Adios, OB

On March 12th of this year, I interviewed new University of Miami head coach Randy Shannon for an episode of "In My Own Words" on Sun Sports. There were whispers that UM might be considering a move out of the Orange Bowl, but at the time, they were just that -- whispers.

I still have the script I wrote for that interview. I checked it this morning. Here's the question I asked Shannon back in March:

"During the coaching search, there was talk in the media regarding the quality of Miami's facilities. What's your stance on the Orange Bowl?"

Shannon responded by saying something about "staying out of it," preferring to allow his bosses at Miami to handle such weighty matters. Fair enough. He was a brand new head coach, with more relevant matters to consider -- like how to improve a team that was 7-6 the previous season -- and the last thing he wanted to do was stir the pot. Fine.

However, I'm a TV guy, so I pressed him: "Surely, though, you must feel some kind of attachment to that building, having won a national championship as a player at Miami."

Shannon refused to bite. He shrugged off the suggestion, acting as if there was so such thing as nostalgia. Honestly, he offered nothing that would indicate that he had any fond memories of the "OB" at all. It was surprising, and odd.

In the days that followed, as I watched the tape, I figured that maybe he was simply an all-business kind of guy. No time for jogs down memory lane, not with a team to coach and players to recruit. There was a little voice that made me wonder if he was following a game plan, purposely downplaying the Orange Bowl talk in light of these "whispers," but I never gave it much more thought than that.

In retrospect, I think he knew.

I think Randy Shannon knew in March that the Hurricanes were not long for the Orange Bowl. Maybe he didn't "officially" know, maybe it was just an intuition, but he knew. In light of this week's news, his non-answer in March may have been a savvy evasion, even if it was unintentional.

Then again, don't you think the topic of facilities came up when Shannon was interviewing for the coaching vacancy? Shannon's been playing and coaching there for most of his adult life. Even before he put on the Hurricanes' uniform, he saw that hulking structure every day as a kid growing up in Liberty City. The conditions at the Orange Bowl have been in front of him forever. As a UM player and coach, he's visited stadiums all over the country, seen the on-campus palaces at places like Florida State and Florida. He's seen the looks on the faces of recruits who step into the Orange Bowl, or any of Miami's practice facilities, and begin mentally comparing the amenities to those they've seen on other visits. Shannon has probably made those same comparisons a hundred times in his own mind, too.

If you were Randy Shannon, and you were interviewing with athletic director Paul Dee and university president Donna Shalala for the Hurricanes' head coaching job, would you not bring up the question of facilities? Wouldn't the Orange Bowl come up in the conversation? And if we accept that, does that mean that Shannon knew something was up as early as last November, when he was among several candidates for the job?

Maybe his non-answer to my question wasn't unintentional, after all.

Among everything that I have read this week regarding UM's decision to move to Dolphin Stadium, nothing is more interesting -- or more telling -- than the letter that Paul Dee sent out to Hurricane season ticket holders explaining the move. One of those Miami supporters sent me a copy on Tuesday morning.

The opening paragraph reads as follows: "As you probably have heard, a decision has been made for the Hurricanes to move their home football games from the Orange Bowl Stadium to Dolphin Stadium expected to begin in 2008. This decision was extremely difficult for all involved."

Note that Dee doesn't write "we made a decision." Instead, he writes "a decision has been made." The use of the passive tense removes Dee from the equation. The entire paragraph reads as if Paul Dee, in his role as athletic director, is apologizing on behalf of those who actually made the call. This is a direct contrast to comments from University of Miami president Donna Shalala, who told the Miami Herald that she "initially resisted [Dee's] suggestion to consider moving."

So which is it? Was Paul Dee merely the messenger, carrying out orders handed to him by UM's trustees and administration, or was this his idea? If I had to guess -- and I admit I'm doing just that -- I'd say he was involved from the get-go. Like his new head coach, Dee has seen the facilities at other schools. He knows, probably more than anyone else in the country, the revenue streams and recruiting advantages that Miami was missing by playing in the OB. If anyone would benefit from a move to Dolphin Stadium, it would be Dee and his department. In fact, it would be his job, his responsibility as athletic director, to make sure the school president and the trustees understood what they were missing.

Three key players in this saga -- Randy Shannon, Paul Dee, and Donna Shalala -- all took great pains to avoid being portrayed as the engineer of this move, and for that, I cannot blame them. President Shalala said that she "didn't want to do it," and honestly, who would? Who wants to be the school president at Miami -- or the AD, or the head coach -- the day the Orange Bowl is shuttered? Until the Hurricanes step into Dolphin Stadium and show the fans, the media, and the boosters how much better a Miami home game could be, this will be a public relations nightmare. The reason, of course, is history.

For 70 years, the Orange Bowl has been a living symbol of Miami -- the city, the school, and the football team. National championships. Orange Bowl games. The smoke. Sebastian the Ibis. "Hurricane warning" flags. Beyond that, five Super Bowls, and the last link to the Dolphins' perfect NFL season. The Orange Bowl is one of the few links to Florida's history that still stands. Around here, where the state animal is the bulldozer and the state song is "No Closing Costs," those links are precious. The outcry in South Florida, especially among those who have lived and worked there for any amount of time, is understandably loud. At this very moment, I guarantee you there's a developer in Miami eyeing the Orange Bowl property as a possible site for a condo-hotel, and it makes my skin crawl, even from 200 miles away.

But Miami did what it had to do. In the interest of competing in the ACC, competing on a national scale, and competing for fans in South Florida, Miami made the only call it could make. As a business decision, it's a no-brainer. But in the realm of public opinion, it was a tortuous choice, and that's why nobody is leaping forward to claim it.

Just for fun, imagine if Paul Dee had stepped up to a podium on Monday morning and said the following:

"Look, the Orange Bowl opened in 1937. It's falling apart, and everybody knows it. It's dangerous and expensive for our fans to park and tailgate there, and more to the point, it's got none of the amenities that have come to be accepted as standard at major college stadiums. Dolphin Stadium has 240 suites and over 10,000 club seats. The OB has none of either. Dolphin Stadium is undergoing a massive expansion as we speak. The OB might get renovated, maybe, if the city and county can get their act together, set provincial politics aside, and approve some financing. Does anyone here think that will happen in my lifetime? How are the Marlins doing when it comes to public money for a stadium? And by the way, the university stands to make at least a million and a half bucks more per year -- conservatively -- by moving north. That's 1.5 mil that we can pour into practice facilities, scholarships, donations to academic programs, whatever. Per year. The new place is closer to Broward County, closer to the Turnpike, easier to get to, cleaner, better appointed, and even has 2,000 more seats than the Orange Bowl, which means more fans who otherwise couldn't get tickets to a Miami Hurricane football game now can.

Yeah, this sucks. We know it sucks. We know the history of the OB as well as anybody in the world. But what else are we supposed to do? It's 2007, people. We've got to move forward."

Of course, Paul Dee didn't say any of that, because he's way too smart, but you'd have respected him for being honest. Would he have made some people mad? Obviously. But would it be the truth? Definitely.

The University of Miami made a difficult, and currently unpopular, decision. But they did what they had to do in order to catch up with the rest of college football's major powers, and secure their own bottom line. If that leads to a resurrection of the Hurricane mystique, all will be forgiven.

In the meantime, watch out for those bulldozers.