There are many people in the public eye who make it difficult for sports fans to decide whether or not we should like them. People like Tiger Woods, who excel remarkably well on the field, but have personality holes the size of volcanoes off of it, fit this bill. People like Bill Belichick, who is so very good at what he does for a living, but is such an insufferable jerk that it's to the point of being off-putting also fall into this category. People like Brett Favre, who is unquestionably one of the greatest NFL quarterbacks to ever play the position, but who is also such an obnoxious media hound that the mere mention of his name is like fingernails against a chalkboard for millions of sports fans is yet another example. These guys all make it hard to determine which side of the fence we should fall on when rating their likability. Personally, I find myself waffling back and forth. Tiger is my favorite golfer, but I'm not sure I'll ever cheer for him the same after finding out about his infidelity. I find myself smiling at Belichick's childish mind games from time to time. He is fun in the sense that he seems to really stick in the craw of others around the NFL, and I am eminently impressed by his amazing run of success, but his grating personality often prove too cumbersome to ignore. Favre is currently the QB of my favorite NFL team and is threatening to lead them to a Super Bowl, but still I find myself unable to embrace him the way I once did Daunte Culpepper or even a young Brad Johnson. Some of this might have to do with his past as an "evil green meanie" from eastern Wisconsin, but some of it is because he's a tough guy to take seriously with all of the changing of plans he's made in the past few years. These guys all have personalities that make it difficult to like them, but have abilities that are so extraordinary that it is hard to have anything other than admiration for them. It really can be a conundrum for the modern sports fan.
Thankfully, there are people like Lane Kiffin in the world who take the decision of whether or not to like them completely out of our hands. Thanks, Lane.
Lane Kiffin is the blowhard ex-University of Tennessee/current USC head coach from the great state of Minnesota. Things are so bad right now that if this were an Orwell novel, I'm pretty sure Minnesota would ask the Ministry of Truth to change the records to show Kiffin attended high school in Wisconsin or Iowa. Kiffin first got himself on the "douche bag map" by attacking the "illegal" recruiting practices of the chosen-one coach of Florida, Urban Meyer. The problem was that Meyer was doing everything by the book. Kiffin just did not understand the recruiting rules. OK, strike one. For his next act, Kiffin drove home the fact that he does not understand recruiting rules by committing three second-class violations in recruiting himself. OK, strike two. Strike three came on Tuesday, when word came that Lane was leaving Ol' Rocky Top for his former haunt in LA. After just one season at a premium NCAA job, Kiffin decided that he needed a change. I wouldn't be surprised if Tennessee's AD put the newspaper clipping about Pete Carroll going to Seattle on Kiffin's desk as a reminder that the job could be his. Remember that Kiffin is the same guy who crazy old Al Davis couldn't stand anymore in fall of 2008, calling him a "flat-out liar" and saying that he "brought disgrace to the organization." When someone can be said to have disgraced Raider Nation, you know they're trouble. The liar charge from Davis seems to have been vindicated Tuesday, as Kiffin held a meeting with his players to announce his decision to leave. Kiffin, not 10 months ago, was telling these same young men that he was going to be their coach for the rest of their college career. He told the players' parents that he was going to be their eyes and ears on campus and that he would look after their children. He told the UT fans that he would be right there after they beat Florida to sing "Rocky Top" all night long. All of these statements have been proven to be false after Kiffin's latest detestable act. While USC is a great job and one that most college coaches would jump at given the chance, Kiffin already had a great job. Tennessee has proven they can win National Championships, winning their last one in 1998 (the year after Peyton Manning graduated). This was a school that had just two football coaches in the last 31 years before hiring Kiffin. Tradition runs deep in Knoxville, but Kiffin couldn't be concerned with all that. He had an opportunity to run back to LA and be a celebrity coach, and he took it.
I don't feel particularly sorry for Tennessee in this instance. There was more than enough evidence to prove that Kiffin was a schmuck before he got hired. Tennessee either ignored or discredited these red flags and seemingly got what they deserved. I thought they overreacted in firing long-time coach Phil Fulmer before the season, and part of me thinks this Kiffin situation is some sort of karmic reaction for letting a quality, beloved coach go after a couple of rough seasons. I do feel sorry for the players and the fans, who didn't got a say in who was going to be hired. They all saw a young, brash 30-something come in with movie-star bravado who was promising them the world. Now they are left with a coaching vacancy and the prospect of yet another new beginning that is going to set the program back even further. Not much of a consolation prize, if you ask me.
Unfortunately, Lane Kiffin isn't the only guy in the sport who is guilty of this type of treason. Coaches leaving their schools for better offers while still under contract has become par for the course over the past decade or so. Brian Kelly left a BCS school in Cincinnati to become Notre Dame's newest sacrificial lamb right before his old team was to play in their second consecutive BCS bowl game. Rich Rodriguez left West Virginia, a school he had on the verge of being perennial national title contenders, to go to Michigan, and has subsequently fallen on his face over the past two seasons.
This is an easy argument for me to make. Not only does Kiffin's departure not really affect me in any real tangible way, but I get to look down from my tower and snipe at him with no real repercussions. I'm not in Lane's situation. I can't tell you what I would do if I were in his shoes. Maybe I'd do the same thing. Who knows? What I do know is that if I were an athletic director, I would have a hard time convincing myself that this guy was someone I'd want representing my university. If this were just another Wall Street broker leaving his firm for a more lucrative offer, I'd understand. Money is money, no matter how much of it you have, and leaving a job like that is really a victimless move. The broker's old firm will find a new young buck to take his place and there will really be no change at all. That's not how it works in college football. There are victims, here. Tennessee's season ticket holders who were promised national titles are victims, and the dozens of young student-athletes who were told of all the great things Kiffin would help them do are victims. Their college careers won't be what they signed up for, as many of the Vols' players will now be playing for their third coach in three years through no fault of their own.
The third victim is likely to be USC. While they may believe that they are sitting pretty right now, I assure you that this situation can only end badly. Kiffin will wear out his welcome there, just as he did in Oakland, and just as he was in the process of doing in Tennessee. The sad part is that USC is another school with a long tradition of excellence that Kiffin will have a crack at derailing. What happens in two years when an NFL job comes up that Lane wants? Clearly there is nothing inside him to stop him from taking it. Kiffin is apparently working on becoming the next Bobby Petrino, who quit his job as Louisville's head coach to become the Atlanta Falcons head coach, only to quit that job in the middle of his first season in order to take the head coach position at Arkansas. Kiffin is one mere job change away next season from equaling this mark.
Now some other university is going to lose their head coach when Tennessee decides to pilfer an up-and-coming coach from an up-and-coming program and will impose on that school the same cycle they themselves are about to embark upon.
And so the circle of college football life continually perpetuates itself, and so it will be into the future.
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