BOISE, Idaho — KTVB's Andrew Baertlein was born and raised in Spokane, Wash., and graduated from Washington State University. While in Pullman, Baertlein covered Cougar football and built a bond with former WSU head coach Mike Leach, who even shared his personal cell phone number with the student reporter.
After the news of Leach's death following complications from a heart condition, Baertlein on Tuesday shared the following in a Twitter thread:
My sophomore year at Washington State, I created a blog to cover WSU Football. It was just me and Jack Ellis going to practices, taking pictures, trying to sneak in media scrums and get interviews with players.
Mike Leach pulled me aside one week into fall camp.
He wanted to know who I was, what my deal was, why I was doing this, etc.
“If you want to be successful, sports writers are kinda like drug dealers,” Leach said. “There’s so many of them out there. You gotta get them hooked on your stuff.”
He gave us media credentials that season.
He took it a step further and promoted our website. For absolutely no reason other than to be a nice guy. Was the tagline “no fluff, just facts” the corniest thing every? Absolutely. But he ran with it. I think he may have thought it was funny.
And we got some serious traction out of his tweet. We sold a few local ads, and used the money to travel to Salt Lake, Eugene, Boulder, Corvallis, Seattle, etc.
Jack and I got two full years of experience covering real sports with real access. WSU credentialed us for hoops, too.
Years later, that experience translated into my job with KTVB (though, I’m a news guy now) and Jack's gig as a photographer with the Seattle Mariners. All because Mike gave us a chance to cover his team - and the university allowed that to grow into more opportunities.
The news of his passing is hard to digest. I can track every domino in my professional career development back to “I covered WSU football - home and road games - for two years. Here’s my portfolio.” It opened every door I tried. Without that, who knows what I would be doing today.
Thanks for everything, coach. You gave me a platform to chase my dreams, and a lifetime of memories back in Martin Stadium.
You’re a hell of a coach.
You’re a damn good man.
You changed my life.
God Bless, #CML
Keeping your family in my thoughts.
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