Remember Eddie Sherman, the tough as nails Jewish mail room guy that worked for J. Peterman? Well if you don't, it goes like this: Elaine gets an invitation in the mail that is really late, and she comments that the mail has been really bad lately, so she orders the mail room guy to come into her office (Jerry: "You gonna do a little yellin'?" Elaine: "I'm gonna do a little firin'!"). The guy shows up in army fatigues with a voice that makes Christian Bale's Dark Knight Batman sound like Julie Andrews. Elaine cannot go through with her plan to fire this inept mail room attendant, and since she can't come up with a plausible reason for calling him up to her office, she blurts out that she is going to promote Eddie to copywriter. Well, as you can imagine, Eddie is terrible at copywriter. So Elaine gets the idea (from Jerry), not to fire this man, but to promote him again, to get him out of her hair. She makes Eddie Sherman the Director of Corporate Development.
Sound familiar?
Sounds good, right? I mean, doucheabaggery aside, those names SOUND like they should be able to do a lot with one of the best programs of the past 15 years. Right? Tell them Pat Forde:
Seriously, why not? Why wouldn't he just keep rising up the coaching ranks on the basis of nothing much at all? If a 31-year-old with no head-coaching experience can get the Oakland Raiders job, and a guy who got fired from that job after losing 15 of 20 games can get the Tennessee job, and a guy who went 7-6 in a reckless first season in Knoxville can get the USC job … is there any rung of the sport to which Kiffin cannot climb?
I mean, what if he actually does something impressive as a coach? Win a conference title and they might just fast-track him into the Hall of Fame.
Paris Hilton has paid more dues than Lane Kiffin.
ESPN, originally believed (by me) to be squarely in the USC pocket, has actually dropped some serious articles on this whole situation, none of them supportive of USC, Kiffin, or any of the other behind-the-scenes deal makers who brought this college football atrocity to fruition. Mark Schlabach found the silver lining, as obvious as it may be:
The first day of 2010 ended with four members of Tennessee's nationally ranked basketball team sitting in a Knoxville jail, facing drug and weapons charges.
What a way to turn the calendar.
Finally, there was good news on Rocky Top on Tuesday night: Lane Kiffin is gone.
After only one season as Tennessee's coach, Kiffin is no longer the Volunteers' problem. The 34-year-old wonder boy is going back to Southern California, where he'll replace Trojans coach Pete Carroll, his former boss. Kiffin's 12-21 record in two-plus seasons as coach of the Volunteers and NFL's Oakland Raiders was enough to convince USC athletic director Mike Garrett that he should be handed the keys to one of college football's premier programs.
Finally, Gene Wojciechowski opened his ESPN-required piece like this:
If there were a stock car race between all the frauds, egomaniacs and two-faced weasels I've ever covered, Lane Kiffin would have the pole position all to himself.
There are really too many reputable news sources covering this thing that linking to all of them would be futile. Luckily, someone at RockyTop put everything together for your reading pleasure. The folks at RockyTop were livid last night, some even surrounding the football building and hurling insults at every car that went by in the off chance that Kiffin was inside. Reports are that some players found out from their non-friend players, as Kiffin was in Orlando and making his way back to talk to the team. Once a meeting was arranged, needless to say everyone in the room was PO'd at Kiffin, some yelling at him, not letting him speak. That's when things got a little bizarre.
Suffice it to say, this man is a scumbag of a different breed. Forde, again, dropped a gem of a line:
Kiffin comes across as a guy who was born on third base and acts as if he hit a triple -- but given the way people have thrown good jobs and big money at him, it's hard to blame him for thinking he's the next Knute Rockne.
The losers in all of this, obviously, are the Tennessee players. Some of them came to Tennessee with hopes of playing for Lane Kiffin (and his stellar 7-6 record) and are now stuck in the middle of a huge primadonna scandal. Luckily, one of their recruits has already solidified his commitment. You can't help but feel sorry for the Tennessee team, although they did hire Kiffin, so they had to know some of what they might be getting involved with.
Conversely, everyone at ConquestChronicles is loving this move. Why not? The prodigal son has returned, with the all star cast in tow. It will be fun to watch all of this unfold over the next 8 months (and you thought the off-season wold be slow). The real winners in all this mess are people like Urban Meyer, Rich Rodriguez, and Pete Carroll - people who are noted scumbags, but are now merely "bad people" compared to this new stratosphere of scumbaggery. Fight On, Lane! Fight On, indeed.