Lane Kiffin is leaving for another family, and Layla isn't happy.

Fake (Sports) News; Real Funny

LOS ANGELES – Just weeks after leaving the University of Tennessee for the greener grass of Southern California, the new Trojans' head football coach Lane Kiffin announced Thursday he has agreed to take the open head father position of another family, leaving his current family behind to pick up the pieces.

“It was just too good of a fit to pass up," Kiffin said in the press conference, with his new, better looking, more successful family proudly looking on. “I really enjoyed the time I spent with my old family and appreciate the opportunity they gave me as father, son, and husband, but it was time to move on.”

Kiffin will be joining the Joneses immediately, replacing the family’s six-time Father of the Year, Pete Jones – who left his family to pursue a position in a struggling Seattle family.

“I wanted to get into my new family and home as quickly as possible,” Kiffin said. “This is a pivotal time for any new father and family staff.”

The deal happened behind closed doors and without much warning, resulting in a lot of criticism and harsh reactions from sportswriters, family enthusiasts, and Kiffin’s old family. His old daughters, Landry and Pressley, lashed out with some serious backtalk and were sent to bed without dinner. Baby Knox Kiffin was found burning his crib mattress and had to be sedated with several rattlers, a set of keys, and tear gas.

But as Kiffin mentioned, the deal had to be rushed because the winter is the most important time for a family to prepare for the coming season and school year, and it is the best time to conceive any new recruits.

“He had spent some time with the Joneses in the past, so I’m not surprised he would go back to them when the position opened up,” said family affairs expert Gary Buckman. “Eight years is a long time to be married to anyone. C’mon! And they just had a newborn and his daughters are always getting into trouble. Who wants to deal with that?”

“It was a pretty selfish move if you ask me,” said Dwayne Johnson, Kiffin’s second cousin. “I mean. What about us? We haven’t been a good family since, I want to say, 1998. He was supposed to rebuild.”

Many critics, however, are saying that Kiffin left not just for the money and smoking hot wife, but to go to a weaker, less competitive neighborhood. He inherits the biggest house on the cul-de-sac on a street where the Joneses have dominated for year, along with the prettiest wife and the most talented kids, but many think the young Kiffin has yet to prove himself as a father or husband…or a man, in general.

Some say he just wanted a new daddy, grandpa Jones, who would play catch with him and listen to his ideas, and not just drill him about football plays and strategy, while also never saying “stop being such a homo” when presenting his own new football play.

Kiffin, who is settling into his new LA home, is also reported to be in negotiations with Notre Dame’s new head coach, the former Cincinnati Bearcat coach Brian Kelly, to trade jobs mid season in 2010 – “just to mix shit up a bit.”

The Kiffins – wife Layla and children Landry, Pressley, and Knox – are now interviewing possible fathers to fill the vacancy.

“Fuck him,” said Layla Kiffin.

So far, though nothing has been announced, Bruce Pearl has been rumored to be the next potential husband to take Kiffin's place.

Though Pearl has denied this, he did say, "Oh yeah. I'd hit that."

Contributor Peter Alan Herbert – “Writer Dude” – is a master of flapdoodle and rigmarole. You can catch more of his Fake (Sports) News, Real Funny, short stories, rants, and other musings at www.peteralanherbert.com. Stay tuned to The Blue Workhorse for more from the Writer Dude.

Photo Credit: mosses from an old manse

Last month, former Major League pitcher Jim Bouton was gracious enough to take 30 minutes of his time to speak with me in a phone interview for an article about the transformation and evolution of the media that was published today on the LA-based Neon Tommy web site.

During his playing days, Bouton was a stud youngster pitching with the New York Yankees before losing his fastball due to an arm injury. In his second season, he went 21-7 with a 2.53 ERA while throwing 12 complete games, including six shutouts. He was selected to the All-Star Game and threw seven innings in the World Series allowing only one run. The next season, he won 18 games and was the winning pitcher for two of the Yankees' three World Series victories against the St. Louis Cardinals.

