he was having problems on his contract negotiations. I've been a big Mike Leach supporter. He is a great coach, but let me tell you: he is very unusual.”

He goes on:

“If you think that it's not severe punishment, I would just tell everyone that's listening to go in the bathroom of their house and close the door and turn off the lights and stand there for fifteen minutes. And then think of how that would be for three hours.”

And:

“Gerald Myers was like me early on: he was trying to save him. And if you're trying to pull a guy out of water, that's drowning, and he keeps hitting you and slipping away from you, it's almost impossible. Gerald did not want to fire him when we all got started on this, but once we looked into it, and he was not willing to work with us, then I think that he thought that he had gotten to a point that he was not accountable to anyone, and in an educational system that's just not true.”

Finally:

“We have not found one doctor who says that the remedy for a concussion is to be put in a shed for two hours, standing up, in the dark. And three hours the next day, standing up, in the dark. That is not a remedy.”