Law Schools

From Law School Grad To College Football Coaching, Mike Leach Defied Convention

Mississippi State head coach never left a dull moment.

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NCAA FOOTBALL: NOV 07 Arizona State at Washington State

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Mississippi State football coach Mike Leach died last night of complications related to a heart condition. One of the architects of the Air Raid offense that flew in the face of decades of football conventional wisdom and now sits — in one form or another — in every top program’s playbook, Leach embraced an unorthodox approach to just about everything, from his offense to teaching a course called “Insurgent Warfare and Football Strategies” to his willingness to deeply consider which animals you want on your side in a fight.

But the veteran coach never actually played college football himself. In fact, Leach committed to law school. How he got from there to football is how he became a patron saint of law students dreaming of an alternative.

Leach learned a lot at Pepperdine University School of Law that he would value throughout his career — though he was quick to note that the purpose of Pennoyer wasn’t one of them. “The probative value of Pennoyer is questionable to anybody that is truly honest with themselves,” he wrote.

Still, he developed some good advice for anyone going through the experience:

It is also important in the midst of all the intensity, energy, effort, fascination, gratification, drudgery, and boredom of law school that you maintain perspective. It is easy to let the constraints of law school get out of hand. As a result of these challenges, you see people develop drinking, gambling, drug, and marriage problems due to the level of intensity that goes along with the experience. When I was in law school, as kind of a battle cry when things got tough, we would chant “I love law!” to one another. Your fellow classmate may respond, “You got to love the law!” Unfortunately, the chant was not enough to prevent some individuals from breaking down under the pressure.

That’s from a Texas Tech Law Review article Leach wrote in 2009 about the parallels between law school and college football. He notes of both that, “it takes a certain amount of treachery and adaptation to be successful.” Fair.

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But after graduating in the top third from Pepperdine in 1986, Leach looked at the future of practicing law and…

When I graduated from law school, I was married, had a child, was broke, and owed the government $38,000 in student loans. Therefore, the notion of going to Europe to find myself for a year was basically out of the question. Feeling lost, I did what a lot of professional students do: I decided to get another degree. I went to the United States Sports Academy, took out another student loan, and obtained a master’s degree in sports science. I had always been interested in coaching and did not want to grow old wishing that I had tried coaching for a while. Wanting to get this out of my system, I decided to coach football for a couple of years at most and then settle down to practice law. Ultimately, one year led to the next, and I’m still coaching.

His $38K in debt works out to about $100K in today’s dollars — a reminder that law school costs have wildly outpaced inflation. Still, it’s more than enough to deter worried graduates from looking outside the law.

Ideally, if you’re not interested in practicing law you shouldn’t get a law degree in the first place, but if you mess up that first stumbling block, it’s not the end. It may require enduring some hardships in the short-term, but the world isn’t closed just because you earned a law degree you’re not using.

Leach’s law review article credits a lot of coaching lessons to his law school experience like approaching recruiting as a negotiation, cold calls as navigating hostile stadiums, and exam prep as a lesson in strategic planning. But he closes with the most important takeaway:

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The best description of a law degree is that it is a degree in problem solving. There are a lot of problems in the world right now. Find the problems you are passionate about and go solve them.

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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