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Lane Kiffin to Ole Miss?


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Drinkwitz:

"I thought the transfer window, I thought the portal was closed. Oh, that's just for the student-athletes. The adults in the room get to do whatever they want, apparently.

"My question is: Did we count the cost? And I’m not talking about the financial cost. I’m talking about: Did we count the cost for the student-athletes involved in this decision? What cost is it to those student-athletes? We’re talking about a football decision, they based [it] on football, but what about softball and baseball, who have to travel cross-country? Did we ask about the cost to them?

"Do we know what the No. 1 indicator or symptom of or cause of mental health [issues] is? It’s lack of rest and sleep. Traveling in those baseball, softball games, those people, they travel commercial, they get done playing, they gotta go to the airport, they come back, it’s 3 or 4 in the morning, they gotta go to class. I mean, did we ask any of them?"

 

 

Drinkwitz mentioned those student-athletes speaking up and sympathized with them:

"I saw on Twitter several student-athletes talking about how one of the reasons they chose their school was so their parents didn't have to travel. They chose a local school so they could be regionally associated so their parents could watch them play and not have to travel. Did we ask them if they wanted to travel from the East Coast to the West Coast?

"Man, I love the game, but every game that I coach, I look up in the stands and find my family. I make sure they can be there. Because that's what I'm doing this for."

 

https://sports.yahoo.com/missouris-eli-drinkwitz-asks-a-good-question-about-athletes-mental-health-after-big-tens-latest-expansion-224121448.html

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Lane Kiffin swapped roles with receivers coach Derrick Nix for a day

Kiffin, after realizing the Big 12 and SEC have zero minority head coaches, provided Nix the opportunity to be head coach for a full 24-hour period

DOUG SAMUELS    21 HOURS AGO

The lack of minorities in head coaching and front office roles has been a glaring issue for decades with no clear cut solution.

In the NFL, the Rooney Rule has been around for two decades that requires NFL teams to interview at least one minority candidate, but there has been no shortage of criticism in that approach, especially as of recent with many feel like organizations are simply "checking the box" in interviewing a minority candidate at times.

The league has also recently tried incentivizing hiring minority head coaches and front office personnel by offering additional draft picks, but the vast majority feel like we're still falling short.

Of the 133 FBS head coaching jobs, just 14 are filled by minority head coaches, which comes out to about 11%.

This off season, it seems like head coaches have taken matters into their own hands to provide opportunities for guys on their staff to step into the role of head coach.

Last week we shared how Mike Vrabel provided assistant head coach / defensive line coach Terrell Williams the opportunity to get his feet wet as a head coach by allowing him to take on the role during their preseason game against the Bears.

Lane Kiffin decided to take a similar approach this weekend with wide receivers coach Derrick Nix, a college coaching veteran who has been at Ole Miss since 2008, working with the running backs through the 2019 season before moving to receivers the last few years.

Kiffin and Nix switched roles for 24 hours, allowing Nix to serve as the Rebels head coach not only in their scrimmage on Saturday but also handling some other important head coaching duties, while Kiffin stepped into the role of receivers coach for the day.

After the scrimmage, Kiffin was asked about the role reversal, and shared some great perspective.

"24 hours ago, he became the head coach for a 24-hour period. That was done, not as a PR thing, that was really done to give him an opportunity to see what it's like."

"I remember my dad telling me a long time ago, 'Be very grateful for what you have, because this has not been a good profession at all for minorities.'"

"He would say, 'I'm just telling you, there are more Tony Dungys, there's more Lovie Smiths, there are more Mike Tomlins that never get that opportunity."

"It hit me when I was discussing this, you look around and you see the SEC, and you see these schools coming in from the Big 12, and we're in 2023, and between the SEC and the Big 12 we have no minority head coaches, and that is really unfortunate."

"Not that I am going to be able to change that, but to be able to give someone an opportunity to do things like speak in front of the team, to handle media, to handle the pregame meal, to handle the injury reports and then go out there today and manage the scrimmage and mock game, I think was really good for him, and sometimes you don't get a chance to see how good someone is until they get a chance to do it."

"That would be my wish out there to ADs and presidents and universities to understand that, and coach Nix is a good example here, we've been fortunate to keep him here, he's had a lot of opportunities to leave, and today you saw a whole 'nother level out of him. I was inspired after listening to him this morning."

"I just hope coaches like coach Nix in this profession - black coaches that don't get opportunities - start getting opportunities, because it is ridiculous, when we're talking about two major conferences right here in this area, and when whatever it is, 80% of our players are minority, but we have all white coaches, It's really a system that needs to be fixed."

After Kififn, Nix takes a turn at the podium as well, sharing how pumped up he was when Kiffin presented the idea...so much so that he had to remind himself it was just a scrimmage when he could't sleep at 3am.

Hear more from Kiffin and Nix in the clip, and here's to hoping that this is a movement that catches on among head coaches, and athletic departments and ADs start to take notice of these types of opportunities.

