Peabody: Life, Friends Baseball

Last week down in the wilds of Utah, Brigham Young University laid a beating on the WSU Cougars, it’s been five days or so, but it was a bunch to three (3)…first time in a generation that somebody had not scored a touchdown. Whether it was Leach and his teams or just WSU, I don’t think it is really pertinent.

With all of his rock star tour hype the past six month, some of the helium has leaked out of Leach’s jowls with that thrashing. This week they play the Eastern Washington Cougars from Cheney. Leach, the WSU fans and the half dozen ex-Cougar reporters and talkers are sweating bullets. They can’t rag on the Cheney Cougars because its a junior high team and if the BYU Cougar game is any prologue then those Cheney boys will be running up and down the field.

What are the odds that two teams from tiny towns, Cheney and Pullman, would have colleges and each have a cougar as a mascot?

You can tell that Leach is worried sick, because rather than talk about his cougars or the other cougars, the Cheney ones, he chose to talk about a rally that the Washington Husky coach, Steve Sarkisian put on for his players. The Huskies play the LSU Tigers and Sark brought a Tiger to the practice to motivate and familiarize the players with being near a Tiger in a cage.

So word of this cleverness reached Leach and there were reporters, three or four deep around Leach and he suggested putting a Husky inside the cage with the Tiger. Then several of the reporters, all ex-cougars, tweeted versions of Leach’s words.

The version I first saw made it seem like he meant throw a Husky player in with the Tiger. Well, shoot fire! That made me immediately recollect Leach’s tendency to whack and abuse players, sort of a modern day Bobby Knight as it were.

So I thought there should be some kind of contest, or contests, prizes and charitable giving etc., which I know nothing beyond Jerry’s kids, but wait a minute, have this contest or the first contest is, how many weeks or games into the season before Leach goes off the straight and narrow and whacks a kid, hits trips or kicks him?

Two, ten, twelve…or maybe its a longer term deal, second year maybe or third year, kind of like betting on the New York to Paris race.

There are all kinds of details, such as entry fees and who holds the pot, the whole charity thing. Some special rulings need to be made up front to deal with locking kids in dark rooms, is that the equivalent of a kick or a punch? Throwing a clipboard, does it have to hit a kid? What if it hits one of the managers, trainers or coaches? Two points for hitting a cheer leader? What if it’s during practice? Same as game day?

I was thinking of naming it The Frank Kush Memorial Uppercut Festival. Or The Mike Leach Rock Em Sock Em Derby. I’m open to reader suggestions.

First prize gets a trip to Colfax, second prize a dinner in Washtucna.

Send me your cards and letters.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 6th, 2012 at 4:14 pm by terrybenish and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.