LUBBOCK, TEXAS (AP) - Former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach has made the leap to Twitter after calling it “stupid” two years ago.
Leach’s debut tweet earlier this month (at)Coach_Leach said: “So I only get 140 characters on this thing?…That’s it?! This is going to be tough. Hello Twitter world.”
Early in a tumultuous 2009 season, Leach banned players from using Twitter, calling it a “stupid” distraction. The ban came after a players noted Leach’s alleged tardiness to a team meeting.
Texas Tech fired Leach that December, two days after he was suspended amid allegations of mistreating a player with a concussion. He tweeted that he is “looking forward to coaching again at the right time, at the right place.”
Leach has denied mistreating Adam James, the son of ESPN analyst Craig James, and has said he suspects an $800,000 bonus he was due the next day was the reason he was fired.
Leach said the idea of him setting up a Twitter account kept coming up _ from people he works with on his Sirius satelitte radio, at CBS where he was an analyst last season and from the publishing world. A book is due out this summer sometime, he said.
“I’m still not fully comfortable with it,” Leach said.
In September 2009, Leach said players get enough attention without using Twitter. He called them “a bunch of narcissists that want to sit and type stuff about themselves all the time. We’ll put mirrors in some of their lockers if that’s necessary but they don’t have to Twitter.”
Leach also said players’ Facebook pages would be monitored because he didn’t want his players sharing information about the football team on them.
Leach sued the university for wrongful termination. A decision in January from the 7th Court of Appeals upheld Texas Tech’s assertion of sovereign immunity, though it allows Leach to pursue a non-monetary ruling that he was wrongfully let go.
Texas Tech attorneys have argued the university is a state entity with sovereign immunity, meaning it can only be sued with permission from the state Legislature or a waiver based on a defendant’s conduct.
Leach’s attorneys have said they believe Texas Tech’s conduct warrants a waiver by conduct and have appealed the sovereign immunity issue to the Texas Supreme Court.
Texas state Rep. Craig Eiland, D-Galveston, filed a proposal in March that would allow Leach’s wrongful dismissal lawsuit against the school to proceed.
Late last year, Leach filed a separate libel suit that accuses ESPN and a Dallas PR agency of slander.
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