Lane Kiffin, Confusing Concern for Compliments

Andy, as a Florida fan, well….that says a lot right there.

The NYT has no credibility here. First, in their initial report (which is a very strange place for a story about UT recruiting to break anyway) they reported the girls were holding a sign that read "Come to Tennessee." That was untrue. The sign, as Staple’s picture shows, read "Miller and Willis have our hearts."

The girls were invited by the players months ago to come to one of their games. According to one player’s father, his son and one of the girls really hit it off, and have been in contact a lot (granted, they aren’t supposed to be, but you can’t legislate personnal feelings of attraction between two young people).

Taking an assistant on a trip to his own former school was a bad idea, although it was probably just done because it gave him an opportunity to go home and visit old friends/family.

What Kiffin has wrong here is that people aren’t looking into this stuff because they want to learn how. They’re looking into it because rival schools are trying desperately to de-rail UT’s amazing recruiting. You can bet your bottom dollar there are Florida fans/staff/boosters involved in all this.

Is there any evidence that the basketball coach the NYT reports on is telling the truth? Is his opinion of the girls being "groomed" any kind of evidence? Is his motivation that his son wasn’t recruited by UT? Is he gay? (Sorry, that was probably uncalled for.)

BTW, the only way you can commit the violation of having cameras running during a meeting with a recruit, is on camera. We all thank ESPN for that one. If you don’t think the ESPN knew they weren’t supposed to be there, and did it anyway, just to get that violation of film, you’re dreaming. It was big news, and helped them create even more drama to attract viewers to their SEC broadcasts.

Vol85, these are all valid points. But does one tiny detail about the content of a sign completely destroy the NYT’s credibility? Did the recruiting staff dissuade the Orange Pride members from having public contact with the recruits and committing that violation? (Private contact, as you note, is nigh ungovernable.) Was Kiffin taking Rubio to Aquinas was a bad idea?And does the lack of physical evidence to back up what that basketball coach said mean he is a liar?I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I can say that there seems to be mounting evidence that Kiffin does not go out of his way to avoid recruiting violations, and, indeed, sometimes courts them, along with controversy, because he believes incensed observers will eventually give him valuable publicity that helps him recruit. (ESPN did bring cameras into that meeting with recruits, for example, but Kiffin certainly didn’t shoo them away.)And that’s what worries me, as someone who actually enjoys Tennessee being up and part of the lively Tennessee-Florida rivalry: At what price success? Will Kiffin only realize he has gone too far when an NCAA gavel falls?

Vol85, I’ve read your posts on this topic and have tried to understand.  You have educated me in an area in which I have little knowledge.  And I appreciate it.  But now, you are in danger of losing me.  The New York Times has no credibility?  The New York Times?  That paper has won 101 Pulitzers.  It’s considered the most important newspaper in North America.  And it has no axe to grind here.  They are not from SEC country.  They do not cover a rival of Tennessee.  They just go where the story can be found.  And right now, the story can be found in the Volunteer recruiting practices.  It doesn’t sound good.  My initial reaction when this story broke was that Tennessee is using sex to lure recruits.  After reading your comments, I came to believe that this was a rather innocent practice.  And maybe it is for most of the people involved.  This New York Times story makes it seem otherwise.  And your reaction doesn’t help.  When you make a comment like, "Is he gay?", red flags go up.  You seem more surprised that the tactic didn’t work than by the fact the it was reported.  I find this telling.  For the record, I am a male, and I am straight, and I would have reacted in the same manner as the basketball coach with the son.  In fact, I might have reacted in a stronger manner.  Forget for a minute that the man was there supervising the high school kids that she was also "recruiting."  Forget that he was a mature adult and she was a college kid.  Forget that he could be married (he does have a son) or have a girlfriend.  Forget that most adults who supervise children aren’t going to risk their careers by the getting involved with a girl.  Just think of the conceit of the girl, who thinks that by touching this man, she can influence him.  You should have been offended by the actions described in the story.  You should have denounced them.  You should have said that this is not a common practice.  Instead, you asked if the man was gay?  I think my first impression of Orange Pride may be pretty close to the truth. 