After parting ways with the Yankees, he played with the expansion Seattle Pilots, the Houston Astros, and then returned seven years after his last game with Houston to pitch with the Atlanta Braves at age 38.

During the 1969 season with the Pilots, Bouton kept notes and wrote Ball Four. The book, about his season, the teams' travels, and life in the clubhouse, hotels, and on the road, was highly controversial and was not accepted by many baseball people, including commissioner Bowie Kuhn, who attempted to discredit it and tried to get Bouton to sign a statement saying the book was completely fictional, which Bouton declined.

The behind-the-scenes book about Major League life was critically acclaimed and is considered one of the most important sports books ever written.

"Sportswriters were upset with Ball Four because they felt that I outflanked them. I had access that they didn't have. They were sort of looking bad because they had been portraying ballplayers basically as boy scouts and now here was a guy, who obviously had better access, that was showing that they weren't boy scouts. They were angry at me for drawing new boundary lines.

But that's sportswriters, other writers, cultured writers and serious/major writers on national subjects, people like David Halberstam for example, saw Ball Four as a good book - an important book that for the first time showed baseball from behind the scenes. That hadn't been done before. There were some writers that thought it was great, but it was basically the sportswriters, mostly baseball writers, that were upset with Ball Four. But most of those guys are gone now.

What you have now are younger writers that have replaced them. Of course, when they read Ball Four they were 12, and they liked it. And as they've grown older, they've sort of looked back at it as a benchmark of sorts. In many cases, it got some of these guys interested in becoming sportswriters. They read Ball Four and said that looks like a fun industry, a fun business, I'd like to write about that. What angered the older sportswriters in 1970, became an inspiration to the younger sportswriters that came of age in the 80s and 90s."

I asked Bouton not only about the the transformation and evolution of media since his playing days, but also some general baseball questions. Questions and his reponses are below:

DJ Steve Porter, who put together the absolutely fabulous "Press Hop" video, is back at it again. Here is his latest mix of NFL coaches postgame conferences that was featured on Inside the NFL:

Shotgun Spratling

The Kansas City Royals have been one of the worst professional franchises in sports the last 20 years having had a winning record only once in the last 15 years. They haven't been to the playoffs since they won the World Series in 1985. During this past decade, they only finished better than .500 once, when they went 83-79 in 2003 finishing third in the division -- also the only year they didn't finish last or next to last in the division. Kansas City even lost 100+ games four times this decade.

C - Miguel Olivo

• It wasn't very difficult for Miguel Olivo to get this spot on the team having to only beat out John Buck (a lifetime .235 hitter that averaged 43 RBI) or Brent Mayne (.241 average & .636 OPS in two and a half seasons with Kansas City this decade). Over the past two seasons, Olivo has hit 35 home runs and driven in 106 runs in under 700 at bats. The Dominican backstop also threw out 32% of attempted baserunners.
  

1B - Mike Sweeney

• For the first half of the decade, Mike Sweeney was Mr. Kansas City Royal appearing in five All-Star games from 2000 to 2005. Hitting .312 with an average of 31 doubles, 24 home runs, and 96 RBI, Sweeney was a power and gap-to-gap threat during the first six seasons of the decade. His best season came in 2000 when he knocked 24 dingers, drove in 144 runs -- one shy of Edgar Martinez's league best, and hit .333. He would hit .304 and .340 the next two seasons but would never hit above .300 again in his career with Kansas City.
  
  

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Apparently, even rapper Brabo Gator didn't like what Lane Kiffin did to the Unversity of Tennessee. Not only does he call out Lane but also his father, Monte Kiffin.

My favorite line: "You can have a new job but you'll never have trust./Monte's so old, he probably farts dust."

Thanks for the tip from pecrawley over at Basketball Fiend and for With Leather for discovering it.

Last Friday, January 8, 2010, in the African nation of Angola, a caravan was attacked that was carrying the African country Togo’s mens soccer team. The team was on their way to an African Cup of Nations continental soccer tournament match against Ghana at a questionable site in the northern portion of Angola, the host country of the tournament.

