Ray Ratto: "Well, (Mike Garrett) he's clearly nuts,"

Once in a while, someone in the sports world does something so crazy that even Ray Ratto can come off as a voice of reason. Ratto's column in this morning's SF Chronicle asks how the heck the Kitten ended being hired to take over at USC.

Never has one person in the history of American sport assembled this kind of resume in four years, never. Dead-ended offensive assistant at Southern Cal falls into job with Al Davis, and the two take an almost immediate and intense dislike for each other. Coach gets fired, falls into the job at Tennessee, where his principal achievements were enraging Urban Meyer, collecting recruiting violations (often for kids he later had to kick off the team) and winning barely half his games.

While Ratto's opinion of Garrett and his decision making process is already reflected in the title of this post, he could at least find some unifying factor between Garrett and the Kitten.

Or maybe he [Lane Kiffin - P] is comfortable being America's Third Choice. He got the job in Oakland only after Steve Sarkisian (Washington) turned it down, and the Tennessee job only after several others passed on it. And now, he's at USC after Mike Riley, Jeff Fisher and Jack Del Rio all passed.

There is enough win in this piece to copy far more than I can get away with under fair use, and you really should click through to read the whole thing, but I'll leave you with the summation of Kitten's career track.

But here it is - The Man Who Takes A Job And Tells The Cab Driver To Keep The Motor Running rises yet again.