Mike Leach: Visiting Hawaii for recruiting actually sucks

You’d think that one of the perks of being a college football coach, particularly on this coast of the country, is all the beautiful places you can visit, even while recruiting. Like, say, the beautiful state of Hawaii.

Washington State Cougars coach Mike Leach would like you to know that these are work trips, thank you, and recruiting in Hawaii actually sucks and “is one of the worst things ever”:

“You fly to Hawaii, fly in, look at it and it looks just spectacular,” Leach said, “and you see all the outstanding things people are doing there because it’s Hawaii. OK, but however, you’re leaving in 10 hours. So after being on a plane for five hours or more, over five hours, you’ll get your rental car, maybe go eat at the shrimp truck, maybe buy a shirt. So then you go do your home visit, you race to the airport and get on that plane and fly back.

“OK, here’s paradise, here’s what it looks like, it’s right outside your car window. Oh yeah, it would be fun to go in the ocean, it would be fun to hike up that. Yeah, screw you, you’re getting back on the plane, you’re going to sit where you started for another 5 1/2, six hours. No, it’s brutal.”

I’m not sure I could be convinced that visiting Hawaii, at any time, “is one of the worst things ever,” but I’m thinking I might be able to be convinced that being so close and unable to do any of the fun stuff is actually pretty awful. Kinda like those Apollo 13 astronauts who were supposed to go to the moon, made it into space, and then had to abandon their lunar landing, I guess?

That quote, by the way, comes from Theo Lawson’s fun story on Leach’s globe trotting during the last couple of offseasons. It’s definitely worth a read.