McKeesport native Matt Dudek had ‘great friend’ in former Mississippi State head coach Mike Leach

It was the type of question that naturally causes concern.

When coming from former Mississippi State head football coach Mike Leach, who died suddenly Monday at the age of 61, the question seemed somewhat even more out of the blue to McKeesport native Matt Dudek.

“He and I are in Florida recruiting, and he’s on the phone with somebody and he asked me what my social security is,” recalled Dudek, Mississippi State’s associate athletic director for football player personnel, of the car trip spent with one of college football’s most legendarily alluring personalities last fall.

When Leach then quipped, “Secret Service needs it,” Dudek said his head really began to spin.

“Two hours later he and I are standing in Mar-a-Lago waiting for Donald Trump’s assistant, wanting to bring us into his office for a meeting.”

Dudek recalled Leach, one of the innovators of the high-flying “Air Raid” offense, never once broached the topic of politics with the often brash 45^th president of the United States.

“It was two guys talking about football, two guys talking about life, and it was two guys inquisitive about each other,” Dudek recalled of the encounter. “As a kid from McKeesport doing what I do on a normal basis and to find out impromptu you’re going to buzz by and see the former president of the United States, I mean, how does that happen?”

For Dudek, it became typical of the type of encounters he became part of in nearly two full seasons he spent on the staff of a man whose coaching career spanned more than three decades at the highest level of NCAA football.

Leach died in a Jackson, Miss., hospital from “complications of a heart condition,” according to Mississippi State University.

“It was friends [from the] first conversation,” said Dudek, a 1999 South Allegheny High School graduate. “It was pretty incredible. He trusted me fast, and we had a lot of one-on-one conversations.  A lot of stories. We traveled recruiting-wise. I can call him a great friend, and I think anyone who shared a moment in time with him could call him a great friend. That’s the kind of person he was.

“He remembered everybody and you just felt warm around him.”

Dudek’s career in NCAA football began at the University of Pittsburgh, his alma mater, where he held several positions on the staff of then-Panthers head coach Dave Wannstedt.

After eventually ascending to become the director of football operations and recruiting at Pitt, Dudek would hold similar positions under head coach Greg Schiano at Rutgers and Rich Rodriguez at Arizona.

Then before coming to Mississippi State, Dudek served as director of recruiting at Michigan under head coach Jim Harbaugh from 2017 until 2021.

Dudek said each of his experiences in Division I football were unique, but working with Wannstedt and Leach was particularly inspiring because of their every-man status.

“He’s just a guy,” Dudek recalled of Leach. “He wanted to be a part of the joke. He cared about football. Coach Leach was just awesome. I’m trying to find words, and I guess I haven’t quite processed it yet. He’s a guy that just I’m so lucky to have him in my life in the time that I needed him in my life.

“I’m hard pressed to rank them because they all hold a very special spot in my family’s life,” Dudek added of his past bosses, “but what I will say is I feel the most lucky to get the chance to work with hall of fame Mike Leach.”

After taking his first coaching position as an assistant at Cal Poly in 1987, Leach worked his way through the coaching ranks and took his first head coaching job at Texas Tech in 2000. He was named Big 12 Coach of the Year in 2008 with the Red Raiders, before being named Pac 12 Coach of the Year twice during a seven-year tenure at Washington State.

In his two seasons at Mississippi State, which coincided with Leach’s tenure at the school, Dudek said he got to “see beyond the interesting postgame media conferences” that were a hallmark of his mentor’s professional life.

“He’s not just some quirky guy,” Dudek said. “He knows he’s part of the joke. He knows he’s making people laugh. This guy knows what he’s doing. It’s just incredible.”

And getting an up close and personal view of Leach’s “Air Raid” offense was equally impressive.

“It’s such a cool, unique offense in that it’s so simple, but so difficult,” Dudek said. “It’s unique that you have to prepare for us like you’ve got to prepare for Army and Navy, except the stressor isn’t you’ve got to be more physical or disciplined. The stressor is if your DB takes a wrong step, he gives up a touchdown.”

Dudek said the fact that Leach called the offense from a notecard, as opposed to the often lengthy play sheets utilized by other play callers, somehow managed to again make him one of the most unique minds in all of college football in another way.

“There’s no thought, all the thought is done on Monday,” Dudek said of Leach’s game day preparation. “It’s him and someone giving him very little information and it’s him signaling off a notecard. It’s crazy.”

But despite all of his unique approaches to the game and celebrity encounters, which included witnessing a lengthy conversation between Leach and actor Jim Caviezel, Dudek said he will always remember the former coach’s love of his staff and players.

Dudek said Leach always preached “the value of life beyond football, the value of your family, nothing ever being too serious that you have to get yourself worked up about … just go, just go and do it.”

Mississippi State promoted Leach’s defensive coordinator Zach Arnett as his successor on Thursday.

“There’s going to be some good stability in the program and I think that’s good, very good for everybody,” Dudek said. “I think there won’t be a day in that office where somebody doesn’t remember something about Mike Leach and the impact he had on all of us.”