For Texas Tech football fans, perhaps the only thing more stressful than witnessing ESPN broadcaster Craig James effectively oust their winningest coach in school history during the offseason for illegitimate reasons has been the last two weeks.
(Craig James said it, not us)
The Red Raiders suffered a blowout 52-38 loss to lowly Iowa State last week - allowing an improbable touchdown to the Cyclones on an onside kick in the process. Then today Texas Tech took on Baylor, another Big 12 also-ran that during former coach Mike Leach’s tenure was normally viewed as a breather on the schedule.
But under new, defensive-minded Tommy Tuberville, Tech’s defense surrendered 38 points to the Bears while incredibly allowing another freak touchdown on an onside kick in barely escaping with a 45-38 victory. The win allowed the Red Raiders to narrowly avoid starting the conference season 0-3, something Tech fans haven’t seen since 1990, ten years before Leach started his decade-long run of excellence at the school.
With such freak events going against Tech the past two weeks - including the shredding of a defense never seen during Leach’s tenure - I got to thinking about a quote ESPN’s James blessed us with about his ousting of Leach during his sermon at a Dallas evangelical church last May:
“I have felt strongly that we have been in a spirtual war for the past four months. Our faith, our christian family has sustained us. … It’s important to lead a godly life.”
Five months before James started his own “spiritual war” against Leach by threatening to sue the school unless it fired the coach late last year - a threat that has been confirmed by Tech Chancellor Kent Hance and Tech attorneys but gone virtually unreported by main media - apparently his god also instructed him to badger then-current Texas Tech assistant coaches about son Adam’s playing time:
Craig James called Tech Director of Football Operations Tommy McVay in September, “to tell him, in effect, that you coaches are crazy and you’re screwing my kid.”
Leach’s lawsuit also alleges that James called then-Tech assistant coach Lincoln Riley stating, in effect, ‘You don’t know what you’re doing. Adam James is the best player at the wide receiver position. If you’ve got the balls to call me back, and I don’t think you do, call me back.’”
So what did getting Leach and his assistants fired last season contribute to son Adam’s football career under a new coach in 2010? In 2009, as a wide receiver for Leach’s Red Raiders, Adam James caught 17 passes and scored a touchdown.
Since his dad’s “spiritual war” broke out? This season, the already-undersized James was moved to tight end by Tuberville and has exactly zero catches.
Now, all this isn’t to say that James isn’t right about being in a spiritual war involving his own god. But if Proverbs 16:18 in the James Bible is any indication - “Pride goes before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” - is it unreasonable to conclude that the ESPN announcer may be on the wrong side of it?
7:49 pm on October 9th, 2010
Hilarious.
8:40 pm on October 9th, 2010
brooks, i could not possibly be further on the team leach side of this, but the baylor game is a bad example as tech was only a 1 point favorite
10:34 pm on October 9th, 2010
The chancellor and board fired the coach Lawsuits aren’t a nuclear bomb. They… Univ officials are to blame period
5:22 am on October 10th, 2010
Craig James is a self important d-bag
6:29 am on October 10th, 2010
“including the shredding of a defense never seen during Leach’s tenure”
obviously so not true
10:34 pm on October 10th, 2010
craig james is a narcissist and hypocrite. Absolutely NO personal morales or integrity whatsoever. Playing the religion angle is pitiful….and will backfire on him big time. His son, crybaby james has absolutely ZERO Div 1 talent….what a sickening family the james’ are.
1:32 pm on October 11th, 2010
craig james is a deuchebag hypocrite!!! Adam is a lieing panty waste loser!!! Loved seeing him get his bell wrong in the UT game!!!
2:35 pm on October 11th, 2010
Regarding the 52 point shredding, you are correct. While we huing 52+ on opponents 28 times during Leach’s run as head coach, we did give up 52+ a total of 8 times…..but to all ranked teams , including 4 times to the #1 or #2 ranked teams….but NEVER to a lowly, mediocre team as IOWA f’n STATE like the clown tubby did in year #1. Tubby is a sanke oil salesman who will DEF lead us back to mediocrity.
