Lane Kiffin has had an eventful start to his head coaching days at Tennessee. He was accused of recruiting violations by Steve Spurrier, then Kiffin himself accused Urban Meyer of trying to nab one of his recruits before having to ultimately apologize, and Kiffin topped this all off by committing his own recruiting violation by using a fog machine to introduce a recruit during a school visit. Basically, it's been one comedic incident after another. And now, it's getting even funnier. Kiffin recently talked to Sports Illustrated about how's he brought a no-nonsense approach to the job and has been firing people left and right. But speaking as someone whose mother works at a state run institution, I'm well aware of the fact that you can't fire ANYONE at these kinds of schools. But let's hear what Kiffin said.
After returning to Knoxville following the birth of his son last month, Kiffin had arranged for someone to pick him up at the airport, according to the article. His 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," Kiffin said in the story. "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."
Sounds great. Except it's a complete lie."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."
So what's this, the 4th time Kiffin's looked like an absolute fool in like 2 months? But hey, the fun doesn't stop there. Let's just keep piling on.
"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."
By the way, about those secretaries. One retired and the other one was reassigned to be Phil Fulmer's secretary. Way to run them off, Lane.
So there you go Tennessee. With Lane Kiffin this awful in the offseason, one can only wonder what will happen when he actually starts coaching real games.Lane Kiffin may be allergic to the truth [Deadspin]
Kiffin has not fired anyone, but Fulmer gets an assistant [Knoxville News Sentinel]
Rocking old Rocky Top [SI]
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