Local coach

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Williams became something of a folk legend on campus, and teammate Bryan Duncan gave Williams the nickname “Lynnwood” to commemorate the contest kick that caught Leach’seye

Williams finished his Texas Tech career as the team’s startingkickerforthe2009and2010season–notbadfora guy that walked out from the stands and became a local hero.

Williams has many Leach stories to share, and one of the more notable ones is tied to a Red Raiders loss in which, during a press conference, Leach said his players were spending “too much time with their fat little girlfriends tellingthemhowgreattheyare.”

Williams said Leach was trying to make the point that the team wasn’t focused – then added that his girlfriend (and nowwife),Tiffany,didn’tmind.

Leach’squotewasn’tthemostpoliticallycorrectstatement, butWilliamssaidthathiscoachdidn’tcare,asitwasasmall sample of the kind of guy Leach was To Williams, Leach didn’t care what other people thought; if he did, he would have never invited a youngster who had just won a kicking contesttotryoutforhisteam.

These days, Williams is focused on his family, and those crazy football years seem long ago. He and his wife have two children – Peyton, age 7, and 4-year-old Kyndal –and WilliamshasspentthelastnineyearsasacoachatMineral WellsHighSchool.

Recently,though,thecouple’soldestchildcamehomefrom school saying that he saw his dad in a video on social media. Williams said he looked at the comments on the video and noticed that his son had commented, “That’s my dad.”

Williams credits much of his coaching style to lessons he learned playing for Leach, who he said was very straightforward and to the point, and whose mantra was “playthenextplay”

Mike Leach left a legacy of offensive innovation and a coachingtreethatisadmiredacrossthefootballworld,and Matt“Lynnwood”Williamswillalwaysappreciatethechance Leachgavehimtobeapartofthatlegacy.