2:38 pm on October 11th, 2010
P.S. - and thanks to the fraud aka Tubby, our consectuvice bowl streak is very likely to come to an end…..and he inherited a WINNER, not some rebuilding project.
2:18 am on October 12th, 2010
Couldn’t happen to a bigger douche. Calhoun is a arrogant jerk who has always told the school what he WOULD do.
10:41 am on October 14th, 2010
Realize, Coach Leach had all the support a cashed strapped University could give him ……… until Kent Hance became the Chancelor!! Why? All the hees and haws began with him.
ESPN allowed a conflict of interest in letting a Father be an announcer on his own son’s school. (Said Father - aligning to run for Senator out of Texas). Kent Hance (former Dem. - now Repu., appointed Chancelor by a Repu. Gov., (plus the “whole BOR). Sounding stratigically funny yet?
BOR, is wholely committed to the reelection of “their candidates”
The Pirate is a “”Mormon”" …. James and Hance, and Co. can not abide “:that”.
James has a NON- eligible Div.1 kid on a televised team.
EVERYONE has to appease the (moneyed) BOR and Boosters who don’t want a “” Mormon”" around our players.
Thus, the Dec. ‘09 Massacre … Because the above ‘cabal’ really don’t think there’s any thing “immoral” about slandering an innocent man - NOT when he’s a Mormon, because”they don’t count! MHO
Start the trial …. Let the TRUTH come OUT!!
10:47 pm on October 17th, 2010
Tech is headed to a new level not seen in the last 10 years, the lower level of the Big 12. The media in Lubbock is claiming there is no talent at Tech, in defending Tubberville. 16 of 22 starters back, and they claim no talent. Coach Leach must have been a great coach to get all of those wins, with “no talent”. Craig James reminds me of small school parents whose no talent kids get to play more because of small town politics. The only difference is, Craig James was doing at Division 1 level. The biggest joke of all was that the Tech administration listened to the idiot James and fired the best football coach Tech ever had…
10:05 am on October 24th, 2010
James is the pariah of Texas football… and his cub has no chance in life with his “entitled victim” mentality. Man, I dislike those liberals.
I cannot believe that a major sports station would condone an employee using their influence to advance a private agenda. The James boys are really delusional. Anyway, I don’t watch ESPN much, and on occasion when checking scopes, I go eslewhere when I see this James boob. The media has gone about as low as they can go.
TT already made a deal their with the devil with Kent Hance… and part of this deal brought the James’s. How dare he bring the Lord our God into his petty ambitions. I am the same age as Craig… hope to see him in Texas someday so we can continue this connversation.
10:54 am on October 24th, 2010
Correction, John, he brought “his” god into this, not “Our God”.
3:59 pm on November 6th, 2010
I’m not a big fan of Texas Tech, Mike Leach or Craig James. However, factually James threatened to sue if they didn’t investigate, not “threatening to sue the school unless it fired the coach late last year” as you’ve written. Technically, they could have discovered that Adam James was lazy and that the coach was justified in his discipline of James. That wasn’t the result, and Texas Tech had it in their best interest to keep the winning-est coach in their history.
10:53 pm on December 21st, 2010
you are correct. While we huing 52+ on opponents 28 times during Leach’s run as head coach, we did give up 52+ a total of 8 times…..
4:18 pm on January 31st, 2011
Criag James is a Republican. Therefore, how could he not be a D-bag, hypocrite, corrupt, selfish, self absorbed, confused, lying sack?
10:36 am on December 6th, 2011
I waited since 1962 to see Tech find a Leach type coach that would make them competitors. The guy is a football genius at the college level. Then along comes Craig James and his son and almost overnight ruins the progress Leach made at Tech. Lubbock citizens and Tech exes should tar and feather Kent Hance and James.
I will bring the boiling tar.