I’d help recruit for my college, but I went to Smith.

Don’t sell yourself short, L’etat.  Even at Smith, your charms should be useful in recruiting 10% of the population.

L’etat, there’s always squash, crew or equestrian…

Sexy Pete,

First, the New York Times is considered the most important paper in North America?  You from New York?  Most folks around North America might disagree with that.  In regards to their creditibility, they have none in my opinion in regards to reporting on the Vol recruiting.  Before the season begun, a story broke in the New York Times in regards to the recruiting of Bryce Brown.  That one turned out to be false, if I am not mistaken.  And, the fact that they reported that the signs said, "come to Tennessee" is another. 

Two stories with inaccuracies out of two stories written makes me start to question their credibility as it should with anyone who reads their paper. 

In regards to Vol85’s question, "Is he gay?", this was just a joke and you know that.  Stop grand standing. 

As you mentioned, I would be upset as well if one of the girls tried playing the role of a "whore" to lure my son to the school.  On that note, if one of the girls took this a little further than they should have in trying to get the players to commit, then they are wrong.  I am quite certain that Kiffin did not specifically tell these girls to do what they have been accused of by the hgigh school coach.  And, if the girls built some type of relationship with the players during the summer visits and they went on their own to the school to watch them play, that is not Kiffin’s doing if he or his coaches did not tell them to do so, right?

Kiffin is right in saying that all of the exposure and all of the interest in their tactics is due to the success they have had lately.  Why is that so hard to believe? 

vol4life999,Yes, the New York Times is a highly-respected, award-winning newspaper.  The reason I mentioned their 101 Pulitzers is because that is a significant measuring stick for quality journalism.  In case you are unfamiliar with it, the the Pulitzer Prizes are given for excellence in Journalism, Literature, etc.  No other newspaper is even close to the Times.  There are certainly other fine newspapers in our country, but they all aspire to be as esteemed as the Times.  That said, yes, they do make mistakes, just like anyone else.  But they are rare.  In this case, you want to latch on to the picture showing one sign and the article quoting a different sign.  I don’t find it very hard to believe that the girls had two signs (after all there were two girls) or that the front and back had two different messages.  In either case, they were there, they had a sign, and they were in violation of NCAA rules.  They were also ridiculously overdressed for a high school football game, and at least for one of the women, quite old for high school boys.  It didn’t look good.As for the "Is he gay?" comment, the problem wasn’t so much the joke, but what it represented.  She wasn’t shocked by the accusation.  She chose to attack the man for not being influenced by unwanted sexual contact (when a man does that, we call it harassment) instead of condemning the girls, or at least saying Orange Pride does not condone that sort of behavior.  She didn’t.  Instead, she tried to make it look like the coach was wrong for not being turned on.  Even if it was a joke, it didn’t look good.

Sexy Pete,

The NYT WAS a respected paper. That was before stories of fabricated sources backing up artices, poor fact checking, etc. If you google NYT retractions, you get 186,000. Yes, all papers make mistakes and they all make retractions. But to call the times the most respected paper is inaccurate. As someone who grew up in the NY area, that’s just not true.

As for the substance of this story (I almost forgot about it:)) This is a troubling trend. As a UT fan, I’m getting very nervous about all these "secondary" violations. Is this going to get worse?

Bill93, there were 14 Pulitzer Prizes awarded in 2009.The New York Times won five of them.  The only other paper with more than one was the St. Petersburg Times with two. The New York Times won for:Breaking News ReportingInvestigative Reporting (This is the type that the Vols story would fall under)International ReportingCriticismFeature PhotographyI think they are still respected.As for your question at the end, I would be concerned if I were a Vols fan.  It is a troubling trend.  

