Please forgive me if this has already been posted, but that does not appear to be the case. As you all know, Lane Kiffin has a terrible case of having his foot firmly in his mouth. In case you haven't heard already, he and his staff were recently banned from Pahokee High School after he publicly insulted the place.
http://www.govolsxtra.com/news/2009/may/12/pahokee-wants-kiffin-make-mor...
His first comment came after National Signing Day as he suggested that PHS was trying to direct recruits to UF:
“Someone at the school was going to screw it up. The fax machine wouldn’t work, or they would have changed the signatures, all the things that go on in Pahokee.”
He was later quoted in the Gainesville Sun as saying, “For those of you who haven’t been to Pahokee, there ain’t much going on. You take that hour drive up from South Florida, there ain’t a gas station that works. Nobody’s got enough money to even have shoes or a shirt on.”
Oh well, more recruits for us! But seriously, I used to think that Al Davis just fired Kiffin because he did not turn out to be some young coach whom Davis could easily control and manipulate. I figured that Davis was just slandering the young, bright coach when he accused Kiffin of being dishonest and deceitful, calling him "a flat-out liar" and saying that he was "bringing disgrace to the [Raiders] organization." Well, I personally don't know how much of it has to do with Al Davis's ego, but I no longer find his comments about Kiffin so hard to believe.
Lane Kiffin is probably a pretty good coach and he could one day win a national championship at Tennessee for all we know, given the right recruits. Or he could be a bust or even be fired for some reason other than his coaching record. (Alabama famously fired Mike Price one month after hiring him following reports of a strip club romp in Pensacola.) One thing that seems for certain, however, is that he is a complete asshole and his poor attitude could hurt Tennessee as well as turn off potential recruits.
Not a very good recruiting strategy for an area that is known for its football talent.