Watch: Mississippi coach Mike Leach’s ‘fat little girlfriends’ rant goes viral after his death

Football coach Mike Leach has been notorious for his statements in press conferences. He would often go off topic to deliver something as random as his love for pirates to marriage to absurd Halloween advice. 

Leach, who died due to heart complications on December 12, 2022, had garnered a celebrity-like status over the years. To honor his legacy, people are relooking at the most iconic statements from his press conferences over the year. 

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Several quotes have gained traction, one of which seems to originate from the year 2009 when Leach commented on his player’s low efforts. 

Leach said “As coaches, we fail to make our coaching points and our points more compelling than their fat little girlfriends. Their fat little girlfriends have some obvious advantages. For one thing, their fat little girlfriends are telling them what they want to hear, which is how great you are.”

Leach continues, “And how easy it’s going to be. And how, you know, we had a bunch of people- everyone wanted to win the football game, but nobody wanted to play the football game. That defies every level of work ethic that exists with regard to football.”

“As coaches, we have to solve our failure on reaching them and the players have to listen. And I’m going to go to fairly amazing lengths to try to make that happen. I don’t know if I’ll be successful this week or not… I am going to try and there may be some people inconvenienced and if it happens to be their fat little girlfriends, too bad.”

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Leach seemed to reference this recently, saying his players drink and eat with their “fat little girlfriends” than work on their game. 

Leach was the head coach of Mississippi since 2020, and previously coached at Texas Tech University from 2000 to 2009, and Washington State University from 2012 to 2019, where he set the record for third-most wins of any coach in school history.