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I played there from 81-84, he was a few years after me. However, a couple of guys I played with coached with him there.

Mike Leach started at the bottom. By 1989 he was offensive coordinator under Halle Mumme at Iowa Wesleyan University, in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, a school with an enrollment of 700. This is where, in 1989, '90, and '91, they introduced the Air Raid Offense to college football in NAIA football.

Mount Pleasant Iowa is about 20 miles from my home town in Iowa.  I must have driven through it hundreds of times driving up and down US highway 218 going back and forth to Iowa City. 

It just blows my mind that such a small school in such a small town in the middle of nowhere ended up playing such a big role in the evolution of today's modern offenses. The school that teamed up Hal Mumme and Mike Leach.  How in the world did they both end up in Mount Pleasant Iowa at the same time? But I guess that's a sign sometimes strange ideas need strange places to grow.

Its even more ironic that just 50 miles north from Mount Pleasant,  in Iowa City,  the Ferentz family has developed one of the most boring and ineffective offenses in college football history.

It crazy to think about, Iowa would have hired Bobby Stoops instead of Kirk Ferentz in 1998 if Oklahoma wouldn't  have grabbed Stoops 1 day earlier.  Stoops could have brought Mike Leach and the air raid offense home to Iowa.  It would have been wonderful. 

This Mike Leach story from Lincoln Riley

This really sums it up. Mike Leach was:
Really curious
Ready to chat
Didn't care a bit about how he was perceived

It absolutely made him unusual and special in this sport. 

I stayed in Mt Pleasant back in June on a business trip.  Had a meal and a couple beers at the Press Box on the East end of town.

I had to stop in Fairfield that afternoon to gander at the Mahrishi International University

I was there a few years back on a reunion of our football team. Coming in on 218, it appears that the roads have changed quite a bit since I was there in school. However, the downtown area remains mostly the same.

I'm not familar with the Press Box. That must have opened since I was in school. I spent most of my time in the off season, downtown at the West Side bar. 

the West Side Tap is still there

just north of the Grange Public House and Brewery - which probably wasn't there in the 80s

I just did a google map search for a sports bar and decided on the Press Box
It worked fine - good looking bartender and Bud Fat on tap

I didn't realize that Mike Leach had ever been at Iowa Wesleyan until a couple of years ago when ESPN did their 150 years of college football where I saw a small piece talking about the Air Raid offense. The other coach that came out of Iowa Wesleyan was Dana Holgorsen (HC Univ Of Houston) who played QB for IW under Mumme and Leach.

What sold you on attending Iowa Wesleyan?
If you were born a few years later you might be coaching FBS football, instead of writing messages on cfb51.com