This is an opinion column.
Pickleball does not agree with Pete Golding’s sensibilities.
America, we have a football coach who suddenly represents our common values. He’s a shaggy-haired Southern Man in an Ole Miss visor, and he wants everyone to know that the oddly annoying activity of pickleball, like yoga, will not be distracting him from the job at hand or infecting his rugged, every-man persona now that he’s a head coach in the Southeastern Conference.
“I’m not changing who I am,” Golding said back before the playoffs. “I ain’t changing what the hell I wear or going to yoga or playing pickleball. I ain’t doing any of that [stuff]. I am who I am.”
Pete Golding: A tennis-leaning guy with an aversion for meditative stretching techniques and new clothes.
I love him, and so does Ole Miss.
Golding is the new head coach of the Rebels. He might be a little brusque and bearish, but I find myself suddenly rooting for him and his team in the College Football Playoff. I know I’m not alone either. It’s OK to admit it. You’re kinda hoping Ole Miss makes a run in the College Football Playoff, too.
Am I a bandwagon fan boy of Ole Miss by way of pity? Maybe so, but I see absolutely nothing wrong with wanting Ole Miss to make old coach Lane Kiffin look as bad as possible after what he did to his former players and fans.
There are no longer any dominant teams in college football, but Ole Miss represents something deeper. It’s universal revenge. The nation is united in its love of loathing Kiffin.
“Pete! Pete! Pete!” they chanted inside Ole Miss’ Vaught-Hemingway Stadium after the Rebels’ 41-10 victory against Tulane in the first round of the playoffs. It was a cathartic cry, and it’s only going to grow louder if Ole Miss keeps winning.
Soak it in, Kiffin, and enjoy that lump of coal in your Christmas stocking, too.
Kiffin, a yoga man, was supposed to be the coach at Ole Miss for the playoffs, but he then quit on his team to coach LSU. Who does that?
Not Pete Golding, that’s who.
After Kiffin walked out the door, Ole Miss had little choice but to promote Golding to head coach. It was a bizarre situation, but now Golding is 1-0 for his career and Ole Miss takes on Georgia in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day.
It originally assumed that Golding would be the interim coach at Ole Miss for the playoffs. The school then named him the “permanent” boss. Since then, the fans and players have rallied around him.
Of all the former assistant coaches for Nick Saban, Golding would have been the last one I picked to be a future head coach in the SEC. I’m happy for him, though. He works hard, and he’s a great recruiter. Will he last at Ole Miss? I highly doubt it, but it’s going to be a heck of a ride until it all falls apart.
“We’re going to roll,” Golding after being named Ole Miss’ permanent head coach. “We’re going to do this thing the right way. I’ve done it a long time around a lot of good people and we’re going to give it our best shot and see what happens.”
Ole Miss is a 6.5-point dog in the Sugar Bowl. Just because I don’t think Ole Miss has much of a chance against SEC champ Georgia, doesn’t mean I can’t secretly wish they beat UGA by 50.
Georgia defeated Ole Miss 43-35 earlier this season. But that was Kiffin’s Ole Miss. Golding’s team has a new swagger, and it’s winning over hearts and minds all across the country.
I once called Golding a bozo. I take it all back.
I’m I suddenly pulling for Ole Miss to win the College Football Playoff? Let’s not get crazy. I will, however, admit that I have newfound respect for their coach.
Golding hit rock bottom at Alabama. We all remember it. Fans blamed him for Alabama’s defensive woes, and then Coach Pete was arrested for a DUI in February of 2022. It was a bad look. Saban never officially fired Golding, but no one tried to stop him when he left Alabama for Ole Miss.
But that was the old Coach Pete, and America loves a redemption story. New Pete got a haircut after being named Ole Miss head coach and even cleaned up his scruffy face a little bit. They’re pulling for him in Oxford, and why not. He’s never going to fake it like old coach Hugh Freeze and Golding is pretty much the opposite of Kiffin in every way.
Kiffin worked really hard trying to convince everyone that he changed his ways. Golding has made a point to tell everyone that he’s not changing a thing.
But the SEC changes people. I’ve seen it 100 times.
When Kirby Smart became the head coach at Georgia, those around him say he got a little snooty.
Kiffin, of course, likes to tell the cameras at ESPN that hot yoga changed his life.
Freeze is reading this column on his iPhone in between golf swings at Moore’s Mill.
Some head coaches in the SEC have been known to get botox on the reg and dye their hair. Other guys buy fancy clothes to boost their Q Scores.
Not our man Pete, though.
Pete Golding eats Copenhagen for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and he knows deep down that pickleball is the Woke Left’s evil plan to destroy the backbone of America.
Or at least drive us insane with all that noise.
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