It’s a good 10%, though…

Here is my problem with this it seems to me anything lane does end up front page news. Ever since he took a shot at urban meyer. Why is it 27 players arrested some multiple times in last 4 yrs hasnt got reported by the times? oh i forget florida can violate the law and all rules and it gets hidden. So Lane is right nick saban is a better coach then urban m eyer. lane had the cohonas to take on media golden boy urban meyer and ever since they have done everything they can to make him look bad. this isn’t fair and impartial but what do u expect. Oh and pulitzer prizes go to the times cause they are a ny paper. sure they are suppose to be for excellence but like any award they are as much political as they are for excellence. for the record the fact ths sign didnt say what times reported does cast some doubt on story. another thing one of the boys said one of the girls was a freind for a while which i took to mean she was his freind before tennesee started to recruit him.

Here’s one from this month.  

http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/dunlaps-arrest-puts-spotlight-on-florida/

The New York Times has no credibility whatsoever.  No American newspaper or television station does.  It is all 100% entertainment.  The NYT takes one good look at Rupert Murdock, (the Father of the National Enquirer and Fox News) and knows how bread is buttered.  A 50 year old reputation does not excuse the supposedly most respected journal in the Western hemisphere stooping to this level of innuendo.  Do you… Sexy Pete, for example… have any idea just who Keith Easterwood is?  He is a second rate knockoff of Brian Butler tht the NYT was certain had corrupted Bryce Brown in some way.  The fact that the NCAA could not find any corruption in Brown infuriated the NYT and they have been stalking ever since.  Now they pounce.  The transparency is hilarious.  They cited photographic evidence of the OP girls at the high school game, but produced no photos.  Three days later Andy Staples just happened to remember he had some shots in his camera he had forgot about and yep, there were the pretty OP girls.  Has there ever been a more surprising coindence?

There have been sillier stories than this.  One was the NYT declaring that Iraq did in fact have weapons of mass distruction.  Another was Geraldo Riviera galvanizing a nation to watch him shatter a brick wall in a basement to reveal Al Capone’s hidden treasure.

Kiffin is laughing HAO, and so am I.

I don’t know what’s funnier – every time you turn around UcheaT is
dealing with another "incident" or the fact that so many of their fans
actually like the child coach. 

Enjoy – a perfect match between people and program!  Robbin’, stealin’, and pimpin’…If only the HOstesses were around at Pilot Stations.

Lane Kiffin appears to have no self-awareness.  He is college football’s version of Michael Scott of The Office.  When he speaks, people cringe. 

I do not think the NCAA or the SEC is going to let this slide.  If the "Orange Pride" visits and any involvement of Rubio on a recruiting trip pan out as more "secondary violations," it will only spark more scrutiny.  This ball is already rolling.  If you dig deep enough, you’ll eventually find enough dirt on 90% of the programs out there to warrant some sort of probation.  Luckily for most programs, the NCAA is way too understaffed to monitor everyone.  But if you continue to taunt the NCAA the way Kiffin is doing, he’s only going to insure that all that attention he so obviously craves is going to be permanent.  Kiffin is a matador waving a big red flag in front of the NCAA.  Sooner or later, he’s going to get gored.

Maybe the NYT should check into the Bu$h situation at U$C and while they’re at it look into the  NCAA’s "investigation" of the affair.Kiffin is a bit of a loose cannon and the NCAA doesn’t like those kind of coaches.As Jerry Tarkanian once said,"The NCAA got so mad at me they put Clevland State on probation."

Making statements like "Lane Kiffin is LHAO and so am I" cant help the situation, it speaks volumes about attitude. Not so sure anyone involved is gonna be laughing if this keeps up.

Keith Easterwood claims to have been offended by a young lady’s breasts. Methinks Mr. Easterwood is the one with no credibility. Of all the things I’ve had arise when brushed by the breasts of a young lady, anger was not one of them. The funniest aspect of all this ‘controversy’ is the feigned outrage over Lane Kiffin’s brushing off the critics. ahutchins in particular is an avowed Vol hater, so nothing he writes can be taken seriously. I believe he’s an Alabama fan, so consider the source. The Vol haters can continue grasping at straws while Lane Kiffin keeps turning lemons in to lemonade. Go Vols!