The Cabinda region of Angola, where the game was scheduled to take place and where the attack happened, is six miles into northern Angola. It is also the home to a rebel faction of Angola referred to as the “Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda.” This group is a native rebel group of the oil-rich area whose main interest is the redistribution of oil profits to the native people of the area. They are also said to be responsible for the attack on the Togo soccer team convoy and claim to have been targeting the Angolan security forces escorting the team rather than the team itself.

In the attack, that lasted a horrifying 30 minutes, the Angolan bus driver, a Togolese assistant coach and team spokesmen were killed while eight others were injured. One player, striker Thomas Dossevi, told Monte Carlo Radio News, "We were machine-gunned like dogs. They were armed to the teeth ... We spent 20 minutes underneath the seats of the bus." Two of the rebels were tracked down and arrested for this horrifying act, but it still leaves wonder on the minds of millions of soccer fans around the world.

At the opposite and southern end of Angola is the portion of the country that is just 500 miles away from South Africa.

South Africa. The country who is host to this summer’s FIFA World Cup and whose main goal seemed to be, not just hosting the tournament, but showing the progress of Africa as a nation and its tourism capabilities. Many fear that this attack is a major setback to this progress and have cast doubt over the security of this summer’s World Cup tournament. South Africa officials have condemned this attack as a localized dispute having nothing to do with their country or the success of the World Cup.

Security has long been a concern at this summer’s World Cup, and the overall history of instability on the continent is the reason this is Africa’s first ever hosting of the World Cup. South Africa is nearly 100% completed with construction of stadiums for this summer’s tournament and claim to have security as their number one objective to making this a successful event.

Personally, I don’t think that the attack in Angola should be an issue for anyone traveling to or worrying about the safety of this summer’s matches. Every team is already bringing extra security with them to the tournament and has been planning on doing so likely since the location was first announced. The attack in Angola was an unfortunately timed incident that may have been scheduled to get the most international press.

However, it was Angola where the attack occurred and the attackers were Angolan natives and their targets were reportedly the Angolan security. I equate this to a drug cartel attack on a security convoy in southern Mexico and people in Texas or other parts of southern United States not feeling safe to go to an event. It just doesn’t add up, and it seems that this attack adds no extra value to the security risk at this summer’s World Cup in South Africa.

Andrew of X's & X's

Sundiata Gaines went through a rough four years playing for the Georgia Bulldogs from 2004-2008.

Going undrafted he traveled across the pond to play in Italy, but his dream was to play NBA basketball. This season, he played with the NBDL's Idaho Stampede where he was averaging 23.9 points, 4.7 rebounds, and 6.9 assists in 14 games before being signed to a 10-day contract by the Utah Jazz when star point guard Deron Williams sprained his right wrist last Monday.

In only his fifth NBA game since being signed, Gaines came into Thursday night's game when Williams went to the locker room after re-injuring his right wrist just over 30 seconds into the fourth quarter.

After Mo Williams made a jump shot to put Cleveland up 62-55, Gaines ignited a 25-5 run with six points and an assist that gave Utah a 80-67 lead with 4:39 left in the game. He also set up a number of plays that could have been assists that either weren't finished or his teammates were fouled.

But Gaines's contributions didn't appear they would be enough as the Cavaliers stormed back behind a man named Lebron, who finished with 20 points...in the fourth quarter (36 total), including nine consecutive points that gave Cleveland a 91-85 lead with 32.5 seconds remaining.

With Anthony Parker and Zydrunas Ilgauskas missing free throws, Utah still had a chance trailing by two points with 5.6 seconds remaining. They moved the ball around the perimeter and finally into Gaines's hands with the seconds ticking down...

Let's just hope that Gaines gets signed for the remainder of the season. Also, check out the moment when Yatta Gaines found out that his lifelong dream had come true.

