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Mark Heim | mheim@al.com
Lane Kiffin on chance to work for Nick Saban at Alabama: "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."
It's a rare look at a different side of Lane Kiffin.
In a piece he penned for AthletesForGod, the Florida Atlantic coach explained how God humbled him through football.
While college football watched as he was a spark plug of debate while the head coach at Tennessee, then USC and later as a coordinator at Alabama under Nick Saban, there was a spiritual journey - perhaps a process - that Kiffin was experiencing, even if he didn't know it.
It all started, he wrote, with a book "The Purpose Driven Life," which was given to him by Tennessee team chaplain Roger Woods.
The message?
It's not about you.
"I've been telling my players and coworkers that line ever since," he explained. "I had never heard that before but that is the purpose of life."
Kiffin admits he had "too much success, fame and money in life too soon."
He compared his life of a Hollywood actor and how ego can destroy.
Kiffin recalled leaving the head coaching job at Tennessee, which he loved, to return to USC as a head coach. He was fired. Kiffin said, in hindsight, that was the beginning, not the end.
"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,'" he wrote.
He said being pulled off the USC team bus at 3 a.m. to be fired in front of his players was a low point.
"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."
The second chance came in the form of an offensive coordinator position with Alabama and coach Nick Saban, someone he calls the "greatest college coach of my generation."
It was Tuscaloosa that led to Florida Atlantic and "I have begun to realize just how amazing God's plan can be."
"Here's the problem: none of that stuff is really ours," Kiffin writes. "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.
What Kiffin has learned over the years is it is never too late to rediscover God and he added anyone can overcome a 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."
Check out the entire piece at AthletesForGod.com.
Mark Heim | mheim@al.com
Lane Kiffin talks his rediscovery of faith and God 'humbling me' at USC, Alabama
It's a rare look at a different side of Lane Kiffin.
In a piece he penned for AthletesForGod, the Florida Atlantic coach explained how God humbled him through football.
While college football watched as he was a spark plug of debate while the head coach at Tennessee, then USC and later as a coordinator at Alabama under Nick Saban, there was a spiritual journey - perhaps a process - that Kiffin was experiencing, even if he didn't know it.
It all started, he wrote, with a book "The Purpose Driven Life," which was given to him by Tennessee team chaplain Roger Woods.
The message?
It's not about you.
"I've been telling my players and coworkers that line ever since," he explained. "I had never heard that before but that is the purpose of life."
Kiffin admits he had "too much success, fame and money in life too soon."
He compared his life of a Hollywood actor and how ego can destroy.
Kiffin recalled leaving the head coaching job at Tennessee, which he loved, to return to USC as a head coach. He was fired. Kiffin said, in hindsight, that was the beginning, not the end.
"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,'" he wrote.
He said being pulled off the USC team bus at 3 a.m. to be fired in front of his players was a low point.
"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."
The second chance came in the form of an offensive coordinator position with Alabama and coach Nick Saban, someone he calls the "greatest college coach of my generation."
It was Tuscaloosa that led to Florida Atlantic and "I have begun to realize just how amazing God's plan can be."
"Here's the problem: none of that stuff is really ours," Kiffin writes. "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.
What Kiffin has learned over the years is it is never too late to rediscover God and he added anyone can overcome a 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."
Check out the entire piece at AthletesForGod.com.
Mark Heim | mheim@al.com
Lane Kiffin talks his rediscovery of faith and God 'humbling me' at USC, Alabama
