To What End?

Come on, Mike. Honestly.

In the wake of Bryan Pata's death, my man Mike Bianchi has called for the resignations of not just Larry Coker, but University of Miami athletic director Paul Dee and school president Donna Shalala. Somehow, their departures will accomplish...something.

What, exactly? From Mike: "First of all, let's state this right up front: It's absolutely unfair and inappropriate for anyone to blame the shooting death of UM defensive tackle Bryan Pata on the UM football program."

But you're about to anyway. I can feel it.

"This could have happened anywhere...But it didn't happen at Florida or Florida State or Michigan or Ohio State. It happened at Miami -- a school that has the unsavory national moniker of "Thug U.""

Only because the national media keeps dragging it back up from the bottom of the well. Did we not discuss this after the FIU brawl?

"Doesn't matter that Pata has been described by The Miami Herald as a Christian who never drank or partied. Doesn't matter that he was a team leader who switched positions before the season and played where coaches needed him most. No, what matters in the court of public opinion is that Pata played at UM, which means the school's renegade reputation will be forever linked to his death. That's why Miami must make sweeping changes in its administration."

Again - this will accomplish what, exactly?

Obviously, the death of any player casts a pall over any college athletic program. Further, I'm not naive enough to believe that Miami has completely shed the 'Thug U' image of twenty (freaking) years ago. However, I will argue that Pata's role as a Miami football player had absolutely nothing to do with his death. And because I believe that, the call for mass resignations rings hollow.

I'll save you the crime statistics - which I did look up, but would rather not harp on, because this is not intended to be an indictment of the city - but suffice it to say that Miami can be a dangerous place. However, there are many dangerous places in every major city in America. Bryan Pata happened to be in one of them, at the wrong time. That's as far as this goes. Lumping the UM football program into this tragedy - and as Miami Herald writer Greg Cote has noted, Mike B. is not the first commentator to do it - is ridiculous. And more than a little insulting. To Pata, to the Miami administration, and to the school itself.

If you want Larry Coker or Paul Dee fired, base it on wins and losses. For that matter, calling for resignations after the FIU brawl - which I did not advocate and still don't - makes more sense than linking UM to Pata's death. The "court of public opinion" means nothing to me.

In the meantime, a school is grieving, and a mother has lost a son. Call for as many heads as you like, but it won't change that fact. Let's all pray that we never have to go through it again.