‘RESTRICTIVE CLAUSES’ ROOT CAUSE OF LEACH CONTRACT DISPUTE

Over the weekend, reports surfaced that clauses inserted into a contract offer by Texas Tech to head coach Mike Leach were at the root of the negotiations coming to a halt.This afternoon, Leach put a voice to those concerns.Speaking on Sporting News Radio’s The Monty Show, Leach decried the insertion of “12th hour” “restrictive clauses” into the latest offer by the school, clauses that neither he nor his agents will seemingly ever agree to."Well the biggest thing is... the money is not the issue, and hasn’t been for some time,” Leach said in a transcript provided to CFT by the show. “After negotiating for over a year, at the 12th hour they put in four restrictive clauses which we’re not going to agree to any of the four."So it’s pretty much out of my hands and I’m just looking forward to coaching football. I’m excited about our upcoming team, excited about our recruiting class. We had the best recruiting class since I’ve been here and I’m thrilled with that."The clauses Leach referred to were laid out in Saturday’s edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and two of the issues revolved around buyouts and guaranteed money.Here’s the list of issues as spelled out by the paper:-- Leach’s existing contract guaranteed he would be paid $3.6 million of the base $9 million, about 40 percent, if he were terminated early by the university without cause. Tech’s new contract proposal only guaranteed $1.5 million, about 13.5 percent, of the base $11.1 million offer.-- Leach’s current contract has a buyout of $500,000, a 7-to-1 ratio compared to his guaranteed money for early departure. Tech’s new proposal calls for a $1.5 million buyout, the same as his guaranteed payment if he were fired.-- Leach’s existing contract doesn’t penalize or restrict him from discussing another job opportunity. Tech’s new offer dictates that Leach would have to be granted permission by Myers before talking to others about employment opportunities, and if he didn’t abide by those rules, he could be terminated for cause.-- Leach’s current contract allows him to control his own personal property rights, such as speaking engagements and TV and radio commercials, etc. Tech’s new proposal calls for the university to “acquire coach’s rights for outside athletics related income,” taking control from him and allowing Tech to maximize its income.Even given the sometimes contentious nature of the negotiations, Leach was very steadfast in his desire to remain at Texas Tech."Absolutely I want to be here and have wanted to be here from the beginning. It’s a great town, I’ve got kids in school here,” the coach said in this afternoon’s radio interview. “No, there’s never been a question of wanting to be here."If we win 7 games next year I’ll be the winningest coach in the history of Texas Tech history. I don’t think the guy that’s the winningest coach of various schools is the guy that wants to leave. And if that is, then that would be a situation that would be unique to here, so unequivocally ‘NO’, I’m excited about Tech and what we’ve built here."Incidentally, the Red Raiders have given Leach’s camp a February 17 deadline to accept their current offer. Needless to say, university officials should not be holding their collective breath in anticipation of such an event actually happening.