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Sonny Cumbie honors Mike Leach, his former coach, at C-USA Media Day

Keith Farner

By Keith Farner

Published:

Sonny Cumbie became the latest coach to honor Mike Leach, and this time the Louisiana Tech coach did it at the Conference USA Media Day. Cumbie wore a pirate cowbell pin on Tuesday.

Cumbie followed Joey McGuire, who had a custom suit in Leach’s honor 2 weeks ago at Big 12 Media Days.

Leach was nicknamed the pirate, had several pirate-theme pieces in his office and wrote a book called, “Swing Your Sword: Leading the Charge in Football and Life.” After Leach passed away in December, Mississippi State at its bowl game against Illinois in Tampa, Florida wore pirate helmets. Texas Tech also lined up in an Air Raid formation at the Texas Bowl.

Cumbie walked on for the Red Raiders in 2000, and later earned the starting role his senior season and led the country in passing yards (4,742 yards) and total offense (4,575 yards) with 32 touchdowns. Texas Tech went 7-4 in the regular season and upset Cal in the Holiday Bowl, where the Red Raiders were huge underdogs. Cumbie completed 39 of 60 passes for 520 yards (still a Holiday Bowl record) and 3 TDs in the win over the Bears, according to his LaTech bio.

 

Keith Farner

A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.

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