Right....but wasn't that avenue to unemployment paved with much greater ease when ESPN is telling the world that you abuse your players?
Would that story have been newsworthy without James's relationship to the broadcasting giant?
I think so. You might be right, maybe it wouldn't be quite a big of a story.
But to me, Tech suspended their coach from the team's bowl game....that was the lead in the story when it broke. In fact, the first time I heard about it was on the radio and the person reading the story said "...player Adam Jones". I know it's an added part of the story, but a team suspending their coach, then the coach announcing he and his lawyers expect him to get fired (because they already knew the admins wanted to do it), then actually firing him...to me, all of that is the story, far more than the fact that the kid was James' son.
It makes it more interesting, and is another note in the story....but to me the story is Leach getting canned. He's a bit of a coaching icon (not to be confused with legend). I think the fact that his team was #2 in the country at one point last year makes this a bigger deal too, because the program has been at a peak of national recognition the last 18 months or so.
He's won 70 games in the last 8 years, never less than 8 in a year. He hasn't lost to Oklahoma in Lubbock since 2003. I know you don't need to know all this, or already do know it, I'm just saying it's why, to me, him being fired is all the reason for the story being as big as it is.