It’s Not About Me
Lane Kiffin and Tom Hager
In Partnership with Athletes For God
"God told me to send you this book...If you don't read this book, just read the first line."
Here I was, a few months into my new job at Florida Atlantic University, reading a note from our team chaplain at Tennessee, Roger Woods. Believe it or not, I'm actually still close friends with a lot of people at UT, so I felt compelled to open the book. It was called "The Purpose Driven Life" by Rick Warren, and on the first page were four words that changed my life.
"It's not about you."
That's all Rick Warren needed to say. It immediately sunk in, and I've been telling my players and coworkers that line ever since. I had never heard that before but that is the purpose of life.
I'll be the first one to say it: I had too much success, fame and money in life too soon. You see it all the time...in Hollywood, you see the musicians and actors that are given too much in life too soon and they're not fully prepared to handle that, and their ego destroyed them. I should know, because my experience was no different when I was coaching right down the road at USC.
I've learned now that ego is the enemy, thanks to the author Ryan Holiday sending me the book. I told him that this book is my life story early on! I had grown up in church at a young age, but by the time I was at USC I had strayed far away from it. For those of you who aren't familiar with my story, I was an assistant coach at 24 years old during those glory years at USC. When Carson Palmer, Reggie Bush, and Matt Leinart were on the team, I was coaching 3 Heisman Trophy Winners and 2 National Champions. We won 34 straight games during one point, and then I was offered the head coaching job of the Oakland Raiders.
I was the youngest coach in modern NFL history. Like I said earlier, it was way too much, too early. Not from a football standpoint, from a life standpoint.
I was fired from that job midway through my second year, and a few months later I took the head coaching job at Tennessee. I was there for one year when all of a sudden the USC job came open. I could not say no, even though I loved Tennessee. All 3 of my kids had been born in California and I knew that I could win National Championships there, if we hadn’t got hit with sanctions.
What it turned out to be, however, was the beginning of God humbling me to the man I am today. I was not using the platform He put me on at all in His way. As my pastor once said, God wasn’t punishing me, he was just giving me a wakeup call.
When I took that job, I knew that some people at Tennessee were going to be upset. People had developed relationships with me, like the chaplain who sent me Rick Warren's book. What I didn't expect was a full riot to ensue on campus. I think sometimes we embellish our memories, but that night there was literally a riot in Knoxville, with people running in the streets and lighting things on fire.
It was confusing to me, because people change jobs every day. A guy goes from McDonalds to Burger King, or from BP to Exxon, or Delta to United, and this happens every day. In fact, the reporters who criticized me had changed networks themselves. But here I was in a police escort, trying to get safely out of town, asking myself why there was so much animosity towards me.
I took the approach that I'd rather have them burning things over my departure than celebrating that I'm gone, but that's still not an easy way to start a new job. And even though the people inside the UT program still respected me and kept in touch with me, nobody wants to burn bridges on their way out, even if it's with fans.
I wish I could say that my relationship with God grew during that rough time, and that my isolation with all those fans brought me closer to Him, but that's just not the truth. I was no closer to him in LA than when I arrived in Knoxville. Why did I need Him, I had everything people dream of; beautiful wife, houses, power and millions of dollars.
I arrived at USC just hoping to put all that drama behind me, but as soon as I got there our program was hit with NCAA sanctions. The infractions had occurred years earlier, before I was the head coach, but our current players and staff would be the ones to pay the price.
It was basically the "Death Penalty". There's a long history of what NCAA penalties can do to programs, and now we were supposed to be next. We had 30 less scholarships than other teams and couldn't go to a bowl game for two years, and all of our juniors and seniors could leave! So it made it hard to recruit players, and yet we still signed the # 1 class in the country. You are trying to bring in players who will have to pay their own tuition, while other colleges are still offering a full ride scholarship. We still went 28-15 during my time there, but once the games start everyone forgot how shorthanded we were.
My dad once told me to follow a coach who has struggled, because your tenure will be compared to your predecessor. I clearly didn't listen, because I chose to follow Pete Carroll.
The last season was brutal. Fans were chanting "Fire Kiffin" during the games, and even at 3-2, after a loss at Arizona State, I was pulled off my team bus, in front of the players at the airport at 3 a.m. to be told I had been fired hours earlier.
I don't wish that feeling upon anyone. I wanted to die, because at the time I was defined by my job.
