A Memo to Coach Les Miles - an appeal to show CHARACTER

Coach Les Miles -

Of course, you have yourself predominantly cocooned from reality and criticism, so you will not likely ever see or read this, but those of us who are amazingly in love with LSU football need to write such letters for therapeutic effect.

You have said numerous times, in reference to criticisms you have been given, that you "just don't listen or pay attention to criticism". This may be your biggest strength while also being your biggest weakness all at once.

As long as you win 9 games per year, and maybe as few as 8 games, you will lack accountability for questionable individual decisions, even if they are nationally embarrassing. The LSU AD and upper administrators will shield you from the far majority of criticisms, call-in show complaints and the like. This is the way it works at major Universities like LSU. That has worked, but something major is changing. You are the head coach, so you owe no true explanation to anyone. I call BS on the Jarrett Lee situation in particular. It is not like revealing game strategy, where we listen for hours to you saying nothing about tactics in the name of poker and not revealing anything to the opponent. This is different. You just shrug it off and bank on the fact that the W-L record will heal all wounds. You may be right, or maybe not.

Things have really changed in the LSU fan base. After listening to a large number of radio, tv, internet and other discussions, both locally, regionally and nationally, you have a form of a problem that is much different than your previous problems. It would be wise of you to realize, this is different. It is truly different.

You see, your style of coaching is not a natural form of coaching to understand. However, most had finally found a way to just attribute it to some form of inexplicable genius we just could not understand. You were just smarter than all the brain surgeons, lawyers, and other professionals that are avid LSU football fans with a capacity for thinking and analyzing. This occurred in 2011. It ended in a firm way on 1/9/12.

My advice to you is simple. Find some way to honestly share the story of Jarrett Lee with the LSU football nation. Just find a way. I am appealing to the honorable man we all THINK you are, but are now GREATLY questioning. I also appeal to you not to handle this as you have previous complaints from the fan base, because I can assure you this it MUCH different than the Tennessee game situation or the 2008 season. It is a matter of the CHARACTER of your soul. The previous issues were a matter of your competencies, but you were given the benefit of the doubt due to the results AND due to the broad viewpoint of the CHARACTER of your soul. That has changed in a MAJOR Way. Hiding from the scrutiny until next seasons success will not be acceptable to heal this wound of this Tiger fan and millions of others. THIS IS DIFFERENT.

You have talked about CHARACTER more than anything else in your 7 years at LSU.

This is not questioning your choice to start and predominantly play Jordan Jefferson when he was restored to the roster, As a head coach, it is your right to make such decisions. This is about the HUGE difference in how you treated Jordan Jefferson when he played poorly and how you treated Lee when he played poorly. But, don't get wrapped around that axel too much either, This is particularly about not playing Lee when we were WAY UP with no threat of losing the game against UGA, and even more so when Jordan Jefferson proved his inability to be effective over a sustained timeframe in the national championship, and the fact that Jarrett Lee was in the game plan, was led to believe he would play, and even in the most seemingly obvious situation one could imagine, he was left with a clean uniform on the sidelines in his last game at LSU.

If you want to have any credibility at all, then it is time for you to show some CHARACTER.

This is not something that can be swept under the rug.

Jarrett Lee's public statements have shown CHARACTER. He is taking the HIGH ROAD.

This time we cannot give you the benefit of the doubt. In order to consider you a man of CHARACTER, and for you to forge forward, you need to come clean with something to allow us to see you as a man of CHARACTER.

CHARACTER has been the centerpiece of your self-espoused brand.

Time to live up to it. It is no longer given to you as an assumed quality. You are on the hook to prove to us that it exists. The onus is on you coach.


post script for those on this rant missing the point: The reference to character is based on Miles SEEMINGLY making his decision based on performance. It relates to Miles selecting not to play Jarrett under any conditions, even the worse, which no one is really buying. It is not referencing the start of the game, the predominant playing by JJ for the majority of the game, it is based on the last quarter of the national championship game, when Les made it clear to the entire universe that he was not playing Lee under any circumstance in favor of staying with a Qb who was playing the worse game ever seen on such a stage. As such, no one believes that Miles was making that decision based on Lee's performance capability, so there is something else. This memo is asking for him to DEFEND HIS CHARACTER by giving some form of a reference to what it is, because NO ONE WITH ANY REASONABLE SENSE OF INTELLIGENCE BELIEVES THAT MILES PLAYED JJ OVER LEE IN THE 4TH QTR BECAUSE HE FELT JJ WOULD DO BETTER THAN LEE. Lee would have to be the most incapable QB in history to be unworthy of at least an attempt IN THIS SPECIFIC SCENARIO IN THE 4TH QTR. As such, we simply DO NOT BELIEVE LES MILES, and that is a character issue, plain and simple. HE can change that by coming up with some other statement to allow us to rule out character as an issue. Otherwise, many are left to wonder if sme form of petty personality issue was put above the entire LSU nation, and that is a character issue when he is paid to try to win the game, not to win some form of petty teenage like battle behind the scenes. SO, I am asking him to rule out that, and to make some form of a statement to the world. I don't think he will, as I state at the top, because I think he will hide in a shell and let time takes its course. He is a betting man, so perhaps that is his way. I think a man of true CHARACTER would MAN UP and find some way to tell the world something OTHER THAN PERFORMANCE as the reason why he did not play Lee IN THE 4TH QTR. There are ways to do such things. Anyone who has lived in a corporate or governmental organization for any lengnth of time has seen memos to such effect. He can get the entire Athletic and Communications departments at LSU to aid him in such a communication. If he does hide in vagueness, we are left to assume that petty personality issues are in-play. I am NOT saying this is what happened, but I am saying that he should find a way to make a case on something OTHER than performance, because no reasonable person is buying that. This is too important of a game and situation to hide in a corner. If he does that, then his character is all the more flawed.