Mike Leach returns to Lexington where he helped get Air Raid going

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Mike Leach has been back to Kentucky for a book signing since his days on Hal Mumme’s coaching staff but he did not return to Lexington when he was head coach at Texas Tech or Washington State. He’ll be back Saturday night as head coach of Mississippi State and is looking forward to seeing friends.

“It’s just a gorgeous city, Lexington is, and a great setting for a football game. Now, I’m looking forward to going back to Kentucky,” Leach said Monday. “In football, you know, you get asked the memory lane question quite a bit. Not a lot of time to walk down memory lane, but it’ll be good to see Lexington again.”

He was at UK as offensive coordinator when Mumme brought the Air Raid offense that unleashed Tim Couch and brought a special excitement to then Commonwealth Stadium and state of Kentucky.

Leach said he was “just in the trenches” trying to do his job during the Air Raid beginning.

“You’re most-involved in practice. Go to practice, watch film, try to improve, try to improve. From that standpoint, in the thick of it you’re not very conscious of it. I’m credited with the title Air Raid,” Leach said.

“When we were at Iowa Wesleyan College some guy brought in an air raid siren. That was fun at that time to name offenses. There were all the different names they had for a variety of offenses. You know West Coast Offense, Fun and Gun, Run and Shoot.”

Okay now get ready for Leach to go off subject a little — something he always does but always makes it so interesting you want to listen.

“Anyway, this guy, Bob Lamb, comes in with an air raid siren. Our offices were in a basement of a gym that was built in about 1890. Iowa Wesleyan College is the oldest college west of the Mississippi, and it was actually a site for the Lincoln-Douglas debates. You see the gym on ‘Hoosiers’? Our gym was more Hoosiers than that gym on ‘Hoosiers’. We’re downstairs in the bowels of the basement. I was next to the boiler room,” Leach said.

“Come to find out Davey Lopes, the famous baseball player for the Dodgers, that had been his apartment way back when he played baseball at Iowa Wesleyan for a period of time. So he comes in there with this siren and says ‘Look what I’ve got.’ He turns that thing on and it’s loud as can be because it’s echoing off all the walls.”

Leach did his own Air Raid sound and explained how Iowa Wesleyan would usually have about 1,000 fans, maybe 3,000 for a big game. Lamb would stand in the end zone and sound the siren when Iowa Wesleyan scored.

“Then after a while, he and his friends had so much fun with it, they’d just blast it for anything, randomly, whenever they felt like it. Even when the other quarterback was trying to call plays because we didn’t have a lot of crowd noise there. He’d get kicked out of games and stuff and have to go stand on the edge of the fence in the back. It was greatness,” Leach said

“From there, they started calling it the Air Raid. I’m kind of credited with the idea of calling it the Air Raid because I said, ‘Well hey, we could call it the Air Raid,’ and it stuck.”

Leach says he stays in touch with Mumme and they have met in Key West — which seems like a perfect spot for these two to meet and talk. He explained Mumme is still doing a “lot of clinics and things” to stay involved in football.

“Whether he’s got a team or not, he’s always in the thick of it with coaches drawing things up. Drawing things up on napkins, sometimes cloth napkins, which yeah we’ve had some funny expressions on waiters’ faces over the years when he can’t find paper. He grabs a cloth napkin and starts drawing stuff. He’s still in it, front and center,” Leach said.

Then Leach went Leach during the Mississippi State press conference and played the Air Raid siren recording on his phone.

“I’m going to get my grandkids one of these things. My daughter and her husband, they need to hear this, because I went through years of random noises and rambunctiousness and broken toys and broken glass. I’m going to buy each of my grandkids one of those,” Leach said

Welcome back to the zany world of coach Mike Leach and his offensive prowess.

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