I get what you’re saying, Mike Leach. I also get why you’re saying it.

Your rear’s so sore you probably still can’t sit after last weekend’s 52-30 butt-whoopin’ from in-state rival Texas A&M. A loss at home, no less, and one that knocked you out of the Top 25. Ouch.

You’re understandably mad. You think your players got cocky, basking in the glory of the previous week’s big win and overlooking the next opponent. I’d be a little steamed, too, given the situation. You’re also the master of the colorful quote – not all of them politically correct, but still the type of material that makes a sportswriter’s eyes light up as she scurries to make sure that line’s preserved in her notes.

But for God’s sake, Mike, you’re not an uneducated man. Pepperdine doesn’t give out phone-it-in law degrees, so there must be some sort of intellect bumping around in that brain of yours. Enough, at least, to know how infantile it is to launch into a misogynistic rant over a loss.

Yes, I’m talking about the “fat li’ ol’  girlfriends” – you know, the ones you blamed for distracting your players and causing the loss to A&M. It was no slip of the lip, either, because you said it several times in the span of about a minute. The whole thing hearkened back to the days when athletes wouldn’t have sex before competition out of fear that the first performance would take away from the second.

The thing is, if you’d said put it differently, you would have been right: Some college-age people get so wrapped up in the world telling them that they’re great that they forget that being great takes a ton of work. It’s not just the girlfriends artificially inflating their egos.

I don’t envy you – you’re dealing with the first wave of athletes who were given trophies just for showing up since before they were old enough to tie their shoes. You’re facing the same thing college officials across the country are struggling with – a subset of students raised to be such fragile little flowers that they wilt without Mom and Dad to tell them what to do and when to do it. And Mom and Dad like it that way – that’s why they keep calling the deans to complain about grades and show up on job interviews after they’ve earned the diploma.

The bad news: It’s going to get worse. You know that, too. You have four kids – you see what’s going on.

So Stop Wasting America’s Time by blaming it all on the distractions of wicked, wicked women, Coach Leach. You have a great point, if you’d just make it in a less odious way.

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Copyright 2009 Debra Legg. All rights reserved.

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