Lame Kiffin is a cheater like his buddy Cheatin’ Pete at USC.

Both programs should get the death penalty.

Ultimately Lane is reaping the fruits of his actions. I do enjoy him trying to spin it as if it’s catching people off guard that that Tennessee, a school that’s had it’s fair share of top ten recruiting classes over the past decade, is doing relatively well in recruiting so they feel obligated to find out how.

No, Lane, the program is under scrutiny because you demanded it with every desperate plea for attention and claim that violations and apparent missteps were a calculated plan to increase the program’s profile for recruiting. Thumb your nose at the rules long enough and someone’s actually going to pay attention.

Sexy Pete, there was only one sign, and the NYT reported it wrong. It is just one example. The new story, the one about the coach and his comments regarding the girl and her boobs, is even less believable. Kieth Easterwood is an AAU coach in the Memphis area. Bruce Pearl cultivated a relationship with him as part of trying to win more of the Memphis talent. Easterwood has brought several of his players to UT since, but NONE have ever committed, and he is on record as saying that he deliberately steered at least one away from Knoxville. There are stories that claim he has animosity toward UT because we didn’t offer his son a scholarship (nor did any other D1 school). His comments about an Orange Pride girl deliberately rubbing herself against him is pure fantasy, and pure BS on his part. I’m sure he dreams about young girls showing that kind of interest in him, but I doubt any ever do, unless he’s paying them for it.

The gay comment was just a joke. Relax. I do not ever believe an adult male will complain about what he complained about, unless his wife was present and he felt compelled to. Men simply don’t make that kind of complaint when a young attractive female make physical contact. Nature is what it is.

thejoyofsobe, I don’t think so. This isn’t an example of the NCAA going after Kiffin because he’s "thumbed his nose" at them. He hasn’t. He’s made some comments about SEC leadership, just like most of the other coaches have this season, but never anything about the NCAA. Besides, the NCAA hasn’t sent a letter of inquiry to UT.

No, this is somebody trying to get UT in trouble, or more likely, just trying to slow down their recruiting efforts. So far, there have been no credible sources accusing UT of anything. Actually, the only accusations have been about a couple of girls going to a football game, and another girl rubbing against somebody. That somebody having a grudge against UT, and on record for having deliberately steered recruits away from UT in the past.

Nothing significant will come of this BS, and Kiffin will still land a top-5 class.

You cant’ mess with the good old boys network and not expect some push back. Look Lane, the South is a weird place.  There really is not a lot to do down there and the place probably holds some of the dumbest people in the country.  Just keep plugging away you’ll be ok.  Why do you think the whole south hates the west coast?  Why do you think they hate USC?  Its not about football, its about a better way of life.  The south knows they live in crap land…and they hate the rest of the country for being better.  Not to mention the also are still ticked the North kicked their butts in the Civil War….

I can see that you haven’t spent any quality time down here, Sailor. It’s really quite lovely. I’ve been to every state in the union, and every big city is the same, it’s only different in terms of scale. There are only a few truly unique large cities in the states. And I am pretty sure that no one state or area holds the monopoly on dumb/ignorant people. When I was in Peoria, Illinois a few years ago, I heard the n-word more in one week than I heard in any calendar year of living in Georgia. But you probably do have more stuff to do, though… like avoiding the 405, mudslides, killer bees, earthquakes, fires, gang shootings, rolling blackouts, and overpriced real estate. ;)

jaek,

I’m in the military and I’ve lived in every part of the country including Georgia and I can say without a doubt the south is filled with some of the most racist, ignorant, and backward people I’ve ever seen.  Hey, I’m a minority myself and trust me, more then one time have I went into a restaurant down south and felt more then uncomfortable, even in uniform. 

