Let’s start with the obvious: Ole Miss’ DeSanto Rollins deserved better from head coach Lane Kiffin.
The junior defensive tackle from Baton Rouge is suing the school and Kiffin for “failure to provide equal protection, racial and sexual discrimination, and multiple other allegations”, according to a report Thursday from ESPN’s Heather Dinich.
It’s hard to hear the story of a player like Rollins — a young athlete struggling with physical and emotional trauma — without conjuring up the cliched image of a head coach sitting on a recruit’s couch and explaining to his parents how their son will be treated like his own child. Kiffin failed there. No question.
We know this because Rollins secretly and legally recorded an incredulous Kiffin kicking him off the team for having the audacity to experience a mental health crisis that required the player to spend weeks away from the team. And we know all of this because of the report from Dinich on the lawsuit Rollins has now brought against Ole Miss and Kiffin. ESPN reported it heard the audio but had not independently verified it.
Perhaps most importantly, we now also know Kiffin did not see their bond as father-son or coach-player but as an employer-employee relationship. Kiffin made that exceptionally clear in explaining why Rollins, who reportedly stepped away from the team temporarily on the advice of the school’s assistant athletic director for sport psychology to address his mental health, would no longer be welcomed back to the locker room (Rollins’ name is still on the team roster).
Kiffin: OK, so what are you doing? [Y]ou just, after two weeks of not showing up. What’s going on? You came to say you’re quitting?
Rollins: What do you mean two weeks of not showing up?
Kiffin: You haven’t been here for two weeks.
Rollins: I told Coach Savage I was going to take a mental break
Kiffin: OK, you have a f****** head coach, this is a job, guess what, if I have mental health issues and I’m not diminishing them, I can’t not see my f****** boss, when you were told again and again the head coach needs to see you, wasn’t to make you practice, wasn’t to play a position don’t f****** want to, ok, it was to talk to you and explain to you in the real world, ok, so I don’t give a f*** what your mom says, ok, or what you think in the real f****** world you show up to work … you show up when your head-when your boss wants to meet with you.”
There are myriad reasons why Kiffin’s alleged comments are abhorrent, but the one that sticks out is his assertion that in the “real ******* world” you show up when your boss calls you in.
It’s actually good to know Kiffin views his players as employees, even if it’s just in this specific case. It’s the latest encapsulation of why student athletes need a union.
Because in the real world, when a full-time employee at Ole Miss is suffering a mental health crisis, there is a human resources department who can help them secure accommodations. The university’s own policies ensure it. The school also must abide by the Family and Medical Leave Act to make sure your job is protected while on unpaid leave for qualified medical and family reasons. In the recording, Kiffin allegedly mocked Rollins by pointing out that if he tried to tell Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter he wasn’t going to show up to work or meet with him for two weeks he’d be fired on the spot. In fact, according to Ole Miss’ and federal policies, Kiffin’s job would be secure if he were experiencing a mental condition.
In the real world, you also receive payment for the work you provide.
There are further policies in place to make sure your boss cannot treat you the way Kiffin treated Rollins. And you best believe in the real world, if an employer ever spoke to an employee the way Kiffin did, there almost certainly would be an immediate HR investigation.
Theoretically, this would be the NCAA’s job. But that ship sailed long ago for an institution that can barely keep track of when it changed rules and who are subject to them.
So who’s left to look out for the players if not themselves?
The alleged interaction at Ole Miss is just a small glimpse into a much larger world of college sports. But Kiffin’s words will ring loud and clear around the sport.
“See ya, Go, go, and guess what, we can kick you off the team, so go read your f***ing rights about mental health, we can kick you off the team,” Kiffin allegedly said, per the suit.
He might not have meant to advocate players’ rights, but in an absurd power trip, the Ole Miss boss provided one of the best examples for why they’re so desperately needed.