Mike Leach, the beloved Mississippi State football coach as well known for his homespun wit as his gridiron genius, has died after suffering a massive heart attack.

Leach, who was 61 and in his third year as Mississippi State’s coach, suffered what the university initially described as a “personal health issue,” later reported to be a heart attack, at his home in Starkville on Sunday. He was flown to the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, where he died.

“We are supported and uplifted by the outpouring of love and prayers from family, friends, Mississippi State University, the hospital staff, and football fans around the world,” Leach’s family said in a statement. “Thank you for sharing in the joy of our beloved husband and father’s life.”

MSU Bulldog family, college football community mourns the death of Coach Mike Leachhttps://t.co/LzWyLyX3xM

— Mississippi State Football (@HailStateFB) December 13, 2022

Leach, who pioneered the “Air Raid” offense while coaching at Texas Tech from 2000-2009, also had a successful stint at Washington State from 2012-2019 before taking on what would become his last job. Under Leach, Mississippi State posted a 19-17 record, including an 8-4 ledger this year.

Leach was known as much for his entertaining post-game press conferences as his offensive creativity. He would engage with reporters about history, politics, and popular culture in sometimes rambling, always entertaining sessions, whether his team won or lost.

“I miss streakers,” he once said after a fan ran onto the field and pulled down his pants during a 2017 Washington State win over Stanford in 2017. After Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, Leach jokingly offered to become his “Secretary of Offense.”

Leach, who offered up his advice on football and life in a 2011 book titled “Swing Your Sword: Leading the Charge in Football and Life,” often came off like a combination of John Madden and Will Rogers, tossing out colloquial quips laden with practical wisdom.

“Well, you’re going to be dead in a hundred years anyway, so live dangerously,” he once said.

Mississippi State President Mark Keenum said Leach made himself an institution at the school in just three seasons.

“Coach Mike Leach cast a tremendous shadow not just over Mississippi State University, but over the entire college football landscape,” Keenum said in a statement. “His innovative ‘Air Raid’ offense changed the game. Mike’s keen intellect and unvarnished candor made him one of the nation’s true coaching legends. His passing brings great sadness to our university, to the Southeastern Conference, and to all who loved college football. I will miss Mike’s profound curiosity, his honesty, and his wide-open approach to pursuing excellence in all things.”

Leach, who posted a record of 158-107 over 21 years of coaching, took an unorthodox route to college football. He grew up in Cody, Wyoming, played rugby in college at Brigham Young University, then earned a law degree from Pepperdine University in 1986. In addition to “Swing Your Sword,” Leach co-authored a book on Apache legend Geronimo’s leadership style.

Regarding his own athletic prowess, Leach once joked, “I bordered on great in dodge ball.”

But while he was at BYU, he came fascinated with then Coach LaVell Edwards and later began his football coaching career at Cal Poly in 1987. Two years later, while serving as an offensive assistant under Hal Mumme at Iowa Wesleyan, he devised his signature, pass-happy Air Raid offense. Leach would follow Mumme to Valdosta State and then University of Kentucky, where the offense helped turn quarterback Tim Couch into the No. 1 overall pick in the 1999 NFL draft.

Leach spent the 1999 season as Oklahoma’s offensive coordinator under coach Bob Stoops, before becoming head coach at Texas Tech, where his perfected offensive scheme put the program on the map. The Red Raiders went 11-2 in 2008, but he was fired a year later after a former player, Adam James, accused him of mistreating him after he suffered a concussion.

Washington State brought him in 2012 on to turn around a moribund program, and Leach obliged, leading the Cougars to a bowl game in his second season winning eight games or more from 2015-2018.

Leach is survived by his wife, Sharon; children Janeen, Kim, Cody and Kiersten; and three grandchildren.

New details emerged Monday evening over the alleged incident that led to the arrest of the University of Texas Men’s Basketball Head Coach Chris Beard.

Beard, 49, was arrested after the Austin Police Department reportedly responded to a “disturbance hot shot,” which the department says are incidents that “are in progress and are an immediate threat to life and/or public safety (i.e. shootings, stabbings, rapes, riots).”

The arrest affidavit said that Beard and his fiancée were having relationship issues and during a heated conversation he “snapped” and “became super violent,” according to Beard’s fiancée.

The incident began after Beard refused to communicate with her because he was mad at her, and when he came home he went to the guest room in the house, the fiancée said. She went into the guest room to check on him. He was reportedly laying on the bed twirling a pair of reading glasses in his hands when she grabbed them and broke them. Things quickly escalated from there.

Beard allegedly went to the main bedroom where he slapped the glasses she was wearing off her face. When the two were supposedly laying in bed together, she attempted to retrieve her glasses and she claims that was when she was thrown off the bed. She attempted to gather her things but reportedly couldn’t see because she didn’t have her glasses. She claims that he stood behind her and put his arm around her neck.

The woman said that she did not feel safe after “he choked me, threw me off the bed, bit me, bruises all over my leg, throwing me around, and going nuts.”

When asked by law enforcement if his choking her “impeded her breathing,” she replied, “yes, I could not breathe, he did it for probably like 5 seconds.”

When Beard was interviewed by police, he said that he had audio recordings that indicated that he was not the primary aggressor. When police asked if he was willing to share the recordings he said no.

Beard has been the head coach of the team for two years now since signing a seven-year contract that pays him $5 million per year.

The Austin American-Statesman reported that a clause in his contract allows the school to suspend or terminate him if “any conduct (a) that the University administration reasonably determines is clearly unbecoming to a Head Coach and reflects poorly on the University, the Program, or The University of Texas System; or (b) resulting in a criminal charge being brought against Head Coach involving a felony, or any crime involving theft, dishonesty, or moral turpitude.”