Mike Leach, Party Pirate.

When you write for a sportsblog, people email you things. Obscene rants about what an idiot you are. "Tips"  from a guy they know whose ex-girlfriend's accountant once spent a weekend in Tijuana with Steve Spurrier and a Uruguayan hand model named Pepe. Cease and desist orders, usually from Pepe (which I'm ignoring by the way because, dammit, my source was credible).

But, if you're really lucky, they email you the link to a Webshots gallery from the opening of Jimmy Johnson's bar in Key West, J.J.'s Big Chill. And that gallery includes a picture of Mike Leach getting his party on Margaritaville-style, while wearing a shirt with dozens of blue marlin and sailfish on it, some of whom appear to be decapitated:

I'm not entirely sure why he seems so hesitant to put his hand on the woman in blue's shoulder. Maybe she just got through telling him what a big Ole Miss fan she is.

Seeing most college football coaches (besides Mike Price) during their downtime is like seeing your high school principal at T.G.I. Friday's.  They're quietly drinking iced tea and reading the latest issue of Golf Digest while waiting for an order of loaded potato skins. But one would have to imagine that the forecast for an offseason spent with Mike Leach would include a 60% chance of sailing through a hurricane, a 50% chance of entering Cuba via johnboat under cover of darkness, and a 40% chance of cigars with Zbigniew Brzezinski. And for all of this I salute him. The man should get a royalty for those Dos Equis commercials featuring "the most interesting man in the world".

What does this have to do with college football? Not a thing. But if you don't find the notion of Jimmy Johnson and Mike Leach on the loose in Key West mildly entertaining in a general, nonsporting sense, then I feel for you.

Until later . . .

Go 'Dawgs!!!