Birth: Feb. 29, 1940, Lexington, Neb.
Hometown hero: The 1958 World-Herald high school athlete of the year combined with future NFL Pro Bowl center Mick Tingelhoff to help lead Lexington to an undefeated 1957 season, when the Minutemen were considered by many as the state's best high school team.
College playing career: Lineman at Nebraska from 1959 through 1963
Pro playing career: Defensive end with CFL's Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 1965.
Coach at Nebraska: Assistant from 1966 through 1972; defensive coordinator from 1973 through 1976 before moving to Arkansas as defensive coordinator
College coach: North Carolina State from 1980 through 1982 (6-5, 4-7, 6-5)
Pro football: He was an NFL assistant for 26 years, serving with the Buccaneers, Packers, Bills, Vikings, Jets and Saints. Some considered him to be one of the greatest defensive coordinators in pro football, the originator of the often-copied “Tampa Cover 2'' scheme.
With the Bucs: He was with Tampa Bay since 1996 and helped guide the 2002 Bucs to the Super Bowl; he signed a two-year deal in 2007 that reportedly paid him $2 million a year. He turned down a chance to become the 49ers' coach.
Back to school: His oldest son, Lane, became the coach at Tennessee after the 2008 season and hired Monte as his defensive coordinator for $1.2 million a year.
“It has been a special six months. I don't think of him as a dad as much as I think of him from the aspect of being a really good coach. He has the unique ability to motivate and to make everybody better — both coaches and players.''
Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin
Tracking Lane Kiffin
Birthplace: Bloomington, Minn (born May 9, 1975).
Playing career: Quarterback at Jefferson High School in Bloomington, Minn.; Fresno State.
College coaching career: Student assistant at Fresno State, 1998; graduate assistant-offensive line coach, Colorado State, 1999; Assistant coach, Southern California, 2001 through 2006 (in his final season, he was offensive coordinator, wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator); head coach, Tennessee, 2009 (youngest active head coach in the NCAA's major football division).
NFL coaching career: Assistant coach-defensive quality control, Jacksonville Jaguars, 2000; head coach, Oakland Raiders, 2007 and 2008, when his teams were 4-12 and 1-3 before he was fired.
Family connections: His father, Monte Kiffin, is Tennessee's defensive coordinator. His brother-in-law, David Reaves, is Tennessee's quarterbacks coach. His brother, Chris Kiffin, is an intern with the Nebraska football program.
Testimonial from Tennessee Titans coach Jeff Fisher: “Coach Kiffin is a perfect fit at Tennessee. He brings a wealth of experience he's accumulated at a very young age. He has a brilliant football mind, and there's no doubt in my mind he's going to be successful.''
Testimonial from Southern Cal coach Pete Carroll: “I have no doubt that Lane will do great things at UT. He handled all of our national recruiting at USC and brought us great players during our championship seasons. While serving as our offensive coordinator, we had the best offense in the history of football in 2005.”
Monte Kiffin is surrounded by a sea of orange in Knoxville, Tenn.
But when the 69-year-old native of Lexington, Neb., closes his eyes, he remembers red.
The former Nebraska football player and assistant coach, one of the NFL's most respected assistants, has had to adjust to his new surroundings as the University of Tennessee's defensive coordinator.
He still hasn't gotten over the similarities to the Cornhusker State.
“There's a ton of tradition here, just like Nebraska,'' Kiffin said. “People are crazy about football, just like Nebraska.
“They will have 107,000 fans at their home games, and they're playing in a highly competitive conference.
Before the Tennessee spring game, 20,000 fans lined up to cheer the team for its walk to the stadium. About 55,000 showed up for the game, and monstrous Neyland Stadium probably could have been filled, but half of it was closed for renovation.
At Nebraska, Kiffin never saw anything less than a packed Memorial Stadium when he was coaching for Bob Devaney and Tom Osborne.
Kiffin was a Husker assistant from 1966 through 1976, and he was Osborne's defensive coordinator for those final four seasons.
After a three-year stint as an Arkansas assistant and three seasons as North Carolina State's coach, Kiffin moved to the NFL in 1983 to begin a 26-year pro career.
Kiffin earned a Super Bowl ring with the Bucs during his 13 seasons in Tampa Bay, where he cultivated his reputation as one of pro football's finest defensive coaches.
But Kiffin jumped at the chance to work for the new Tennessee coach, 34-year-old son Lane.
“He has a passion for football like no one else I've ever seen,'' Lane Kiffin said. “I think it was hard in general to try to get him out of Tampa.
“He's had a lot of offers over the years, including offers to become an NFL head coach, and he didn't leave. I think the situation with me was unique, a chance to coach with his son at a premier place in college football.
“It also was a place that could afford to pay him.''
The move dropped Monte Kiffin's yearly income from $2 million to $1.2 million, although he is reportedly college football's highest-paid assistant.
Some questioned whether Kiffin was making the right move, jumping back into college football after more than a quarter of a century in the NFL.
But Wisconsin Athletic Director Barry Alvarez, a former Husker linebacker who had Kiffin as one of his coaches, said Kiffin will thrive at the Southeastern Conference school.
