In case you aren't aware, Mike Leach is a real-life pirate. He does pirate things and tells pirate tales. We're unaware if he's ever contracted scurvy or found golden treasures not named Michael Crabtree, but as America's most famous living brigand, he's definitely one to always watch out for good stories of his times at sea.
Today we can add a little of Chief Martin Brody to Leach's overall pirate persona. Brian Floyd has the story at CougCenter of Leach's encounter with a shark (on Shark Week, no less!).
So as Joe and I are coming towards the boat, a fella named Charlie gets in the boat and says 'I don't want to alarm you, but there's a big shark circling this boat.' We realized we're probably about 65 yards from the boat. But we are in chest-deep water. And son of a gun there's a shark circling that boat.
So what we do is we got together so we looked as big an object as possible. And the one thing was I will say we weren't swimming. Our feet were on the ground. If it came to any hand-to-hand stuff, we probably would've lost our arms and everything, but probably would've survived.
The shark would swim one way ... we'd scoot up to the boat and stop and stand there. The one thing I will say: The shark, he didn't look like he was all stirred up. He kind of looked like he was kind of swimming through his neighborhood and looking for some more chicken bones, to be perfectly honest. So we worked our way up to the boat and climbed into the boat."
Doesn't this tale make perfect sense for Leach? Leach is a man who loves to fish (check out the excellent SB Nation feature with Spencer Hall for more on the subject), and an encounter with the beasts of the water makes perfect sense for him. The way he handled the situation was so crafty, it makes you remember he's one of the most innovative minds on the college football landscape just as much as he is a pirate.
There's always a good tale or two to be had with Captain Leach.
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