As the jet left McGee-Tyson Airport with Monte, Lane, and the Kiffin family headed for the sunny shores of Southern California, many fans in East Tennessee were still trying to figure out what the hell happened. As ashes of burnt mattresses swirled in the wind and the "rock" remained painted with about everything in the book to describe Kiffin, many football fans in the area remain emotional in the fallout.

However, there is one rational solution to "save the ship" and build back the Tennessee Vols into national prominence.

Here's a reasonable solution in my eyes....

Hire Kippy Brown as head coach. Even though he has relatively no head coaching experience (the XFL doesn't count), he is a class act and a Tennessee boy. This will not be a stepping stone for him...this will be his last stop.

He has extensive coaching experience in Knoxville, knows what it takes to win an SEC title, and knows you have to RECRUIT to succeed in Knoxville. He has college, and extensive NFL experience as a position coach and offensive coordinator. He has a calming personality to oversee the program, and I'm sure can recruit with Lane and Ed.

However, the main reason to hire Kippy is to keep the current staff. Re-structure the current assistant contracts, and make sure Lance Thompson, David Reaves, James Cregg, Jim Cheney, and Willie Mack Garza can't turn down the opportunity of a sizeable raise. Remember Thompson and Reaves were ace recruiters at Alabama and South Carolina respectfully.

Thompson is the lead recruiter for five-star player Markeith Ambles, and three other prominent prospects according to Rivals.com. Reaves brought in a pair of four-star players. Garza has Ahmad Dixon committed. Cheney and Cregg are responsible for quarterback Tyler Bray and Kembrell Thompkins, a four-star receiver. I'm sure if this course of action was taken, Tennessee could still piece together a top 10 class.

Cheney, Cregg, Reaves, and Brown can run the offense, and keep things consistent there. Cheney served as the offensive coordinator this past season and has tutored the likes of Drew Brees and Kyle Orton at Purdue. And all these guys can recruit.

Brown can use his wealth of experience to bring in a prominent defensive coordinator to make a splash. Again, with Kippy's modest salary, the funds will be there to bring in a big-time coordinator who can also recruit.

This course of action could potentially turn the tide; keep Bryce Brown, David Oku, and the good class from last year set on proving Lane wrong. This pride, togetherness and motivation could rebuild Tennessee into that elite power from the late 90's.

DRang

Fake (Sports) News, Real Funny

PORTLAND, OR – The courageous tear-filled confession of St. Louis Cardinal slugger Mark McGwire, a shocking and public admission to having taken performance- and ratings-enhancing drugs, has inspired the sky to follow suit, and at long last, admit that it is, indeed, blue.

“It’s been tearing me up inside,” the sky said in an intense four-part interview with Barbara Walters. “And then I saw the interview with that hero of a man [McGwire], who, out of nowhere, with no pressure but the sting of his own guilt, stunned us all with the biggest bomb dropped on the history of sports. He did steroids.”

Added the sky, “And I am blue.”

Tears rained down from the sky as he made the confession and at one point the interview had to be stopped until the sky could control it’s thunderous sobs.

“It feels so good to just finally say it,” said the sky, a bright smile stealing focus from swollen, cloudy eyes. “That man [McGwire] deserves some sort of medal or shoe endorsement.”

However, if viewers thought the drama was over, they were far from truth.

In the third night of this television event, halfway through the ninth hour of the interview, grass – the sky’s childhood friend who was on set for support – barged into camera and shouted, “I’m green, I’m green, good god almighty I’m green!”

Claiming to also having been inspired by McGwire’s “from-left-field” declaration of guilt, with “nary a soul even suspicious of nefarious substance abuse,” grass embraced sky in a brotherly hug as both relished in their own confession of color.

Interviewer Walters could only look on in amazement and admiration.

“I couldn’t sit back and just watch sky do this alone. I am green and proud,” said grass. “And I’m gay.”

The moving words of the home run hitter McGwire, which really really did come from out of the blue, did more than inspire the sky and grass…but stirred the country into action – turning the world upside up.

