Michael Lee Lanning
It has been eight years since Texas Tech University fired Mike Leach, its most successful football coach ever. Double T Double Cross released two years later, exposed the backroom deals behind his dismissal. Now Double Take reveals what has happened to the participants and events since with a new introduction and afterword to the 2017 edition. Even though life has moved on for the participants in the story, there remains a keen interest in Leach and what went on in Lubbock at the end of the 2009 football season. Leach, in his fifth year as head coach at Washington State University, remains innovative and forward-looking but he has not given up in seeking justice from Texas Tech.More than 300 people lined up for the initial release and author’s signing of Double T Double Cross in the fall of 2011. Reviews, both online and in print periodicals, were extremely positive. A few of the actors—those exposed in the book for their backroom deals that led to the firing of Coach Mike Leach—threatened lawsuits. One actually followed through but the complaint never made it out of the initial filing stages. As always, the best defense against any accusation is the truth; not a single line or sentence in the original Double T Double Cross has been proven false or inaccurate.Coach Leach and the Red Raiders had departed Lubbock heading for San Antonio on Monday, December 28, 2009, to complete preparations for the upcoming post-season bowl game to be played four days later. Upon his arrival in the Alamo City, however, Leach received a stunning telephone call from Athletic Director Myers telling him that he had been suspended from coaching duties—effective immediately—until further notice.The team—after its spectacular 2008 year—had just completed another successful season, racking up an 8-4 record and making Mike Leach the most winning football coach in Texas Tech history. Not only had the Red Raiders, who had been un-ranked and mostly unnoted a decade before Leach took over, gained national recognition, but also they had done it in a style that old-school proponents of the game said could not be done. Coach Leach had had the vision, and his players had executed it right into the Top 25 in the polls. The Raiders had been flying in more ways than just on planes.Instead of working on plans for the game scheduled for January 2, Leach sat alone in his hotel room awaiting a legal decision from the 99th Judicial Court in Lubbock, a ruling that would either lift or uphold his coaching suspension imposed two days before by his bosses, Texas Tech Athletic Director Gerald Myers and University President Guy Bailey.