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Lane Kiffin and Elderly Miss sued for not giving a player a mental health break. Coach seems a tad harsh in an allegedly recorded conversation.

ESPN link

Quote

"Ok, you have a f---ing head coach, this is a job, guess what, if I have mental issues and I'm not diminishing them, I can't not see my f---ing boss," Kiffin said, according to the lawsuit and the audio recording. "When you were told again and again the head coach needs to see you, wasn't to make you practice, wasn't to play a position you don't f---ing want to, ok? It was to talk to you and explain to you in the real world, ok? So I don't give a f--- what your mom say, ok, or what you think in the real f---ing world, you show up to work, and then you say, 'Hey, I have mental issues, I can't do anything for two weeks, but if you change my position I won't have mental issues.'

"I guarantee if we f---ing called you in and said you're playing defense, would you have mental issues?"

"I definitely would," Rollins said.

During the audio exchange, Rollins is heard saying, "I mean, you're acting like my issues aren't real."

"I didn't say they're not real," Kiffin responded. "You show up when your head -- when your boss wants to meet with you. It wouldn't have been like this. If you would've come here when you kept getting messages the head coach wants to talk to you, you say 'I'm not ready to talk to him.'"

"I wasn't," Rollins said.

"What f---ing world do you live in?" Kiffin asked.

"I don't see why you have to be disrespectful, honestly," Rollins said.

"Get out of here," Kiffin said. "Go, you're off the team. You're done. See ya. Go. And guess what? We can kick you off the team. So go read your f---ing rights about mental health. We can kick you off the team for not showing up. When the head coach asks to meet with you and you don't show up for weeks, we can remove you from the team.

"It's called being a p---y," Kiffin said. "It's called hiding behind s--- and not showing up to work."

 

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4 hours ago, Gene Parmesan said:

Lawsuit is going nowhere if that's the smoking gun. 

The suit alleges that white and female athletes were given mental health but this kid wasn't. It also seeks $10 million in compensatory damages.

I agree – the case seems like a loser looking for quick payout.

Edited by South Austin
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Without anywhere near 100% of the context, I don’t have a problem with this. 

Kiffin didn’t deny there might be real mental health issues but, in the real world, you can’t just disappear. You have to handle your stuff, even if handling your stuff just means showing up to say you can’t handle your stuff and need some time. 

Personally, I think ghosting your team and staging a recording with “who, me?” kinds of responses is far less than sympathetic.

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1 hour ago, 'stache said:

Kid probably deserved to be booted but that’s a pretty shitty way to handle it, imo.

Yeah, and just dumb on Kiffin’s part too. He opened himself up to this shit by laying into the kid like he did. 

All he had to do was tell Rollins that he was off the team, because while he appreciates his mental health struggles he has to be able to trust the coaches and the program to have the resources to help and disappearing for weeks just wasn’t the right way to handle it. 

Kiffin may have made himself feel better for a second by giving him that big lecture and it made him seem like a bully and insensitive to whether he was actually going though something. 

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4 hours ago, South Austin said:

The suit alleges that white players were given mental health breaks to whites and females. It also seeks $10 million in compensatory damages.

I agree – the case seems like a loser looking for quick payout.

plus $30 million in putative damages, and reinstatement to the team (lol)

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1 hour ago, UncleSonny said:

Yeah, and just dumb on Kiffin’s part too. He opened himself up to this shit by laying into the kid like he did. 

All he had to do was tell Rollins that he was off the team, because while he appreciates his mental health struggles he has to be able to trust the coaches and the program to have the resources to help and disappearing for weeks just wasn’t the right way to handle it. 

Kiffin may have made himself feel better for a second by giving him that big lecture and it made him seem like a bully and insensitive to whether he was actually going though something. 

Coaches are hotheads, but given he was kicking him off the team there is no point in laying into him, but lol at this kid thinking the coach calling him a pussy is going to win him a lawsuit.  

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8 minutes ago, Gene Parmesan said:

Coaches are hotheads, but given he was kicking him off the team there is no point in laying into him, but lol at this kid thinking the coach calling him a pussy is going to win him a lawsuit.  

Yeah, the kid seems like a dumbass from the limited context that we have, and I’m not saying that Kiffin getting on his soapbox in the meeting changes his legal exposure in any significant way. 

Perception matters for head coaches though, and Kiffin at the minimum created additional headaches for himself by not being able to control himself better. 

3 minutes ago, Deej said:

Kiffin was just being honest. 

Being honest and being smart aren’t always the same thing. Anyone who’s married knows that 

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1 hour ago, UncleSonny said:

Yeah, and just dumb on Kiffin’s part too. He opened himself up to this shit by laying into the kid like he did. 

All he had to do was tell Rollins that he was off the team, because while he appreciates his mental health struggles he has to be able to trust the coaches and the program to have the resources to help and disappearing for weeks just wasn’t the right way to handle it. 

Kiffin may have made himself feel better for a second by giving him that big lecture and it made him seem like a bully and insensitive to whether he was actually going though something. 

