My friend, bartending that night, thought I had fallen asleep in the bathroom. It was a typical night/early morning after working the late shift at Major League Baseball, and I was enjoying a few beers before heading home to sleep. My phone rang around 2:30 a.m. ET, and the caller was Mike Leach.

For the next hour-plus, on his daily walk home from his office at Washington State, we discussed coyotes in Wyoming, the opioid epidemic in the part of the country (Eastern Kentucky) where I grew up, some politics and some of the places we have visited and some we would love to see.

It was the typical conversation with Leach: anything but football. These phone calls didn’t happen very often, but they were always a treat. As everyone has seen from his press conferences, you never knew where his mind might go at any minute.

Of course, it was amazing we were even having conversations at all, considering our first interaction.

I had uprooted myself from the East Coast all the way to Pullman, Wash., after accepting a job covering Wazzu for 247Sports. Unbeknownst to me, the man who hired me had a major feud with Leach that went back a couple of years. I’m not talking a little spat, either.

On my first week on the job, I found myself in the Loews Hollywood Hotel, prepared to start my coverage of the Cougars. However, Leach had different ideas for me.

“You’re the new guy for 247, right?” the coach asked me.

“Yes, Mike.”

It was then that Leach told me, in not-so-nice words, that he didn’t care for my new boss and that, because of my position with that specific 247Sports site, he would not be answering any of my questions. Never. Neither would his assistant coaches or players. I tried to argue my point that I was fresh blood with no knowledge of the situation of the two nor no bias toward either of them, but it was useless. Leach explained that it was nothing personal toward me and that he would give me all the access I desired when I left for another job.

He came through with that in bunches.

But during the next two-plus months at post-game press conferences and after practice, I had to have other reporters ask questions for me; otherwise, I would be totally shut down. His assistants felt terrible for me. So did the other reporters and many of those in the Wazzu athletic department.

I realized I needed to get out of that situation immediately for personal and professional reasons.

So, less than three months after I made the cross-country drive, I did it again. In the weeks leading up to my departure from Pullman, Leach had personal conversations with me about how bad he felt after learning that I was not a plant by my boss and that he appreciated how I handled the situation professionally.

You need to know this about Leach: he was a man of his word, and if you didn’t exactly like what he said or care for his antics, he didn’t care. He went to bat for me on so many occasions after I left Pullman, trying to find me a job anywhere and everywhere. It was always a yes if I called or texted him and asked for a favor or letter of recommendation.

Another late-night call in 2019 led me to have Christmas dinner by myself at Fleming’s in Chandler, Ariz. All that access I was denied at Wazzu was now open as it could be. On a call earlier in December, Leach threw out the idea of me flying to Phoenix and having close to four days of all-access with the Pirate himself. I couldn’t say no to that. Who could?

Sitting in the quarterback meetings that are spoken about in hushed whispers was terrific. Some of the players I had been cut off from a year earlier came up and said it was great to see and finally be able to speak to me. I followed Leach around, him always making sure things were going well, and then covered what turned out to be his last game coaching the Cougs, a Cheez-it Bowl loss to Air Force.

When my feature ran for Saturday Down South, he was in Starkville.

His promises were always kept. He responded to my texts or calls no matter the hour or how busy he was. Like me, Leach wasn’t a morning person, so much like that phone conversation I had with him when I was in a bar; it was usually late at night when we would have back-and-forths.

He never ceased to entertain on and off the field with the cameras on him. Leach was just the same in person. Ask about football? You would get bland answers. But ask about, I don’t know, the time he spent visiting the Middle East one offseason, and he would go on for minutes into hours.

That was both the genius and pure madness of Leach. He could have done almost anything for a career, but there was something about coaching that intrigued him the most.

Before Auburn's game in Starkville in November, I had a chance to catch up with Leach in person for a few minutes. He asked how everything was going and how my family was doing; he said he had a bad cold that week, and then we said goodbye. The next day, intrigued by what he said to Cadillac Williams after the game, I texted him.

"He was a total stud. I loved watching him play," Leach responded.

We lost a great coach today but an even better man. In the last four years, I have retold the story of how Leach and I became friends. When he didn't have to be nice, he was.

I will miss him and our late-night conversations. He was the definition of a one-of-a-kind human.