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Feb 13, 2009 11:30 AM
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Wed Feb 10
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Lane Kiffin came to Tennessee to clean house and he's doing just that; bragging about how he's firing people left and right. Except he doesn't even really have the power to fire anybody.
Kiffin told Sports Illustrated this week that he has fired at least one person and "run off" several others as part of UT's new "get our act together" program. But as anyone who has worked in academics—like say, Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton—could tell you, firing someone at state-run institutions is not that simple.
It seems that Kiffin wanted to fire a football employee recently, but that he "reconsidered" the matter and it didn't happen. (Probably because he couldn't do it.) So why did Kiffin want that guy fired? He made him wait at an airport for 25 minutes.
"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."
But that's ludicrous! (How can you not love this guy?) It's also the latest "exaggeration" that Kiffin has been caught in during his brief tenure, suggesting that no matter how much he improves the Volunteer football program, they're not going to be winning any truth-telling contests. For example:
"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."
Yes, you can count them, because there have only been two. One secretary resigned, and another left to become Phil Fulmer's administrative assistant. Lane really needs to pace himself and save some of that crazy for the season.
Kiffin has 'not fired anybody' but Fulmer gets a secretary [Knoxville News Sentinel]
Rocking Old Rocky Top [SI]
Send an email to Dashiell Bennett, the author of this post, at dashiell@deadspin.com.
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