Lane Kiffin Loves Tennessee
It takes a special type of person to garner the hatred of an entire region. And yet that's what ordinary-in-every-other-way football head coach Lane Kiffin has managed to do with the State of Tennessee.
Kiffin's career to date is most comparable to a pinball. After serving in a variety of coaching and recruitment roles at USC, the former backup quarterback at Fresno State became the youngest NFL head coach in the modern era when Al Davis handed him the reins of the Oakland Raiders at the ripe old age of 31. However, four games into his second season at the helm, he was unceremoniously fired over the telephone by the Raiders owner.
A mere two months later, Kiffin was presented to the media as the new head coach of the University of Tennessee, instantly becoming the youngest active play caller in Division I Football at only 33 years of age. However, the honeymoon was shortlived, after a disappointing 7-6 record in 2009, Kiffin resigned from the post less than a month before National Signing Day to become head coach of USC, leaving the Vols out high and dry with their recruitment efforts.
This inspired such infamous NSFW videos as a fat hick urinating on a Lane Kiffin shirt before soaking it in gasoline, igniting it and then issuing an obscenity laden diatribe against the shirt as though it were Lane Kiffin himself.
As if to poke an already enraged set of bird wings, Kiffin, this week, poached Tennessee Titans' running back coach Kennedy Pola with the offer of USC's offensive coordinator position. While hirings from other organizations happen all the time, proper etiquette dictates that you make your interest in a coach known to the team before moving forward.
According to Titans head coach Jeff Fisher, Kiffin didn't seem to have any sort of etiquette on his mind.
I am very disappointed in Lane Kiffin’s approach to this. Typically speaking, when coaches are interested in hiring or discussing potential employment from coaches on respective staffs, there is a courtesy call made from the head coach or athletic director indicating there is an interest in talking to the assistant. So I am very disappointed in the lack of professionalism on behalf of Lane, to call me and leave me a voicemail after Kennedy had informed me he had taken the job. It is just a lack of professionalism.
Kiffin has since offered a detailed explanation of the poaching timelines to Fisher and he claims that the Titans coach now has a better understanding of his actions, but I'm going to go ahead and assume that there may be at least one guy out there (hint: he not only urinated on a shirt with Kiffin's name on it and then set it on fire, he also documented it with a video camera as an expression of his extreme non-plussedness) who's maybe not so interested in hearing Kiffin's side of the story.
