Mike Leach and Texas Tech come to terms on five year contract

February 19, 5:31 PMSports ExaminerPaula Duffy

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UPDATE:

Only a day after it appeared that football coach Mike Leach would be fired from his job at Texas Tech, the parties were able to reconcile their differences.

Leach agreed to the new five-year, $12.7 million deal after meeting with the Chancellor of the university. It's clear that the direct communication between Leach and the ultimate decision maker did the trick.

Bruce Feldman of ESPN The Magazine reported that the school made the determination it didn't want to lose the coach. Leach, according to Feldman seems to have gotten his way with the contract provisions that had caused the impasse.

In the end, Feldman thinks that Leach wanted to be treated with more respect and the school was willing to accommodate him to keep him. Details on the specific contract language weren't available.

 ORIGINAL STORY:

We just saw the swift reversal of a Facebook policy that had sought to claim ownership of anything and everything posted on individual pages.

What you'll find out by analyzing the reaction of the social networking site's users is that money isn't everything. Sometimes it's just about owning your own stuff.

When Mike Leach and  his agent turned down the latest contract extension offered by Texas Tech to the school's successful football coach they complained about two things: an onerous monetary penalty if Leach leaves to take another job and the school's insistence that he assign the rights to exploit his name and face for commercial purposes.

The size of a buyout by Leach to go somewhere else is not the biggest problem. In many instances, schools that want Leach will reimburse him for that cost.

The head-scratcher to me is the sudden decision of the school to control Leach's ability to be a commercial spokesman.

Since I don't know the intent of the school it's unclear why this popped up at the 11th hour of negotiations. In concert with the bump in the price for his freedom it seems unfriendly at best and at worst, a guaranteed way to get Leach to turn down the contract extension and send him on his merry way.

The recent contract proposals in the revised offer are signs to me that Tech is afraid Leach has grown too big for his britches, or whatever they wear down in Lubbock. Big time schools know that star coaches add luster to their campus for many other purposes. Perhaps Texas Tech needs the university, rather than its coach to be the brightest star in the sky.

Can you imagine Coach K having to clear his American Express commercials with Duke? That school knows it benefits from Krzyzewki getting as much exposure as he can.

I'm not saying Leach has reached that status but he is surely one of the current darlings of NCAA Division I football and is intriguing for companies who want to project a certain image to their consuming public.

During the recent season, Leach was asked ad-nauseum about his intention to seek other employment when big schools lost their football coaches. It's apparent the university wasn't happy with that and the thought that he might become even more sought after rots its socks.

But trying to keep him from the pages of a magazine as the face of let's say, Jiffy Lube, isn't going to buy them piece of mind that others won't seek him out and tempt him to pull the rip chord on his buyout.

I wouldn't be surprised if Leach found that one contract proposal to be the last straw.

Photo source: nashvillescene.com