Kermit Davis defends Ole Miss against ‘pitiful’ Lane Kiffin comments
By David Wasson
Published:
Former Ole Miss basketball coach Kermit Davis has joined the voices clapping back against former Rebels coach Lane Kiffin about his comments to Vanity Fair magazine about his tumultuous tenure in Oxford.
“It’s really kind of a pitiful day, in my opinion,” Davis told Chris Childers this week. “When he said all these things, and I watched Oxford from first-hand experience embrace him in an unbelievable way, and he even said it – that ‘I needed Oxford more than Oxford needed me.’
“For him to kind of throw shade on historical paths of Mississippi and not talk about Ole Miss now, which is one of the most inviting campuses in America. … It shocked a lot of people, a lot of close friends of mine. I think there was a lot of people that were really disappointed.”
In an interview with Vanity Fair this week, Kiffin spoke about the difficulties he had recruiting at Ole Miss due to the school’s racial history.
“‘Hey, coach, we really like you. But my grandparents aren’t letting me move to Oxford, Mississippi.’ That doesn’t come up when you say Baton Rouge, Louisiana,” Kiffin told Vanity Fair. “Parents were sitting here this weekend saying the campus’s diversity feels so great: ‘It feels like there’s no segregation.’”
Davis joined SEC pundit Paul Finebaum in criticizing Kiffin, as Finebaum referred to Kiffin’s anti-Ole Miss comments to Vanity Fair as “Kiffin trying to wipe Ole Miss off the face of the earth”. Kiffin infamously bolted Ole Miss for LSU after 55 victories and a College Football Playoff berth in six seasons.
Kiffin’s LSU program will travel to Oxford on Sept. 19.
An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