“It's not like he's been out of coaching and he's just jumping back in,'' said Alvarez, the Badgers' coach from 1990 to 2005.
“He's been through the coaching grind in the NFL, and he was a great coach in the NFL. He'll be a great coach at Tennessee and a good sounding board for that staff.''
Lane Kiffin said that's exactly what he had in mind.
“It has been a special six months,'' Lane Kiffin said. “I don't think of him as a dad as much as I think of him from the aspect of being a really good coach.
“He has the unique ability to motivate and to make everybody better — both coaches and players. I've seen that with our offensive coaches, where he's helped.''
What's it like for Kiffin to work for his son, a former Oakland Raiders coach who makes $2 million a year?
“We had talked about it a lot,'' Monte Kiffin said. “It was really easy. It wasn't like I was going into the unknown.
“We can make it work here. There's a lot to sell here, just like Nebraska. We have a good school, a good athletic director, good resources, a good staff and a good bunch of recruits.''
Kiffin said recruiting probably was the primary reason Phil Fulmer was replaced as Tennessee's coach. For instance, linebacker Robert Ayers was the only Volunteer selected in last April's NFL draft after Tennessee finished 5-7.
It's the same program that produced all-pros such as Peyton Manning and Albert Haynesworth and was a perennial SEC contender until recently.
“Lane has five guys on staff who were former recruiting coordinators in the Southeastern Conference,'' Kiffin said. “I think Tennessee had fallen behind in recruiting.
“The A.D. here will give us time to rebuild, and it probably will take a little time. We're not going to worry about a time frame. We're just going to take it one day at a time.''
This year's Tennessee recruiting class was ranked 10th nationally by Rivals.com, but three SEC teams ranked above the Vols: No. 1 Alabama, No. 2 LSU and No. 6 Georgia. That's a sign of how tough things could be for a rebuilding program in the league.
Lane Kiffin has been a source of controversy since he arrived at Tennessee, saying he wasn't going to give an inch to the other SEC programs.
Vols fans applauded when he spoke his mind about another league coach's recruiting tactics. After that, Tennessee was accused of several minor NCAA rules violations.
Any repercussions from around the league haven't rattled anyone in orange, Monte Kiffin said.
“The SEC is competitive, highly competitive,'' he said. “Just look at who you're facing: Urban Meyer at Florida, Nick Saban at Alabama, Steve Spurrier at South Carolina, Mark Richt at Georgia, Les Miles at LSU. It goes on and on.
“I don't think you can blink or show weakness.''
Kiffin laughed when asked about changes in the college game since he last coached an NCAA game in 1982.
“It's going well,'' Kiffin said. “Recruiting is different, but it's been a lot of fun, really a blast.
“It's just been a while since the college days. There are more restrictions for coaches and athletes since I was in the college game. You don't have as much time to work with the kids.''
Commitments from high school juniors during Kiffin's earlier days in the NCAA weren't common. But now they are, and Tennessee has taken early decisions to a new level.
Evan Berry, the 13-year-old brother of Tennessee safety Eric Berry, recently said he has committed to playing for the Vols without having played a down in high school.
Evan Berry will be an eighth-grader in the fall but is expected to eventually play quarterback and safety at Creekside High School in Fairburn, Ga., like his older brother.
“Well, you really have to be on top of recruiting. You can't drag your feet or you'll lose,'' Monte Kiffin said. “You do have to be careful with your choices, but with the really good ones, you can tell. You don't want to miss getting them.''
When asked if he would head to Nebraska in search of recruits, Kiffin said: “Tennessee needs to recruit nationally.
“There are not a whole lot of players in Tennessee. We can recruit nationally, but we don't want to go after someone in Nebraska who already is tied into the Huskers.''
Kiffin's links to his home state are numerous.
He recommended Bo Pelini to former coach Frank Solich in 2003 when Solich was looking for a defensive coordinator.
His other son, 27-year-old Chris, is working for the Nebraska football program as an intern.
His sister and brother-in-law, Ann and James Murphy, still live in Lexington, where Monte Kiffin was a high school star in the late 1950s. One of Kiffin's nephews, Jim Murphy, played cornerback for Nebraska in the early 1980s and lives in Lincoln.
Monte Kiffin used to spend a week or more during the summer in the Johnson Lake area south of Lexington to fish while unwinding from coaching.
“I haven't done that for a couple of years,'' he said, “and I'll probably have to stay close to Knoxville for most of my first year here.''
Lane Kiffin said he also remembers those trips to Lexington. “We'd go there and stop in Lincoln sometimes,'' said Lane, who remembers attending baseball and football camps growing up in Lincoln.
Monte Kiffin attended his 50th high school reunion in 2008 at Lexington, where he and former NFL center Mick Tingelhoff were teammates on the Minutemen's undefeated 1957 team.
Most of his former high school classmates already are retired, but not Kiffin.
“I'm planning on doing this for a long time,'' he said. “There will be no retirement for me, and I'm not planning to move back to the NFL.''
Contact the writer:
444-1038, brian.lahm@owh.com
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