Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin tells MSNBC vaccination is ‘the right thing to do’
Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin joined MSNBC’s Morning Joe show to discuss becoming the first college football team to reach 100-percent vaccination rate. In total, the program has more than 240 vaccinated members from the players to the coaching staff to employees in direct contact.
The state of Mississippi has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the United States, something Kiffin hopes to change by setting a good example for those on the fence. Kiffin touched on the importance of the vaccination as well as the leadership he saw from his players throughout the process.
What Kiffin had to say
When asked about how Ole Miss was able to reach 100-percent vaccination in the program:
“I didn’t get it done. We have a great medical staff here and just gave all our players, coaches, and all employees education, and brought in outside doctors to come in and we did not make anyone do anything. But was really proud of our team, starting with our coaches and our entire staff did a while back so that our players knew how important it was. We weren’t going tell them, you know, advise them what we think is the best thing to do if we’re not doing it ourselves. So, it was a very neat reaction to see it happen and I think and hope it’s motivated our state as you referred to, one of bottom, I think at one point was last in vaccination rate so, and our hospital is having an issue with that. So hopefully we’re leading a charge to help that.”
When asked about the leadership on his team, particularly from quarterback Matt Corral:
“I think that the leaders did do that. We were not very close, just as of a few weeks ago. I think we were down near 60-percent three or four weeks ago so just to see the players come together and I think what they would say is that they decided to protect their team, you know, if they’re going to do all this work to be able to play and the offseason, the weight room, playbooks, training camp, all that and then have other people come in the room, other players, other staff come around and potentially bring it to them and now they miss games and also there’s close contact rules. If you’re not vaccinated and someone comes in, a student in class or in our football program, you can be shut down for a number of days right before a game and not be able to play because you weren’t vaccinated, where there is no close contact rule on vaccination. So, I’m sure that helped motivate them as well.”
When asked about his leadership at Ole Miss:
“Well, I would like to take credit for that but a lot of that is amongst our players. I think even though we did it early as a staff, so they saw it, that increased our percentages, but at the end of the day the leaders on the team and the players bringing everyone together and showing them how important that it was and again, like I referred to before, it got to a point where it was are we going to let other players, you know this is the players saying this, potentially be out, be in school, be out at dinner and bring this virus in few days before a game. Everybody obviously was not 100-percent on board initially and there were questions, and then you talk to a lot of family members too, because these are still kids with concerns and leading them to doctors and not just our own doctors but other doctors. It was just neat to see, and I think somebody said we’re the only NFL or college team to be 100-percent, so hopefully that inspires other ones too. But we were really, once it got close to that, it was about motivated our state also when those numbers came to us how low they were, and we saw the issues of running out of hospital beds. As you mentioned, this is SEC land, where a lot of times the fans and the people who follow the football team. So, this might be one time where we can lead in a different way besides football that is a lot more important.”
When asked if support from SEC coaches, such as Nick Saban and himself, would boost vaccine numbers:
“I do, I think going out and talking about it as coach [Saban] has done and as I’ve done is one thing, but when a team, and an entire organization not just the players, decides to do this at 100-percent, I would like to think that that’s pretty eye opening for a lot of people that were sitting right on the edge or not really motivated to do it. So, I bet our numbers go up and that’s pretty cool.”
When asked about backlash from families concerned about the vaccine:
“I thought we would have that more and we did not. I thought it would be, I don’t know, maybe 80-20 or something and at the end it wasn’t. Like I said, there were kids and parents with a lot of questions, and we used a lot of doctors, not just our own, to help them and at the end of the day it was everyone’s individual decision. We didn’t make anybody do anything. I don’t know where we’ll be with the masks in the stands, I know our university is still mandating them indoors but not outdoors so I’m not sure where we’ll be on in the stands. But obviously, we would love for everybody to be vaccinated and come to some games, I know it’s controversial to say, but it’s the right thing to do.”