Lane Kiffin’s late mom’s rules reveal sacrifices she made as football coach’s wife, mother
Ole Miss football coach Lane Kiffin’s mom, Robin, had a few rules when raising her football-focused family.
In a 2007 ESPN story, she detailed what it was like being married to an NFL coach, Monte Kiffin, and having two sons following the same path filled with airline miles and sleepless nights. At the time of the article’s publication, Monte was the defensive coordinator for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Lane was a rookie head coach with the Oakland Raiders in the NFL. His brother, Chris, was an Ole Miss football grad assistant.Robin, 81, died June 17. It was less than a year after Monte died July 11, 2024. They were married for five decades.
Her rules revealed the sacrifice wives of head coaches make. For one, she had to ignore the calendar. It was a rule out of necessity.The past few years Lane has been busy with bowl games at USC, so we couldn’t have Christmas in December,” Robin told ESPN. “We’d celebrate ours together in the middle of January.”She understood the time and energy that football coaches put into their jobs,” Lane told ESPN. “Sometimes you see wives who get jealous of that, but she really got it.”
Robin learned to accept moving. Coaching is an unstable profession. During a flurry of address changes in the 1980s, Lane and Chris’ sister, Heidi, had to change schools three times in three years. Robin had her real estate license and considerable experience house hunting.She also knew bedtime had to be flexible when Lane and Chris were growing up. She allowed her kids to stay up two hours past their bedtime to watch “Monday Night Football.” It allowed the boys to get a rare slice of in-season quality time their dad during the season.Every time we moved it was the wrong time to sell,” Robin said.
Shortly after Robin’s death, Lane shared multiple recent photos of her with his children on social media.
“Will miss you Mom,” Lane wrote on his Instagram story on June 17. “Thank you for everything and say hi to Pops. I’m glad your broken heart can now be healed with him again.”
