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Sports world reacts to death of Mississippi State football coach Mike Leach

The college football world lost one of its beloved characters with the death of Mississippi State Bulldogs coach Mike Leach. The school announced that Leach died Monday night after complications related to a heart condition. He was 61.

Leach was in his third season coaching the Bulldogs after stints as head coach with the Texas Tech Red Raiders and Washington State Cougars. He also served as an assistant with the Kentucky Wildcats and Oklahoma Sooners.

As innovative as he was interesting, Leach worked with Kentucky coach Hal Mumme to develop their signature offense, which Leach dubbed the Air Raid. He was also known to turn rhapsodic on any number of subjects from garbanzo beans to wedding arrangements and wrote a book about the leadership strategies of the Apache leader Geronimo.

Besides Mumme, Leach worked under Bob Stoops as his first offensive coordinator at Oklahoma. Leach's coaching tree is fairly extensive and includes Arizona Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury, USC Trojans coach Lincoln Riley, TCU Horned Frogs coach Sonny Dykes, Tennessee Volunteers coach Josh Heupel and Houston Cougars coach Dana Holgorsen.

In a fitting tribute to Leach, many shared clips of their favorite Leach quotes and the tangents he could veer down while speaking.

"Swing your sword" was one of Leach's mottos. He used it as the title of his autobiography. The phrase became a fitting epitaph as the sports world paid tribute to him Tuesday.

Others from around the sports world shared their thoughts and condolences.