And just when I needed Him, God answered in a big way. I don't know if God is a sports fan or not, but I do know this: He loves a good comeback.
When God gives you a second chance, it's not something you take for granted.
As the 2013 season came to a close, I had no job and no head coaching offers, and my relationship with God was a fraction of what it used to be. God gave me a second chance to redeem both.
I knew I could still coach and never doubted myself, but the question was whether anybody would give me a chance to prove myself. The opportunity came from the greatest college coach of my generation: Nick Saban.
Coach Saban has now won six national championships, but when he hired me as his offensive coordinator, my reputation was tarnished to say the least. He could have chosen anybody in the country, but he took a chance on the guy who had been fired from two of his three previous positions.
Learning under Coach Saban was incredible. He made me a better coach, and thanks to his help, we won a National Championship together and 3 straight SEC Championships. When we beat Clemson 45-40 in the title game, it was like my career had come full circle. It was exactly 10 years after losing the National Championship to Texas, but after everything I had been through, this one felt really special. At the championship parade I was getting a police escort for a much better reason than a few years before.
Thanks to my time with Coach Saban, I was able to land the head coaching job at Florida Atlantic. And it's here in Boca Raton I have begun to realize just how amazing God's plan can be.
When that book arrived in my office a few months ago, it was actually the second time that God had compelled someone to reach out to me. Jon Gordon, a famous author and speaker, had never met me before, but God told him to drive down here and meet with me. So he did, and as a result my life has changed.
Jon opened my eyes back up to God, and ever since that day, not a week has gone by that I haven't communicated with him. I've now restarted my relationship with God and I’m using my obstacles to help others through hard times.
The best part about my spiritual rebirth, however, is getting to experience it with another person. My dad has become a born again Christian himself over the last three years, and I'll never forget attending church a few months ago and then turning around to see my parents at the same church service.
The funny thing about my dad is that he isn't just a mentor or role model. He's also now my co-worker.
One of the coolest parts about being a head coach is getting to pick your staff. You know what you want to achieve as a program, and you know who the people are that can get you there. I love having my dad work here with us at FAU.
For those of you who don't know, Monte Kiffin is one of the greatest defensive coordinators of all time. Remember those Tampa Bay Buccaneers defenses that were so dominant in the late '90s and early 2000's? He was the Defensive Coordinator.
We started the year 1-3, but I knew our players and coaches were capable of turning our season around. We won our next three games to get back above .500, and it was during our next game that I could see we had turned the corner as a program.
We played up at Western Kentucky, which had been a perennial power in our conference, and had beaten our team up pretty good over the years. When FAU played them the year before I got here, they had beaten us 52-3. Plus, this game was in late October, so it was starting to get cold, and there was this reputation that Florida kids can't play in bad conditions. And for the first three quarters of that game, it looked like we might lose again.
We were down 28-20 going into the fourth quarter, and then our players just took things to another level. We scored the last 22 points to win 42-28, and never looked back the rest of the year. We then won the next six games, including our 50-3 win in our bowl game, to end the season on a 10-game winning streak. Second longest in the country.
My time in Boca Raton has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. My journey has humbled me, and as a result I'm not this larger than life figure anymore that people made me out to be. I’m no better than anyone else, and have finally figured out why He put me through what He did. I wasn’t using my platform for Him, so He took it away.
The athletes at FAU might not be five-star recruits, but they are five-star people. They listen better than any other players I've had before, probably because their approach to life is completely different. With some kids in the past, they have been told their whole life that they're going to the NFL, and they think it's going to solve every problem...if I make it to the NFL I can buy people these things, and buy this house and this car.
Here's the problem: none of that stuff is really ours. We’re really just renting it. Everything we own really belongs to God, we are just renting it, and when we die those things are going to become somebody else's possessions. And none of that stuff matters. When people ask me what makes me happy now, the answer is totally different than before. I'm happiest when I'm helping people.
Let me tell you what happiness looks like for me...it's when you spend time with a kid who is on the brink of quitting the team because he thinks he can't take it anymore. You know that a life of selling drugs is awaiting him back in his hometown, and you convince him to stay and get his degree.
I don't like to focus too much on my past, because then it stops becoming your past and starts to become your present. However, my story is a special exception, because it shows people that it's never too late to rediscover God, and that we can overcome anything in our past. I like to tell people these days, if God can forgive you for whatever you have done, then why can’t you! I’m proof.