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Mike Leach: Pac-12 had 11 votes for satellite camps, not against

Graham Watson

Washington State coach Mike Leach want the Pac-12s vote against satellite camps changed after he claims an overwhelming majority of the conference supported keeping the camps.

In an interview with the Rich Eisen Show on Wednesday, Leach said 11 Pac-12 programs voted in favor of keeping satellite camps and one program abstained. Leach did not name which program abstained.

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“We’re trying to uncover this and I’m sure most of the Pac-12 is trying to uncover this,” Leach said. “So the Pac-12 poll on satellite camps was 11, 11 in favor. Eleven in favor of satellite camps. One abstention. How that unfolds into a vote against satellite camps, I can’t imagine. I can’t possibly imagine. I mean it’s unfathomable. I don’t know if somehow the rule was written in a double negative and a mistake was made. I don’t know.

“If 11 are in favor of something and all of a sudden it’s voted against, something’s wrong. I mean, could be an innocent mistake, but something’s completely wrong. Because our room, when it comes to voting on it, the least I’ve seen is eight. And then I heard when it went forward, it’s 11 with one abstention and we come away as having voted against it. And that needs to be changed and our vote needs to be changed and that needs to reflect the will of the schools in our conference.”

UCLA athletic Dan Guerrero was the Pac-12 representative, but a UCLA spokesman told SI earlier this week that Guerrero would not comment on the vote.

Leach has been one of the conference’s most outspoken critics of last Friday’s vote to nix the camps that had been in existence for nearly 10 years without incident.

Leach likened the passing of the rule to changes to the game clock a couple years ago that were designed to slow down up-tempo offenses.

“For all our posturing and pompously parading around pretending everything’s about the student-athlete, we just cut out a whole bunch of opportunities for them and we’ve done it for no better reason than we’re jealously, selfishly trying to guard our recruiting areas or we’re too lazy to work the camps,” Leach said. “And you’ve got a competitive game like college football and some schools just selfishly want to guard their recruiting area and feel threatened competitively. The insecurity that this entire thing is laced with maybe even more disturbing. How can these people be so insecure? Why are they so scared of somebody coming into their area and recruiting? I think it’s crazy on a lot of levels.”

Leach said he has no plans on curbing his crusade to get the satellite camp rule changed and he set on making his protests as visible as possible.

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“I think there’s plenty of people that want to selfishly shut (satellite camps) down for their own selfish purposes to protect their recruiting areas or, worse yet, because they’re lazy,” Leach said. “They want to do all their stuff in the dark. They want it shrouded by darkness, secrecy.

“The committee. Well who did it? Them. Well, who’s them? We can’t tell you who them is. They want it shrouded by secrecy. I think we need as much exposure to this as possible because our biggest role is to help work and develop student-athletes and with that said, colleges should actively and diligently work to do that.”

For more Washington State news, visit WazzouWatch.com.

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Graham Watson is the editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at dr.saturday@ymail.com or follow her on Twitter!

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