Tennessee hostesses, described by the New York Times as “folk heroes on Tennessee Internet message boards” are at the center of the school’s latest football controversy. [This isn't a photo of a football hostess; that's Layla Kiffin, the coach's wife. We can only imagine the hostesses look like a cross between these girls and this girl.] The NCAA is investigating the hostesses’ influence on recruits who have chosen to play football for Lane Kiffin for the Volunteers. Interviews with multiple recruits and their family members revealed that the N.C.A.A. has strong interest in Tennessee’s use of recruiting hostesses, students who are part of a formal group at the university that hosts all manner of prospective students at campus visits, including athletes. It is not clear whether the university sent the hostesses to visit the football players.
Kiffin will deny any involvement, but we won’t believe it. Would hostesses really drive 200 miles to cheer on a recruit at a high school football game if they weren’t nudged by Kiffin or someone else in the program?
Marcus Lattimore, a recruit who did not choose Tennessee, described the hostesses as “real pretty, real nice and just real cool” and then offered a wonderfully candid quote: “You don’t want to go to a college where they ain’t pretty.”
N.C.A.A. Scrutiny Seen on Tennessee’s Recruiting (NY Times)
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