SEC Commissioner honors the late Mike Leach at SEC Media Days

By WVUA 23 Sports Reporter Nathan Brown

The 2023 SEC Media Days are here, being hosted in Nashville, Tennessee for the first time. Full coverage of college football’s premier conference always provides exciting headlines exhilarating anxious college football fans for the beginning of the season. This year’s event will also be without the countless memorable soundbites of one of the game’s great storytellers, Mike Leach.

The former Mississippi State head coach passed away suddenly in December of complications with a heart related issue.

While Leach is no longer with us, his charismatic ‘larger-than-life’ aura continues to lights up rooms. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey honored the late coach with a gesture and story fit for “The Pirate”.

While speaking with the media on the main stage, Sankey made it a point to acknowledge one of the memorable conversations that he had with Leach last year at SEC Media Days in Atlanta. In typical Leach fashion the intricate topic of discussion had nothing to do with the game of football.

“It was a conversation that went much longer than I anticipated and ended in the rhetorical question of why neckties survived when powder wigs went away,” Sankey remembered. “…today I am without a tie just to honor Mike’s memory.”

Leach’s former team, Mississippi State Bulldogs and new head coach Zach Arnett take their turn at SEC Media Days on Tuesday. Arnett will be joined by MSU quarterback Will Rogers, running back Jo’Quavious Marks and defensive lineman Jaden Crumedy.

They say people come and go but legends last forever, and the one in a generation Mike Leach is undoubtedly a college football legend forever.