The abrupt resignation of Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin after one season as Head Coach, in order to take the coaching job at Southern Cal, is a total abomination of what college athletics is supposed to be about. Kiffin is nothing but a prostitute and the colleges that pay him are no better than common, drooling "Johns" waiting for a "trick".
You can throw terms like character, commitment, scholarship and all the other glowing phrases that the NCAA uses to avoid paying the athletes out the window. Obviously, it's all lip service and means nothing.
Full Disclosure....
I am a 1978 alumni of UT Knoxville, who used to be a fan, season ticket holder, and contributor to the UT Athletic Department. I had my eyes opened when the athletic department bullied Johnny Majors from his post after he suffered a heart attack and was replaced with then golden child, Phil Fulmer.
At times, I have tried to regain a fondness for the university, but under the Fulmer regime, they stocked the team with thugs and criminals which made it difficult to justify any emotional attachment to the school that I used to hold to dearly since my values so differed from theirs.
I have been interested in watching Bruce Pearl, who seems like a decent guy, and appears to want to run a clean program. One of my proudest recent moments as a Vol was his recent action clearing out the bad element from the basketball team in spite of how it would affect the win-loss record.
Likewise, I had high hopes that Kiffin would clean up the program and return integrity to a team that has been void of anything good for many years. As it turns out, he was as much of the cancer that has infected the program as anything else.
Goodbye, and good riddance Lane. I hope the door does hit you in the ass, Hard! You deserve it!
More Later...
Buddy Oakes for PredsOnTheGlass
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
4 comments:
Spot on, my friend. My thoughts immediately turn to the student athletes who bought into what Lane sold them. Promises of championships, dedication, etc.
The NCAA needs help. Get this. The recruits who enrolled early at UT for the 2010 season? If they decide to transfer, they have to sit out for a whole year. How fair is that? The coaches that recruited them can up & leave without punishment. I don't blame them for wanting to transfer now & it is not fair that they lose that year of playing time because of something out of their control.
I will always support the kids who put on the uniform and give their all for Tennessee. The bad apples, bad administration.. they get their hatred & venom, but those kids who keep their nose clean & wear the orange with pride will always get my support.
Bruce & Pat do things right.
It is indeed a horrible situation for the kids who looked for folks that they can trust. They received a rude awakening early in life that they didn't deserve.
That is an interesting comparison with Pearl, who of course is also pretty mercenary, but at least tries to run his program the right way (and got the good karma from that by beating #1 Kansas).
College football is impossibly screwed up. It's become all about competing for a mythical national championship and accepting nothing less, while funneling millions to coaches who would give away one of their kids to win a football game if they had to.
As a Michigan grad, I feel the same way about the way Lloyd Carr was treated in his final seasons, and that the hiring of Rich Rodriguez was a terrible move.
Buddy, I can only assume you weren't paying a lot of attention to Lane Kiffin while he was involved in his one disastrous season as head coach of the Oakland Raiders, because he was pulling the same juvenile, punk maneuvers out there as he did this season at UT.
How someone as apparently classy and well-respected as his dad, Monty Kiffin could produce a social moron like Lame-o-Lane is beyond my comprehension.
As someone who invested thousands into that school for my son's education, it absolutely killed me to see the shame he brought to the Big Orange.
Now, as a longtime USC fan, with past personal and family ties to that great institution, I'm just as sick to my stomach about him going there to impose his poisonous attitude. But good riddance, I'm glad he's no longer here to retard the UT Football program.
Post a Comment