No thanks.  I’ll stay on the west coast.  Where I’ll live in no humidity, hot women, cheaper education, more diversity, baha tacos, In-N-Out burger, Laker games, Charger games, concerts, surfing, skiing, Napa valley, Silicon Valley, Hollywood,….etc.

You can keep the segragation, lynching, Wal-Mart, Hooters, fried food, Bill Clinton, George Bush, etc….

I’m a minority person as well, brother. I haven’t had anything but a great time socially and professionally between Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana. I’d say that this is more about individual experience/leanings than the whole, because my experience is the diametric opposite and I’ve lived in the south my entire life. I have experienced more racism in the north & midwest than the rest of the country (northeast, southwest, west coast, south) combined.I’ll give you the in-n-out, but we have better BBQ than Cali. And wal-mart has attached itself like virus to everything, there’s no escaping it.

I’m not sure where we got off on the South vs. argument, but the broad  language you use, Sailor, is the same mindset that racists have when they describe a set of people.  I’m not a minority.  I have lived all over the U.S. and there is no monopoly of ignorance.  I once had an argument with someone in Westport CT (Martha Stewart’s hometown) about how segregated the south is.  It is true that the races tend to live apart in the South, but when the person making the argument is from Westport the argument lacks teeth.  Hiram Revels was the first African American U.S. Senator in 1870 representing . . . wait for it . . .Mississippi.  Sailor, I’m sure  CA is great, just stop commenting about us poor ignorant Southerners.

Unease, nervousness turned to fear and now has ballooned to terror.  Especially among the SEC fan bases.  Lane Kiffin came to Tennessee and did his Steve Spurrier imitation and was immediately embraced as a God Send by all the twitter junkies.  In a year he got more twitter coverage than Michael Jackson and Tiger Woods combined.  Even the vererable, lofty New York Times could not resist the mania.  But that is the twitter world for you.  The terror arose when it became obvious that the Kiffen machine took what scraps they found at the bottom of the barrel and created an astonishingly effective football team.  Nick Saban orders Greacian Formula by the case to hide the gray hair the UT/Ala game gave him.  So of course "a lot of people will be coming after" the brightest star in all of CFB, and the program he represents.  But since the "lot of people" are nothing but twitter junkies, Kiffin laughs in glee, and so do I.

Listen, author.

Those girls just going to the HS game is not a violation.  This is not the old USSR.  We don’t have internal passports.

If UT sent them, then that is a problem.  But that has not been proven yet.

So much for your standard of journalism.

I am a UT grad and I am DELIGHTED Coach Kiffin represents the university.  That may change, but right now there is no need for me to do that.  Your lousy hit piece is just that – a lousy hit piece.

Walt

UT ’81

It really isn’t a fun thing to mock this guy anymore…he says so many stupid things that it just isn’t sporting.  Think he can spell j-a-c-k-a-s-s?

What should they do?  Fire their Pep Club girls?  This is really silliness.  It does appear to be a vendetta against Kiffin.  He was demonstrative over the bad officiating in the sec, and now the heavies are trying to stiff him back into line. 

Hey, uberbuckeye.

We lead the series against you guys.  Just like we do against Michigan and FSU, among a lot of others.

Walt

UT ’81

In the good ole days sportswriters (pardon the expression) were known as, and tolerated as, gossip columnists.  Then they became know as the gutter press.  In the new millenium twitter is all the rage, so they are now reduced to twitter twits.  A twit is still a twit whether he/she gets a pay check from the New York Times or The National Inquirer.  Or The Sporting News.  But Lane Kiffen is more than the sharpest cutting edge in all of CFB.  He is young enough to completely understand the imbecility of twitter and twits, and plays with them like they are fat fuzzy puppies frolicking about his feet.  He and AD Hamilton know that the only thing to come of this lastest twitter frenzy will be an irrestible allure to high school stars to go where the action is.  I wonder how many times a day Kiffen, America’s closest thing to a young Prince and King apparent, breaks out in belly laughs? 

To LadyVolsLover,

Now you got me LMAO!