Preseason media days serve as an opportunity for college coaches to talk about the growth within their team over the offseason while providing a lookout at what they might look like in the coming season.
But before Florida football coach Billy Napier got to doing just that Wednesday at SEC Football Media Day in Dallas, he started his appearance in a classy and respectful way.
The Gators third-year coach spent the first minute and a half of his opening statement talking about the late Monte Kiffin, father of Ole Miss coach and play-caller Lane Kiffin, who passed away July 11 at the age of 84.
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While the two coach against each other in the SEC, Napier and Lane Kiffin are friends and former colleagues going back to their days on Nick Saban’s Alabama coaching staff from 2014-15 when Napier served as the Crimson Tide’s receivers coach while the younger Kiffin was Saban’s offensive coordinator.
“I’d like to start today with a few comments about Monte Kiffin and the Kiffin family,” Napier began. “This week we lost one of the all time greats in our profession, Monte Kiffin and I worked with Lane for three years at the University of Alabama.
“And I would tell you Lane coaches because of his dad and what he observed growing up. And I certainly chose the profession because of my dad. I lost my dad seven years ago to ALS. Lane and I have been communicating throughout the week. I texted him early in the week. I said, ‘I’ve been through this before’ and told him ‘coaching is a profession where you have an opportunity to make an impact on people and leave a legacy.’ And his dad did just that.”
Napier said the way the elder Kiffin was able to impact those around him was by the way he treated people and how he made them feel.
“The impact isn’t linear in coaching. It’s exponential. The most important part here, exponential impact. This is third generation, fourth generation impact and that comes with the blessing and the opportunity of being in this profession that we call coaching,” Napier said.
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“And I was reading the quote this week and I told Lane this last night when I talked to him, ‘Inheritance is what you leave for someone. Legacy is what you leave in in someone.’ Few did it better than Monty Kiffin. Our thoughts and prayers are with Lane and the Kiffin family as they celebrate his life this weekend in Tampa.”
Monte Kiffin was best known as the founding father of the “Tampa 2” defense, which changed football forever after debuting it with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He served in various roles on Lane Kiffin’s staff’s at Florida Atlantic, Southern California, Tennessee and Ole Miss throughout the years. He was most recently a player personnel analyst with the Rebels.
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Florida football coach Billy Napier remembers Monte Kiffin at SEC Media Day
The Gainesville Sun
