{"id":21747,"date":"2025-10-26T12:00:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T12:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/21747\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T12:00:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T12:00:10","slug":"mike-leach-honored-with-heart-of-a-champion-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/21747\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Leach honored with Heart of a Champion Award"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) &#8211; Former Red Raider head football coach Mike Leach was given the \u201cHeart of a Champion Award\u201d during the Oklahoma State game on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The distinction was given by the American Heart Association and the Paul \u201cBear\u201d Bryant Awards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Coach Leach left a lasting impact on the game of college football and was known for his courage, fearlessness, and character.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Bailey Butler with the American Heart Association says that\u2019s something rooted within Lubbock.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThe community rallies around Mike Leach. That will never, I think that will be a forever thing,\u201d Development Director Bailey Butler said. \u201cWe cherish our memories with him. I think about growing up here. I think about The Pirate. I think about how exciting of a time it was, \u201908 and Crabtree.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Coach Leach\u2019s daughter, Kimberly Betty, says it\u2019s touching how much love the people of Lubbock have for her father.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cTo know that the Lubbock community just embraces still so wholly&#8230;it means so much to me. It\u2019s a place that I hold such fond memories. The smells of the stadium hold such fond memories,\u201d Betty said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Betty accepted the \u201cHeart of a Champion Award\u201d on her father\u2019s behalf during halftime of Saturday\u2019s game. The entire Leach family will be recognized at the Paul \u201cBear\u201d Bryant Awards in Houston.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) &#8211; Former Red Raider head football coach Mike Leach was given the \u201cHeart of a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,170,169],"class_list":["post-21747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}