Yup, pretty simple. But let's be clear, if he was a 5 star phenom and healthy, he'd have been accepted back with open arms. That might be the "double standard" claim, but I don't see how it flies in this business. Kiffin is still a scumbag regardless of how one views this particular incident. 

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35 minutes ago, 'stache said:

Yup, pretty simple. But let's be clear, if he was a 5 star phenom and healthy, he'd have been accepted back with open arms. That might be the "double standard" claim, but I don't see how it flies in this business. Kiffin is still a scumbag regardless of how one views this particular incident. 

boo hiss.  anyone that has a dog with his own twitter account is not a scumbag 

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50 minutes ago, 'stache said:

Yup, pretty simple. But let's be clear, if he was a 5 star phenom and healthy, he'd have been accepted back with open arms. That might be the "double standard" claim, but I don't see how it flies in this business. Kiffin is still a scumbag regardless of how one views this particular incident. 

Hypotheticals aren't evidence.  Unless Kiffin has multiple players going off the grid for weeks and each were treated different there is no double standard.  Regardless of how an organization plans to deal with mental health issues, dropping all communication doesn't fly anywhere.

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Yup, pretty simple. But let's be clear, if he was a 5 star phenom and healthy, he'd have been accepted back with open arms. That might be the "double standard" claim, but I don't see how it flies in this business. Kiffin is still a scumbag regardless of how one views this particular incident. 

Cotton Bowl record brah.
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Was it harsh?  Yes.  It’s also Kiffin just being a kinda old school kinda coach.  He could have handled it better for sure.  This wouldn’t be a story even though thirty years ago as most coaches tried to faze out the “weak” by being hard and not excepting less.  You signed up for this, deal with it or leave.  Much like the average Joe can’t take a mental health day at most jobs still, though I’ve wanted them before it’s just not an option.  That’s life sometimes, atleast from what I’ve experienced.  Life is not fair is one of the real truths but here we’re talking about football….  If you aren’t able to handle the pressure of that just move on with your life then. 

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23 hours ago, South Austin said:

and then you say, 'Hey, I have mental issues, I can't do anything for two weeks, but if you change my position I won't have mental issues.'

"I guarantee if we f---ing called you in and said you're playing defense, would you have mental issues?"

"I definitely would," Rollins said.

During the audio exchange, Rollins is heard saying, "I mean, you're acting like my issues aren't real."

"I didn't say they're not real," Kiffin responded. "You show up when your head -- when your boss wants to meet with you. It wouldn't have been like this. If you would've come here when you kept getting messages the head coach wants to talk to you, you say 'I'm not ready to talk to him.'"

"I wasn't," Rollins said.

"What f---ing world do you live in?" Kiffin asked.

"I don't see why you have to be disrespectful, honestly," Rollins said.

This reads like a set up. I want to know more information. I’m sure they have more witnesses and communication about previous absences. 

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I never was a Kiffin fan but his time with Saban after being fired on the tarmac refocused him and he’s turned into a good ball coach. I hate Ole Miss but he’s doing solid work there. And he did exactly right in this situation. I hope the judge dismisses the lawsuit and tells the player to get his shit together and grow the fuck up.

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  • 1 month later...

So let me get this straight...

Kid gets moved to other side of the ball

Decides he has a mental issue and seeks counseling on campus

Ghost the head coach for two weeks even though he told by the university and his councilor that he cant do that.

Finally meets the HC and tells the HC he wasn't ready to talk because of mental condition

Then tells the coach  that he would feel better and it's not a big deal if he can come back and play offense again

Kiffin gets annoyed and finally says get fucked

Been in news for a while

Then releases only part of the audio conversation

 

Get fucked kid. This is nothing more than a money grab that is trying to hide behind mental illness. That in itself pisses me off. I am even more annoyed that it also means that Kiffin is not in the wrong on this one and so he is the actual dude being wronged here.

 

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Just another leech who is trying to get a quick payday when it became obvious his athletic abilities wouldn't be able to provide one. Mental health issues are very real and should be taken seriously.  Hiding behind them for financial gain is total bullshit. 

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48 minutes ago, Laxtonto said:

 

 

Get fucked kid. This is nothing more than a money grab that is trying to hide behind mental illness. That in itself pisses me off. I am even more annoyed that it also means that Kiffin is not in the wrong on this one and so he is the actual dude being wronged here.

 

This.  100% team kiffin on this. If you have mental issues, that doesn't absolve you from taking a little bit of responsibility and meeting with your fucking coach.  The fact that this is even an issue says everything about that generation.  

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He's an asshole. Kick him off the team, it's a logical decision, but there is nothing to gain by mocking claims of mental health issues. I would agree, however, that this doesn't need to be overblown. He was already known to be an asshole, this doesn't really change my opinion of Joey Freshwater. Grade A douche since he first hit the scene.

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Yeah, after reading the details it's really hard to take the players side in this one. You're on scholly to play football...you can't just stop doing that with no coach contact for two weeks then decide you want to not only come back..but dictate where you play? Gtfo with that.

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