Ducks are now walking and talking like ducks. The sun is now rising in the east and setting in the west. And now there has even been a sparked interest in a new study, which discovered that men like breasts.

“God bless you, Mark McGwire,” said the sky, in closing. “God bless you, everyone.”

Contributor Peter Alan Herbert – “Writer Dude” – is a master of flapdoodle and rigmarole. You can catch more of his Fake News, Real Funny, short stories, rants, and other musings at www.peteralanherbert.com. Stay tuned to The Blue Workhorse for more from the Writer Dude.

University of Tennessee football fans, take a deep breath.

Okay, look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t see this coming. If you didn’t, you may want to get your eyes checked ASAP because you really might be blinded by orange kool-aid. Lane Kiffin's departure and the state he is leaving the program in should not come as a surprise to anyone. If fact, I told you not to get excited over Lane Kiffin. The only thing that can be done now is for the right hire to be made that will sort out this mess and be able to take Tennessee back to national prominence.

Kiffin left because he is not a Tennessee guy, and it is a heck of a lot easier to win at USC than it is at the University of Tennessee. He took the Tennessee job because Athletic Director Mike Hamilton was the only major college AD that would take a chance on an unproven guy who was fired from his last job before the halfway point of the season. It probably does not help that his wife would rather be tanning year round in sunny SoCal rather than seeing what kind of specials Big Ed’s pizza has that day.

In the end, Kiffin saw Tennessee as a stepping stone. Unfortunately, for Big Orange fans, he left this stepping stone worse off than he found it.

The top recruiting class Kiffin and his staff put together probably will not stick. There is not really another hot name in coaching that could get the bulk of the commitments to firm up their commitment over the next three week period before Signing Day. The program reported six minor violations in the brief, but controversial Kiffin era, and I would not be surprised if more serious allegations are levied against the program in the next year or two. Kiffin embarrassed the program and the University of Tennessee with some of his comments during his tenure and has left those behind scurrying to find answers while he is west coast bound.

Finding the best answer in a bad situation needs to be the focus of Mike Hamilton and the university, at this point. The following are some names that I have heard floating, but I do not think will work for a variety of reasons:

Tony Dungy – I think you have to coach with an edge at Tennessee. Also, the assistants he had at Indianapolis are not going to be coaching much longer, so who would he hire?

Bill Cowher – He has turned down multiple NFL jobs, and I do not see him thinking Knoxville, Tennessee is the perfect place to restart his career. Once again, who would he hire?

Chris Peterson – Scientology would not be a good fit in the Bible Belt. Great coach but not a good fit.

Will Muschamp – Young and energetic coach that Texas seems comfortable handing the reins to when Mack Brown leaves. We highlighted Muschamp last year as a possible long-term solution, however, he seems too emotional on the sidelines, and his defense of athletic freaks was shredded against a bland Alabama offense.

My Top 3

Jeff Fisher – Proven Coach. Run-ins with the owner over personnel (Vince Young) and a need for a slight change of scenery might lure him away from the Titans. His smash mouth disciplined brand of football would be a good fit for Tennessee. He is also able to maximize the potential of players, which would offset the challenge of recruiting someone to Knoxville.

Gary Patterson – Built a program at a place very similar to Knoxville. He is a proven winner. While Patterson might not look to make this his permanent home, he would stay longer than Kiffin, and it seems that he has run a clean program at TCU.

Jon Gruden – Super Bowl winning coach who was a UT graduate assistant early in his career. Might be walking into a Lane Kiffin situation where a guy just needs an opportunity to get back in the game and will then be looking to climb the ladder rapidly.

The biggest thing for Vol fans to remember is to be honest about the current state of Tennessee football. It is not an elite program; it is in the toughest conference; and it is not an easy place to sell to recruits.

Instead of focusing on a headline-grabbing hire, Mike Hamilton should look at the total body of work and select the person who can win despite the challenges listed above and above all else not embarrass the University of Tennessee and its football program.

Heisman