Perhaps you recall this excerpt from the Sports Illustrated puff piece on Junior I linked to the other day:
… Lane flew back to Tennessee less than 48 hours after his son was born. He’d arranged to have someone fetch him at the airport, but the driver was 25 minutes late. “I came back and within five minutes I’d fired the guy who was in charge of the guy who’d been sent to pick me up,” says Kiffin. “Here’s the point: We need to win. That’s 25 minutes that Nick Saban and Urban Meyer had that I lost because somebody was late picking me up at the airport.”
That’s 25 minutes he could have spent mending fences with coaches in Palm Beach County, Florida, I guess. But I digress. Which is easy to do with Junior.
Anyway, it turns out that the Laner – surprise! – is full of shit. Or at least full of himself. (h/t Capstone Report)
… Despite what you might read in Sports Illustrated, new Tennessee football coach Lane Kiffin hasn’t contributed to Knoxville’s unemployment rate.
“He has not fired anybody,” UT athletic director Mike Hamilton said Thursday afternoon. “If he said he has fired somebody, that’s not true. I don’t know if he said it from a standpoint of making a point that ‘We’ve got to get this right.’ But he didn’t fire anybody.
“You can’t just fire anybody at Tennessee, particularly when you’re talking about non-contract employees. There’s a process.”
I suppose it’s too much to hope that there’s a tape of the meeting where it was explained to Kiffin that he couldn’t, you know, just fire people. Still, I won’t complain. Junior is living proof that God loves college football bloggers. Thank you, Lord.
Get The Picture 
Lane Kiffin is the Dwight Schrute of the coaching community.
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Good one!
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Gods below, what a magnificant douche bag.
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Watching UT’s new football program is like watching a drunken trapese artist perform without a net. You know you shouldn’t watch but you just can’t help it.
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GWOL (Global War on Lane) status report, (extended version), Friday the Thirteenth, 2009:
Somewhere on the sidelines of the UT football practice field inside the Green Zone in Knoxville:
Monte’s student intern messenger, a young superhot blonde named Layla Two majoring in “Whatever”, brings Monte his usual Grande cup of Vanilla Latte from Starbucks and the lastest overnight intel. After reading the report, Monte blows a gasket, spits latte and barks, “Just who in the hell is this Senator Blutarsky guy?”
“Blutarsky just keeps disseminating his saturation propaganda over and over again daily against my UT program. I mean just because I taught Lane to fire people for no cause just so Lane could look like a supposed badass to UT AD Mike Hamilton and Lane’s other peer assistant coaches, what the hell business is that of an enemy correspondent? Who does he think he is, Tokyo Rose?”
Layla Two reminds Monte that World War Two has been over for some time now and that it would not be saturation propaganda unless the Senator did it constantly, daily and over and over again.
Monte asks Layla Two, or “2” as he calls her, to set plans into motion to capture this Senator Blutarsky guy. 2 says that they do not have a good 1020 on the Senator, and that he may either be somewhere in a remote, hard to reach mountainous area in North Georgia or there are recent unconfirmed reports that the Senator may be up in DC looting taxpayer money.
Up until then, Monte was unaware that Georgia had mountains and wonders, how do they grow peanuts there?
Monte tells 2 to set plans into motion to capture Richt’s defensive coordinator and hold him for ransom, part of which would involve the hostage exchange of Senator Blutarsky to Monte for the defensive coordinator back to Richt.
2 reminds Monte that he does not want to become an even bigger hero to Georgia fans than he already is, and suggests what about capturing UGA the Thirteenth from the Seilers in Savannah? Monte says what about the mountains? 2 tells Monte that she doesn’t think Savannah is in the mountains but is in the swamp. Monte says good idea, make it so. Go get the dog.
Last night, the assistant coach troopers watched double feature of “Reservoir Dogs” and “Platoon” in film room as ordered by Monte to get them psyched for first day of SERE training.
After security guards leave at end of movies, assistant coach troopers decide to show esprit de corp to Monte and agree that they will all wear matching Casual Friday uniforms for first day of SERE.
Monte then looks over to other sideline where his motley crue of assistant coach troopers are milling around, hands in pockets, wearing matching outfits of the unicolor All Vol Orange from the the Bobby Bowden peasant straw sunhats, Oakleys, Izods, Dockers and Topsiders. Monte shakes head slowly back and forth and thinks they look like an orange milkshake moving around.
Standing by is a Marine Corps Gunny sargeant from Navy ROTC, a large animal handler student intern from the vet school and a nuclear waste disposal technician from Oak Ridge to help when things do get out of control later this morning.
