STARKVILLE, Mississippi — The first time Mike Leach arrived at the seafood and soul food restaurant called WTF, he ordered the golden chicken wings a certain way.
“Extra crispy,” he told Shan Suber, the owner and head chef.
“Extra crispy?” Suber said. “That’s how I like my wings too!”
Since that meeting in 2020, Leach, the former state of mississippi football coach, and Suber, a black single mother from the Mississippi Delta, grew closer. Their relationship evolved into a friendship, and Leach went from being a frequent customer to a confidant.
Suber would cook for him and his friends at the coach’s house, host them at parties at his restaurant and drink with them into the night, as Leach loved to do – the stories and spirits flowing. He especially liked their Dungeness crab, lobster tails, salmon, and those extra crispy wings.
Leach poses for a photo with Suber and her favorite golden honey sauce.
Courtesy of Shan Suber
“Best cook in Starkville, Mississippi!” Leach once exclaimed in a video posted on social media.
On a day when the people of Starkville, the Mississippi Commonwealth and the college football nation remember the coach, a little-known businessman in this small town reveals a story about Leach a week after his death.
He saved her restaurant.
“I was on edge. I was getting into debt,” recalls Suber. “He helped us stay open. I am eternally grateful.”
Given post-COVID-19 inflation and a shortage of workers, Suber was on the verge of going out of business in September when Leach heard the news, went to the restaurant one day and wrote her a check. She wants to keep the amount private, but has covered her bills and rent for at least a few months.
“We were hanging by a thread. I didn’t ask for anything,” she says. “He did it willingly. I don’t know why he chose me.”
Suber was among the crowd that gathered at the Humphrey Coliseum on Tuesday for a memorial to celebrate the coach’s life. He died of heart complications on Dec. 13 in news that shook the college football world.
Some of the industry’s most important figures attended the meeting at the Mississippi State campus, including USC coach Lincoln Riley, Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, former Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops, former Kentucky coach Hal Mumme , Houston coach Dana Holgorsen and TCU coach Sonny Dykes . Former Washington State quarterback Gardner Minshew, a Mississippi native, paid tribute to the coach with a speech, as did Mississippi State quarterback Will Rogers and SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey.
They remembered a quirky, eccentric man, known off the field for his fascination with life and on the field for a heavy attack that revolutionized football.
Minshew, now an NFL quarterback, speaks on Tuesday.
Barbara Gauntt/Clarion Ledger/USA TODAY Network
When the memorial opened on Tuesday, a familiar and apt song blared from the Humphrey Coliseum speakers: Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.” Those close to Leach describe the way he lived his life with the song’s own lyrics.
“He was really one of a kind,” Stoops told the crowd. “A deep thinker. An independent thinker. Bold enough to always do it his way, no matter how unconventional.
Mumme released a story about the founding of the Air Raid attack, which happened in 1991 during a trip to Florida with Leach. The trip ended with the two men on their stomachs in a Key West bar in what became Leach’s favorite haunt: Captain Tony’s Saloon.
During the memorial, a video of country singer Toby Keith played on the jumbotron. “He’s a guy you’d want to have a beer with!” Keith talked about his friend Leach.
The event was broadcast live on the SEC Network. That didn’t stop Minshew from unleashing a curse word to a cackling audience – indicative of his mentor and former trainer. “He really didn’t give a shit what people thought,” Minshew said. “He was definitely not politically correct. It was him. You respect that.
A nighttime tracker, Leach was known to call friends late and keep them on the line well past bedtime. “We’re going to reach out and call each other after midnight every now and then in Mike’s honor,” Stoops told the crowd.
Leach was a curious man who was interested in a wide range of topics. From the US economy to grizzly bears, from the Navajo to Geronimo. Gary O’Hagan, Leach’s longtime agent and good friend, used to get peculiar calls from the coach.
“He would ask me three or four times a year, ‘Do you think there is a Loch Ness Monster? How about Bigfoot?’” recalls O’Hagan. “Mike Leach wanted to believe in these things. He wanted to believe that anything is possible. He would live his life as if anything were possible.
It was a gray day in Starkville. Clouds dropped raindrops amid frigid temperatures. At the gates of Davis Wade Stadium, two folding tables held dozens of flowers and gifts left in memory of the coach: a message scribbled on a rattle; an empty bottle of bourbon; a can of Copenhagen snuff, which was Leach’s favourite.
