Lane Kiffin did the right thing

Sports media can’t stop complaining about Louisiana State University’s new head football coach, Lane Kiffin. A cliché tells us what’s really going on here: they hate him cause they ain’t him.  

Kiffin spent the last five years resurrecting Ole Miss’s once-mediocre football program. The Rebels are currently 11-1, ranked 7 in the AP poll and have almost certainly secured a playoff spot. But that didn’t stop Kiffin this morning from getting on a plane bound for the swampy fields of Baton Rouge, home of the most attractive coaching vacancy in a year filled with big openings.

“After a lot of prayer and time spent with family, I made the difficult decision to accept the head coaching position at LSU,” Kiffin said in a statement. “I was hoping to complete a historic six season run with this year’s team by leading Ole Miss through the playoffs, capitalizing on the team’s incredible success and their commitment to finish strong, and investing everything into a playoff run with guardrails in place to protect the program in any areas of concern.”

That request to coach through the end of the season, according to Kiffin, was turned down by Ole Miss. Kiffin maintains that players wanted him to stay on as well, which means that the only real losers in this business transaction are, unfortunately, the student athletes. Congratulations, Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter, you played yourself.

But social media and sports-media talking heads can’t stop talking about how much of a “villain” Kiffin is. That’s what the lead article on ESPN’s website this morning called him. He’s going down “Victim Lane” and is a “problem child,” we’re told. Really?

What about the exorbitantly wealthy NCAA system that makes it so easy to skirt contracts and to buyout a coach when has an off year? Never mind the absurd recruiting rules that basically forced Lane to make a decision this week so that next year’s players would know who their head coach is going to be.

Should Kiffin have stayed at an otherwise-shabby program that valued him less than LSU? Why shouldn’t he try to live up to his college-football potential by going to a bigger program that clearly sees him as worth more money? Why is everyone pretending like they would nobly turn down a $100 million contract in favor of less money and baked goods from happy boosters?

Throughout his career, 50-year-old Kiffin has never been the media darling. Polarizing, scandal-plagued, and a bit hot-headed: that’s Lane Kiffin. LSU knows this and still decided to hire him based on talent and his wins on the field across multiple organizations. There were puff pieces galore when the man was the shiny beacon of success in Mississippi this season. The week he makes his big decisions? On a podcast earlier this week, well before Kiffin had made his announcement, Ole Miss reporter Ben Garrett had eloquent words to describe the coach: “You can’t turn a hoe into a housewife. Hoes don’t act right.” Setting aside the outright misogyny – gee, I wonder why the man might want to leave.

There’s a valuable lesson here: success won’t shield you from the shrillest scolds. No matter how many wins you have, no matter how brilliant you are, the less successful people in the world will chirp away. So good for Lane Kiffin for going with what’s best for his family. Who knows – in a few seasons, we may well see him dancing in the White House, talking up the benefits of hot yoga, as he’s wont to do. In the meantime, pay attention to which voices are screaming the loudest about how evil he is; they might be revealing more about their own character than Kiffin’s.