Monte orders Lane to go over to where Dien Binh Phu is standing and lay down on the inclined board with his head toward the bottom of the board. Dien Binh Phu is smiling and standing by a wheelbarrow full of dirty jocks and towels from the locker room and a series of wooden pails filled with river water.
Coach O has become agitated and the large animal handler and the Gunny are trying, without much success, to restrain O who is loudly yelling something in Cajun. Monte asks Dien Binh Phu what O is yelling and Dien says to Monte it sounds something like, “Don’t Board Me, Bro!”.
Monte hears a noise over the yelps coming from Coach O. Sounds like chopper blades and loudspeaker music. Monte hears Wagner as the music and blade sounds get increasingly louder from the South heading directly toward the UT President’s Mansion. Monte then hears machine gun and rocket fire.
The music and constant gun and rocket fire from the squadron’s lead attack helicopter is interrupted briefly for a loudspeaker announcement over the blade noise:
“Monte and Lane, this ‘Welcome to The SEC’ attack is sponsored by General Dynamics and The Dollhouse and is brought to you by Jeremy, Urban, The Bull Gators, and The University of Florida Athletic Association. Go Gators!”
Monte looks up to lead attack helo and sees Robert Duval sitting on his helmet giving Monte the finger and yelling, “I’ll drink your orange milkshake!”
Monte orders his assistant coach troops to scatter in different directions but sees that they already have, the Gunny is shooting his pistol at the helos yelling, “Semper Fi, Baby! Die you Freaking Gators!” Dien Binh Phu is already inside a tunnel under the practice field and it looks to Monte like the large animal handler lost his hand in the fight with Coach O.
Monte hauls ass running in a zig-zag motion between maching gunfire back toward the closest underground bunker. Monte thinks what else could he expect: It’s Friday the Thirteenth inside the Green Zone in Knoxville.
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Kiffin also told Sports Illustrated:
“You can’t count the number of people we’ve run off because they couldn’t keep up, and I’m including secretaries,” Kiffin said in the story. “They had to go because they weren’t going to make it, and they knew it.”
As the GoVols article notes, actually you can count the number: 2. Although, arguably they weren’t run off:
“Although no secretaries were fired, two secretaries have left the football office, according to Hamilton. He said one secretary retired, and another was reassigned.
Mary Jo Fox, who was the administrative services assistant to Fulmer, has been reassigned. Hamilton said she will serve as Fulmer’s secretary in his office in Stokely Athletic Center.”
So maybe the reason you can’t count the number is because he hasn’t really run anyone off. But keep talking Laney, keep talking.
And remember UT fans, we’re only ridiculing Kiffin because we’re sooooo scared of him!
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This initially seemed like mountain-of-a-molehill stuff, but, if you’re talking publicly about firing people you haven’t fired and you’re calling out specific positions, like secretaries — Jeebus. This is your support staff. Their families read this stuff.
Really, Lane? This is the environment you’re trying to create?
Initially, I was thinking he’d get canned after three years. But this kid has got it wrong on so many levels that he may well implode within the year.
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But this kid has got it wrong on so many levels that he may well implode within the year.
Given the current mindset of Vol fans, they’d probably claim that it was all part of a master plan to hire Jon Gruden, the guy UT wanted all along.
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I also thought the media piling on Kiffin was unjustified for a guy so new to being a HC in the SEC. But my sympathy is rapidly turning to morbid curiousity; this Kiffin guy is so full of shit, I’d be shocked if he doesn’t have plans for a future in politics.
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Oh, and how do you think Sports Illustrated likes being lied to?
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Part of me really thinks he may get fired before September. I’d be hard pressed to believe that Hamilton won’t get tired of having to follow Kiffin’s every move and cleaning up his litter box.
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“Lane Kiffin is the Dwight Schrute of the coaching community.”
Dwight Schrute: Question, which is dumber, bears or Lane Kiffen?
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Please tell me that they give an award for “Douche of the Year”…
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What kind of asshole would fire a driver for one mistake in this job market, anyway? Does Kiffin want to be known as a cosmic prick? (That’s rhetorical, by the way, no one answer that)
UT might have a little buyer’s remorse now, but I really don’t see Jon Gruden coaching at the college level. He seems to have the wrong temperament.
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Apparently Kiffin has violated another NCAA rule today. I’m listening to Finebaum and they’re playing the clip from a radio interview he did today where he talks about Bryce Brown by name. As Brown is a potential recruit, this violates NCAA rules where a coach can’t discuss unsigned players. Is this guy just an idiot? I don’t get it.
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Somebody get Johnny Majors on the phone. Knoxville needs him and his whiskey IV drip.
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