This Guy Is Younger Than David Eckstein

This youthful gentleman is Lane Kiffin, the new head coach of the Oakland Raiders. He is the youngest coach in Raiders history and the current youngest head coach in the NFL. He is younger than nine players who were on last year's Raiders roster and, strangely, he has only one year of NFL experience (he was a "defensive quality control coach" for the Buccaneers in 2000, mainly because he is the son of Bucs defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin). He has spent the last six years as the offensive coordinator for USC.

Oddly, Kiffin had just been offered the offensive coordinator position less than a week earlier but turned it down; good move, it appears. But here's what gets us about Kiffin: He is only five months older than we are. As sports fans, we go through certain phases as we grow older. At first, as a kid, it seems strange that the guy playing for our college team is just a couple years older than we are. Then we're older than them, and then we're older than some NFL stars. Then we see NFL players retire at our age, an age when we (mostly) have no idea what we're doing with our lives. And now, jeez, they're hiring coaches (and baseball general managers) who are our age, or younger. We speak for a lot of you, we suspect, in saying that we feel incredibly old this morning, and somewhat aimless. We gotta get our lives together ... or grow a goatee, at least.

Raiders Hire USC's Kiffin [San Francisco Chronicle]