The Lost Class

Hello All,

The other day I was talking with my friend Tim about the upcoming football season. Tim said he had read my post about our toughest losses and said something along the lines of “we must have had the worst 4 year stretch of any class when it came to being football fans”.

This intrigued me. While I think that it was probably a class pre-1980 that had the worst 4 year stretch, back when the school almost folded the program and they gave away free game tickets at Burger King, since 1980 it is probably true. Here were our 4 seasons:

2005: 10-3, including a blowout loss in the Peach Bowl to LSU

2006: 7-6

2007: 5-7

2008: 7-6

We, as a class, watched Miami lose 23 times. That is a crazy number to wrap your head around

for a ‘Canes fan. My friend Francis started in 2006 and graduated a year early, meaning his three seasons saw the ‘Canes win half of their games.

I think that is a big reason why so many fans are having a hard time getting excited for this stretch of OSU-Pitt-Clemson-FSU this season.

The past 5 years has conditioned a large percentage of the alumni base to expect the worst. They do not expect improvement from year to year because their formative years as ‘Canes fans saw stagnation and regression. Miami fans are not the best to begin with, and a lot of them have short memories, which I think has a lot to do with the school’s heavily Northeastern accent. Anyway, fans are a little gun shy and cannot fully bring themselves to embrace this team as talented and ready to break out until they see it. It’s like the United States during the Cold War. We saw too many situations blow up in our face and finally embraced the “trust but verify” approach to foreign relations. Which, I might add, might not necessarily be a bad thing.

But, back to Tim’s point, we certainly did suffer through a terrible stretch.

Look at our Era:

· The Orange Bowl Finale Blowout

· Bryan Pata and Sean Taylor’s deaths

· A 1-3 record against FSU

· A 0-4 record against GTech

· The FIU Brawl

· A loss in Gainesville to Tim Tebow and the Referees

· Larry Coker staying employed two years too long and one year after everyone realized he should have been fired

· First round picks Greg Olsen and Kenny Phillips not reaching their full potential as ‘Canes because of schematic problems

· The following busts: Kyle Wright, Kirby Freeman, James Bryant, Andrew Johnson, Lance Leggett, Aikeem Jolla, Reggie Youngblood, Rhyan Anderson, Charlie Jones

· Three years of the Wright/Freeman Poo Poo Platter and no other options

· The Kernobyl Freeman game

· Losses to heavyweights Louisville, Maryland, Virginia, Boston College

· Near escapes against powerhouses Nevada, Duke, FIU

· Not signing a quarterback in three straight recruiting classes

· Brian Monroe, our punter, being listed on the depth chart as a receiver

· Randy Shannon’s first, “trim the fat” year (necessary but still hard to watch)

A lot of people call America’s Vietnam Generation the “Lost Generation”. I think that the above list of events would probably qualify the University of Miami Class of 2009 as the “Lost Class”.

As soon as we left, the team started to turn the corner with a very promising 9-4 season. This year they are poised to get back in to the national conversation for a full season. Fitting. The further we get from Miami the better the team gets.

Patience is a virtue and faith is rewarded, but DAMN it was tough to be a fan during those years.

I think that those of us who managed to stay true from that class will be rewarded when (not if) the ‘Canes win another title. We will be the ones that can turn to all the T-Shirt Fans and say “You should have been there when we were losing to Louisville and Georgia Tech every year”.

Most likely as we sit at the end of the bar, staring through the bottom of our third martini of the night, decrying how kids these days have no respect and don’t know anything about being a real fan.

At the tender age of 25.

Class of '09, I salute those of you who have stayed loyal. It was tough, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Always guard the inbound passer.