Lane Kiffin is a "Disgrace"

Abrasive University of Tennessee football coach Lane Kiffin had harsh words for one of the nation’s elite wide receiver recruits from South Carolina, Alshon Jeffrey, last month after the star chose to attend the University of South Carolina instead of enrolling at Knoxville.

According to ESPN’s Chris Lowe and Jeffrey’s coach Walter Wilson, who were both listening to the conversation on speaker phone, Kiffin told Jeffrey that if he “chose the Gamecocks, he would end up pumping gas for the rest of his life like all the other players from that state who had gone to South Carolina.”

This is not the first time Kiffin, 33, the youngest active head coach in Division I football, has been scrutinized because of his polarizing antics.

In January 2007, the demented and senile owner of the Oakland Raiders, Al Davis, hired Kiffin to become the head coach of his team.

Kiffin, who became the youngest coach in NFL history at 31, was erroneously referred to by Davis as “Lance” Kiffin at the introductory news conference.

After “leading” Oakland to a feeble mark of 4-12 in his first year coaching in the East Bay, ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported that Davis drafted a letter of resignation for Kiffin to sign because of poor job performance and rampant rumors that Kiffin was actively entertaining vacant coaching opportunities in college football.

Kiffin refused to sign the “Man in Silver and Black’s” letter of resignation because the former offensive coordinator of the University of Southern California (USC) realized if he did he would forfeit his $2 million salary for the remaining guaranteed year of his contract.

A month into the 2008 NFL season and with an overall record of 5-15 as a professional coach, Davis fired Kiffin over the phone.

At a bizarre televised news conference to announce the axing, Davis labeled Kiffin “a flat-out liar” and said the former three-sport athlete in college for the Fresno State Bulldogs was guilty of “bringing disgrace to the organization.”

Following his unceremonious ouster, Kiffin claimed he was handed a pink slip without cause and he filed a grievance against the Raiders seeking two months pay to compensate for the span between when he was fired by the Raiders and hired to become the 21^st head football coach in the history of UT.

Within two weeks of arriving in Knoxville, Kiffin chapped the ass of Raiders Head Coach Tom Cable by stealing one of his assistants, James Cregg, with two weeks remaining in the NFL season.

Cable felt the timing of Cregg’s departure was “wrong in the business of coaching” and insinuated that he would challenge Kiffin to a Mexican street fight on the grounds of Lake Merritt in "the Town."

Kiffin, whose father, Monte, is widely considered to be one of the preeminent defensive coordinators in modern football history, was not finished alienating anyone with a pulse.

In early February, Kiffin falsely accused the Florida Gators and their Head Coach, Urban Meyer, of violating NCAA recruiting rules at a Tennessee Booster breakfast at the Knoxville Convention Center.

“I’m going to turn Florida in right here in front of you,” Kiffin told the crowd. “As Nu’Keese was here on campus, his phone keeps ringing. And so one of our coaches is sitting in the meeting with him and says, ‘Who is that?’ And he looks at the phone and says, ‘Urban Meyer.'”

The pompous, blonde bitch from Minnesota continued, “Just so you know, you can’t call a recruit on another campus. But I love the fact that Urban had to cheat and still didn’t get him.”

While Kiffin was accusing Meyer of violating NCAA rules, he was actually disregarding NCAA rules himself and his complaints against Meyer for misconduct were baseless. In lieu of his incompetence and utter ignorance of NCAA compliance as a whole, Southeastern Conference Commissioner Mike Slive issued a public reprimand to Kiffin.

Despite his nonexistent pedigree, it already seems evident that Kiffin will become the most dislikable college pigskin coach since John Goodman’s character strolled the sidelines in Revenge of the Nerds.

Unfortunately, sneaky bastards like Kiffin often flourish in the seedy world of college athletics.

As the adage goes, nice guys finish last. Hence, one can expect Kiffin and his Volunteers football program to be a longstanding powerhouse on the gridiron.

Nevertheless, supporting Kiffin seems comparable to cheering for the reemergence of polio and one can only hope that he fails with creamsicle colors.

http://www.newyorkyankeesnews.com/colin815/weblog/6759/imus-will-be-fine-lane-kiffin-is.html