Washington State head football coach Mike Leach admits to having his "bad habits," but he still reads his scriptures.
Leach, a Mormon who attended Brigham Young University, was asked how many times he's read the Bible in a recent interview with USA Today. His response might be surprising to some, given his reputation for colorful language and other quirks.
"Four. I read the entire Old Testament and New Testament. I’m on my fifth," the Washington State coach told USA Today. "Despite some of my bad habits along with those four times, I read the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. Yeah, I’ve got bad habits, and I’m sure I’ve got a red dot next my name."
Leach went on to say that he reads 10 pages of the King James version before games. It brings "a relaxation, a calmness and clarity" to his thoughts, along with a big-picture life perspective, Leach said.
"There’s enough conflict to be aware of in the Bible, but then also, just kind of the biggest point of all, which is that there’s more to this, and life’s a process. You keep working through it, and there’s going to be ups and downs," Leach said. "And it’s not like ’Oh goodie, I get a big reward at the end.’ I don’t view it that way. I think that when you die, you continue to progress. You continue to grow in kind of an elevated state, but I don’t think you sit there and wallow around and play the harp. I really don’t."
Read the entire USA Today article here.
Some sportswriters have dubbed the eccentric Leach the "most interesting man in college football," according to a Deseret News article.
"The life story of the Washington State football coach has been well-chronicled — how he never played college football, went on to earn a law degree as well as a master's degree and then decided to start from ground zero and pursue his real passion of coaching football and became one of the great innovative minds of offensive football," Mike Sorensen wrote in 2014.
"Aside from football, Leach is a voracious reader of books and likes to spend his summers in Key West, Florida, and often travels around learning as much as he can about a particular subject from pirates to chimpanzees to the artist Jackson Pollack. He’s curious and inquisitive, always asking questions and studying other people."