For all that everyone knew other than the parties involved at LSU and possibly Kansas, Les Miles was a great guy. Quirky, funny, successful and the Mad Hatter in charge of the Tigers’ program.
That curtain has certainly been ripped down over the past few days as reports of his misconduct, both disgusting and terrifying, during his time at Baton Rouge along with the university’s efforts to cover it up have been revealed.
Listen, I was as fooled as everyone. When he spent three minutes chatting to me one year at SEC Media Days, I was won over. He was charming and, when he spoke later that day at the podium and talked about everything between human rights and his trip to Cuba, I was ready to declare myself a fan forever and, at an old job, once wrote that I wanted to travel Europe with the man.
See, we might never know who these coaches are other than what they appear to be. I’ve certainly learned that over the years. Through my job, I have had the fortune to meet a lot of coaches that I once only knew from the outside and get to see them as a person, not a coach. It is what I consider one of the luckiest things I get to do.
Some surprised me in the best of ways. Others were exactly how they seemed from a distance.
Yet we can all still be fooled, can’t we? Sure, I still have my opinions on coaches who I think don’t get it — hello, Dabo Swinney and Dan Mullen — and some that I would love to get some beers with, but the chances of me getting to know them for the person they truly are are slim.
I thought that Les Miles was one of the good ones. I genuinely thought that he truly cared despite the warning signs including the reinstatement of Jeremy Hill in 2013 being just one. He was a great politician that won you over with charm and self-deprecation.
He was the man who ate grass.
This mess won’t just affect Miles, either. The assistants at Kansas that he hired are now in trouble of losing their jobs and let’s not think of the people who hired him including athletic director Jeff Long.
As for LSU, that situation will have a fallout like we have hardly ever seen before. There was a lot of covering up for the benefit of the football program and to the detriment of the victims.
Miles was involved the entire time yet we fell for his zany press conferences and wrote him off as just another character in the line of characters in the game of college football.
He definitely had me fooled.
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