Wall To Wall Brawl

I suppose I should be flattered that my buddy Jeff sent me an e-mail on Wednesday asking why I had not blogged about the FIU-Miami brawl last weekend.

The answer is complicated. For one thing, everybody, everybody's brother, and everybody's brother's next-door neighbor (who's actually a pretty cool guy) had already written something about the fight. Venomously, in most cases. Which is part of the problem.

Frank Forte, a veteran South Florida broadcaster who works with us on Sun Sports and FSN Florida, made an excellent point on "Tailgate Overtime" two days after the brawl: if you're a copy editor in New York, or a studio producer in LA, and you see a story entitled "FIU Brawl," your second reaction - after shrugging - would be to ask somebody who the hell "FIU" is. However, Frank pointed out that when that same copy editor or studio producer sees "Miami Hurricanes Brawl," it's go-time. And he was right. Virtually every story that followed the brawl on Saturday focused almost exclusively on the Hurricane angle, ignoring the fact that there were, last time I checked, two teams involved.

National media outlets moved at breathtaking speed to dredge up every Luther Campbell - Michael Irvin - "fatigues on the plane" - bad-boy image reference to Miami, stories that are older than just about every player on today's Hurricane roster. It became a feeding frenzy, accelerated by Lamar Thomas's ill-advised comments during the brawl (which were never actually broadcast on live television, by the way - but that's another story). In an effort to wrestle the story away from those same copy editors and studio producers, UM president Donna Shalala went on the offensive this week, saying "This is not the same program. This is not the old Miami."

In terms of winning, President Shalala is actually wrong. The old Hurricanes went 202-48 from 1980 through 2000, winning at an 80.8 percent clip. From 2001 until today, the 'Canes have gone 57-11, a percentage of 83.8. The New Miami wins just as often as the Old Miami did. Difference being: no national championships since 2001, and two straight 9-3 seasons heading into 2006. Those numbers don't fly at Miami, old or new.

What Shalala was referring to in her comments was a concerted effort on her part, and on the part of Larry Coker and much of UM's athletic administration, to distance themselves from those renegade images. Anyone who spends any time around the Miami athletic staff knows how passionately they despise those 20-year-old references, and how hard they work to erase them - while simultaneously trying to win football games. We know that around here, because we cover Miami daily. The national media doesn't - not to the extent that a Florida-based cable sports network can - so they assumed the fall-back position of branding Miami as "Thug U." The brawl gave the "occasional media" a golden opportunity to work on their righteous indignation, and they capitalized. It made for good TV and some whithering newspaper columns, but it was flat-out lazy.

Yet, the brawl happened. Miami players dancing on Louisville's logo prior to their meeting this season? That happened, too. A brawl against LSU at last year's Peach Bowl? Also happened. We can't pretend it didn't. So is this really a New Miami?

Those who don't live and work in Florida have a hard time understanding the cultural gap that exists between South Florida and the rest of the state. I think I stayed away from the brawl because, though I am a native Floridian, I did not grow up in South Florida, and therefore cannot appreciate the intensity of, well, everything. As Larry Coker pointed out in the aftermath of the fight, the majority of the athletes on the Florida International University football roster are kids who weren't good enough to play at Miami. FIU's roster is filled almost exclusively with Florida kids, the overwhelming majority of whom come from Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties. The kids who play for Miami and FIU today have known each other, and played football with each other, since they were children. This sibling rivalry bubbled before the game, when the trash-talk began in earnest (we've got the videotape). It boiled over with the brawl.

Does this Miami connection between the two rosters excuse one of the worst on-field incidents in the history of college football? Of course not. But it might help explain it. Spend five minutes in a Miami high school, or walk the forlorn streets where most of these athletes grew up, and you might gain an appreciation for the premium they place on defending themselves against "disrespect." Too bad nobody bothered to ask before they ran with the story.

Something that I mention at least once a week on our college football studio shows: this is a game played by kids, ages 18 to 22. They are thrust onto a national stage and told to perform. When they don't, good men like Larry Coker and Don Strock find their jobs in jeopardy. It's a preposterous system, one that would never fly in any other field (imagine if your classroom misbehavior, or inability to comprehend algebra well enough to pass an exam, resulted in the public dismissal of your 8th-grade math teacher). But this is college football, and it's a huge business. And sometimes, the kids on the field do something really stupid. When it happens, you punish them, as Miami and FIU did. The hope is that the kids will learn.

Miami defensive back Anthony Reddick, who was seen on video swinging his helmet during the brawl, publicly apologized for his actions this week. Reddick - a 20-year-old redshirt sophomore - described his own behavior thusly: "...a disgrace to my school, my family, my friends, and especially to the young kids that look up to me as a role model."

Predictably, Reddick's apology didn't make national headlines. Outrage sells more newspapers than contriteness.