Behind the gates, a maroon pirate flag fluttered in the wind.
Inside the Coliseum, white flowers and photos graced the stage, as well as the glittering Egg Bowl trophy, which Leach captured in his last act as manager – a 24-22 victory over Ole Miss.
“There’s a ball game going on in heaven,” said Stoops, who hired Leach as his offensive coordinator while at Oklahoma. “It’s room for 2 in his own 40, and you know he’s going for it.”
The day before the memorial, Suber, 38, opened his restaurant – closed on Mondays – to a reporter. She pointed to the window where Leach had ordered those extra crispy wings on their first date during the pandemic. He became such a regular that year that Suber let him into the restaurant despite COVID-19 restrictions.
Suber’s restaurant, WTF, was one of Leach’s favorite places to dine.
Ross Dellenger/Sports Illustrated
The restaurant is located along Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, in an area of Starkville that’s a bit removed from the downtown scene, the Cotton District’s bright bars, and campus hills.
Suber claims to be one of the few black women to own a restaurant in the area. She learned to cook from her grandmother Mattie while growing up in the Delta town of Greenville. She opened WTF in 2015 with the intention of being different – hence the name. WTF stands for Where the Food. Your signage and themes are built for sharing on social media. In fact, when she first opened, she required every customer to post at least five photos of their food on social platforms.
Your flag includes an “@” at the end of WTF.
“Where’s the food,” she says. “When he first showed up, I told Mike, ‘You found the food, Coach!’”
He also found a friend. Leach immediately gave Suber her number and the two began a texting relationship, which evolved into a close friendship that went beyond food. She even weighed in on his coaching decisions. She remembers once telling him, “They’re going to take down eight guys and you need to run with the ball!”
In many ways, Suber introduced Leach to Starkville culture and food. She refers to Leach as “top of the line tequila”.
“He’s the good stuff,” she laughs. “Mike came out and talked to the townspeople. He wanted to get to know the city and people of Starkville.”
Suber and Leach grew closer despite having different political backgrounds. Suber is a 38-year-old Democrat, while Leach, 61, supported former President Donald Trump. Suber says he doesn’t let political ideals affect his personal relationships.
Not Leach. “He had time for anyone at any time,” Stoops said during the ceremony.
However, Leach has developed a perception because of his brash nature, friendship with Trump, and his loose words, especially on social media.
In the spring of 2020, Coach came under fire for posting a meme on Twitter that featured a woman knitting a bow tie. Suber asked him about it. “It was a joke,” she says.
“OK, so he is a Trump supporter. This is his choice. Everyone has a choice,” she says. “That doesn’t mean he’s a bad person. We bond over food. I don’t give a shit what people think. Excuse my French!”
In September, when Leach learned that Suber was planning to close WTF, he wrote her that check. He never asked to be refunded.
Today, the restaurant is doing well, but it’s still a struggle. Due to labor issues, it is only open four days a week, compared to six days. She made close to $200,000 in sales this year. Last year, she earned $750,000.
Suber never knew Leach was sick. She regularly served large meals at her home. In fact, she cooked for Leach and friends a month ago. She and assistant Gege Wells served lamb chops, salmon, lobster tail and stuffed shrimp.
Suber served Leach meals at his home.
Courtesy of Shan Suber.
“He never showed any illness or said anything. He was struggling internally,” says Suber. “I didn’t think Mike was going to die. It’s still unbelievable.”
However, several people in the state of Mississippi did. Coach suffered pneumonia-like conditions for much of the season. They were so severe that staff members suggested he take time off. He refused.
After the season, he made at least one trip to Houston to visit doctors, people close to him say. But no one expected what happened on Dec. 11, when paramedics were called to his home for heart and breathing problems. Leach was subsequently airlifted to the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, where he died a day later.
“We were with this man making plans to cook Christmas dinner!” Wells says. “We are shaken.”
In the eyes of history, Leach will be remembered primarily as the man who spread the Air Raid offense across the sport, who taught some of the best quarterbacks and led remote places to great victories. Here in Starkville, he helped revive Mississippi State’s offense and brought excitement to Davis Wade Stadium.
But about two miles from campus, tucked away in a more forgotten part of this small town, is a restaurant where its legacy lives on through golden chicken wings.
Extra crunchy.
🇧🇷