STARKVILLE — The 2020 Road Dawgs Tour is off and running — virtually, that is.
Trading in breweries and restaurants around the South for weekly Zoom calls, Mississippi State football coach Mike Leach was among the three-coach contingent that kicked off this year’s online version of the annual event.
Joined by softball coach Samantha Ricketts and track and field coach Chris Woods, Leach spent almost an hour answering questions regarding his team’s return to play, video conference meetings and more.
“I think we’re in about as good a space as we can be because everybody is really excited to get out there,” Leach said. “When we were allowed to start working out some, to be perfectly honest, I’ve never seen a group more excited to get out there and work out.”
Speaking in reference to the team-wide Zoom calls he and the rest of the MSU coaching staff have grown accustomed to during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Leach noted the visual medium gives his players a chance to catch up and poke fun at one another in ways they hadn’t previously had during the varying stages of quarantine that have endured across the country.
That said, Leach did add that the meetings don’t have quite the same feel as those in-person sessions he and his staff have grown accustomed to.
“I find them quite awkward, because to me, if a meeting is working, people are engaged, people are locked in, and there’s at least a body language exchange,” he conceded. “So you kind of lack that, but there has definitely been an enthusiasm around our meetings.”
While actual workouts have been relatively limited in recent months, Leach also noted he’s had over 40 socially distanced and masked individual meetings with players in an attempt to learn his roster heading into his first year in Starkville.
Working through the analogous mix of players, the former Washington State head coach said the stiffest challenge has been keeping tabs on players’ physical shape given the limitations his staff has in terms of in-person practice capabilities.
Beyond the football field, Leach further indulged listeners into his past as a law student at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, during the mid-1980s. Having completed his undergraduate work at Brigham Young University, the 20-year coaching veteran initially headed to Pepperdine to pursue a career in law. And while Leach has never worked as a practicing lawyer, he noted the lessons learned in law school have helped him throughout his coaching career.
“I think it’s definitely helped,” Leach said of his law degree. “I think that any amount of knowledge helps. Any knowledge anyone gets I think is helpful because I think people draw more from the whole picture than they realize…I felt like law school organizes your thinking to a point. It’s not just about ‘OK, this is against the rules; this isn’t,’ but it organizes your thinking and, in other words, how to address an issue.”
With Leach serving as the headliner for the first of what will be a five-part series held each Tuesday via Twitter and Facebook over the coming month, Woods and Ricketts sounded off on their respective programs and where they stand during the current pandemic climate.
“Our communication with our team has been really (good),” Woods said. “Our different event coaches, they’re talking to the kids on a weekly basis.”
“It’s been an adjustment for all of us,” Ricketts added. “Just making sure that we’re providing them with the tools they need to continue to work and also be successful and take care of themselves in the meantime.”
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
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