Bye bye Afghans, hello Ole Miss and goodbye Ole Miss?

Bye bye Afghans, hello Ole Miss and goodbye Ole Miss?

Bye Bye Afghans

The Pakistanis have taken a page from the Trump playbook and have expelled over one million of the three million Afghans who live there with the intention of expelling all of them. The Pakistanis have had it with the Taliban who they contend are fomenting armed conflict on their shared border. The Taliban are accused of militarily supporting the Pakistani Taliban who are responsible for attacks within Pakistan on security forces and responsible for a recent suicide bombing.  Pakistan has launched air strikes on border areas. The Pakistani government has labeled all Afghans as a threat to national security and says that they are “criminals,” “drug peddlers,” and “terrorists.” Sound familiar? Would you believe that Iran has also expelled 1.5 million Afghans? Also in Pakistan 1.4 million Afghans holding Proof of Registration cards, whose legal status expired at the end of June are also being expelled. That sounds like the Pakistani equivalent of Temporary Protected Status doesn’t it? 

Go Rebels?

I just read an article saying that northern students are forsaking their universities and are coming south to universities like Ole Miss, Tennessee, Georgia and colleges like Mercer and Elon. At Tennessee, there are many northerners especially in the Haslam College of Business. I had four students from Illinois in my financial markets class. Although all expressed no desire to live in the south, when I asked them why Tennessee, one responded that when she looked at northern schools she saw encampments and protests on the conflict in Gaza. When she looked at southern schools, she saw kids having fun at football games (Go Vols!). So fun, football, tailgating, parties, warm weather and a good education proved attractive. Also there are supposed to be “dazzling TikTok videos” influencing northerners to come south. All in all, applications from northern students to southern universities have increased by over 60 percent over the past decade. One sure sign of changing attitudes and changing times is that many of these northern students are black. I am just guessing but southern football programs are recruiting northern black athletes (Ole Miss’ quarterback is from Michigan) and perhaps their acceptance has encouraged black nonathletes to also go south. One of the best students in my class was a black woman from Illinois – and she was not an athlete either. I wonder what the effect of all the antisemitism on northern campuses on Jewish enrollment will be and will there be an increase in northern Jews coming south for their education as well. Isn’t it somewhat ironic that the supposedly intolerant, racist, sexist, xenophobic south is more welcoming than the enlightened north? 

Many years ago one of my coauthors was on the Ole Miss faculty and urged me to interview for the deanship of the business school. I declined. Ole Miss was embroiled in controversy surrounding all the confederate baggage, the rebel flag, Colonel Reb and all the rest. Having had to deal with that almost daily during my four years at Georgia, I declined choosing not to dredge up past unpleasantries. Several years later all that rebel stuff was gone – except for the name – and I was pleased that one of my doctoral students became their dean.

Go Rebels, Part 2

Speaking of Ole Miss, its coach Lane Kiffin is abandoning his team and leaving for LSU despite Ole Miss saying that they would match any monetary offer. BTW, his contract is $12 million for seven years which is still less than what Kirby Smart makes at Georgia (Go Dawgs!). Mind you, Ole Miss is likely to get a spot in the college playoffs and yet Kiffin will not be coaching them. In the NFL a team is not allowed to talk to a coach about a vacancy while that coach’s team is still playing. Obviously this is not the case in college where LSU was courting Kiffin during the season. 

Personally, Kiffin’s brief tenure at Tennessee poisoned my view of him. While at UT he constantly demeaned other programs in the conference and their coaches and got Tennessee slapped by the conference with a mild rebuke. I was glad when he jumped ship to Southern Cal which in turn fired him after a brief tenure. Yes he has been successful at Ole Miss which was so bad off that it would put up with his prickly attitude so long as he won. The same will be true with LSU which could care less for his obnoxiousness – provided he wins. Kiffin will coach Ole Miss no further. He even issued an ultimatum to those coaches he wanted to come with him to LSU that if they didn’t come with him right now, that they could not join him at LSU. Talk about throwing Ole Miss under the bus. Such scorched earth behavior should serve as a warning to LSU. Kiffin has obviously thrown the finger at Ole Miss even though they have put up with his peevish behavior and rehabilitated his reputation. If Kiffin wants to win a national championship, he is rejecting his Ole Miss program with its 11-1 record (they lost to my Dawgs) that has a chance this year to win it all. I guess he figured that if LSU could win national championships with Les Miles and Ed Orgeron, then he could win one there too. But bailing out on Ole Miss at this crucial time, threatening his assistant coaches if they don’t come with him and abandoning his players just simply stinks. But that is a familiar smell around Lane Kiffin. 

A friend sent me an ode to Kiffin on YouTube that somehow I cannot post. It is called “Can’t turn a hoe into a housewife.” I urge you to see it. It is well done and hilarious.