What I Think and What I Know

NOTE: This is a blog about the controversy that engulfed the college football world thanks to a Yahoo! Sports article detailing allegations surrounding the 'Canes football team. I am not posting any pictures or linking to the any passages from this article. If you haven't read it or seen, which you probably have if you are reading this, find it on your own.

I have ridden some up and downs with the Miami football program.

I watched us get ravaged by NCAA Probation in the mid-90’s as a young fan. I watched us pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and become the greatest team the world has ever seen. I watched us get robbed by Ohio State and I cried my eyes out. I watched us fall under Coker and stagnate under Shannon. I was at the last game at the Orange Bowl and heard the Band of the Hour play 'North Dade' for the last time. I was on campus covering the team when Bryan Pata got murdered. I was on campus when Sean Taylor got murdered. I remember watching Chris Campbell and Marlon Barnes play.

Every time something bad happens to this program I am left feeling sad and hopeless. I watch as the vultures gather and sharks pool. I watch as people who went to dumb fucking schools that don't even have football teams take potshots at mine, and by extension, me. I take this stuff personally.

As a result of the deep connection, I am a few parts numb and most parts pissed off this morning, in the wake of the ALLEGATIONS that are being paraded all over the media today.

Let me try and take some people through a little of what it is to be a ‘Canes fan. You are a fan of a school that no one knows much about. It is not a state school, even though we have the football program you would associate with one. It is not an athletic powerhouse; it established a football dynasty almost in spite of its shortcomings.

This is a program that changed the face and the very style of college football. The program is an outsider at the table with the big boys and gets treated as such. Every slight is magnified. When Taylor and Pata were murdered, there were people who said they actually deserved it because of where they are from. Such is life as a ‘Canes fan. Tragedy is never recognized....it is extrapolated, reversed and then glorified. To be a ‘Cane is to be part of something special and unique. It attracts jealousy and hatred. Anyone who thinks that sounds cheesy can go to hell, too.


That is the lens we look through as fans. It is the corner we are backed into.

And this is why it is particularly devastating when this happens.

Now, am I burying my head in the sand and pretending this controversy is not happening? No I most certainly am not. But I also am not quickly jumping into the trial by public opinion that everyone seems to engage in the second one of these stories drops.

These times call for a dichotomy between what we think and what we know.

I know the guy trying to bring our program down is a sleaze ball. He is a little man (literally) with a big chip on his shoulder who has been convicted of $930 million in FRAUD. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, fraud. Lying and misleading people. To the tune of almost $1 billion. With a ‘b’.

I know that I listened to his lawyer, a poor representative of what it means to be a Miami alumni, go on the radio this morning and try and present her client as a victim. Somewhere Bill Clinton is smiling. To rephrase: I listened to a lawyer present someone who stole $930 million from innocent clients and now is being forced to pay it back as a victim.

I know that said sleaze ball has motive to lie about Miami. He is butt hurt that after he was “forced to open his house and bank account at the university’s behest” (his lawyer’s words) to players, they then went pro and wanted nothing to do with the little man with a Napoleon complex.

(Also, the image of Donna Shalala forcing anyone to do anything is hilarious. She is a 4’9” university president. What’d she do, threaten to shoot his mother?)

I know this sleaze ball once almost blinded a bar owner who threw him out, claiming he attacked the man “because he made me look bad”.

I know this sleaze ball once tried to pick a fight in the press box of the Orange Bowl with our compliance director because he was doing his job too well (READ: not granting the sleaze ball enough access to the players....hmmmmmmm).

I think the story itself is murky. There are definitely things in it which are troubling for Miami. I am certainly not naïve enough to think that everything said in the article is false. Miami is not perfect. I think the school does it better and cleaner than most when it comes to compliance, but the NCAA system is broken. Scratch that, the system is not broken; it was never solvent.

(Example: If my buddy Steve and I, while in college, had been offered to use some guy’s yacht on a Sunday with a couple of sorority girls, we would not be stopping to ask “who is this guy?” or “why are we being offered this?” Neither would the people at the NCAA who are investigating this. So the question, then, is why should these players be asked to do any differently?)

I think the story itself relies on some iffy evidence. For instance, I have a receipt on my desk at home right now from the Verizon store.. If I wanted to, could I say that I had bought an iPhone for a Miami recruit? Yes. Does that make it true? No.

(The store does not take time to print things like “Purchased for Player X by Dan Stein” on the receipt, or so I believe)

I think the story is relying VERY heavily upon the word of a man convicted of $930 million worth of fraud. FRAUD. Again, as we know, fraud is lying to people. See what I am getting at?

I think that in the court of public opinion, Miami is already guilty. I also think that the NCAA has a bigger standard of proof than Yahoo! does, so I think everyone needs to take a chill pill.

I think that there is certainly enough here for the NCAA to conduct an investigation, so I have no problem with the NCAA doing so.

I think that Miami is part and parcel to the problem here, as they did not do enough to screen this sociopath from their student athletes. Billy Corben ranted well on this on the Joe Rose show this morning.

I think Miami has done well to collaborate with the NCAA for the past year and I think they need to be completely compliant moving forward.

I think Tyrone Moss is a fat ass, failure of a football player who never lived up to his potential on the field and now seems like an even bigger waste of time off the field. Do I blame him for taking $1000 to help pay bills for his baby? Absolutely not. I would do the same thing in his shoes. I would not break the Bro Code and rat about it, however. And that is important.

I think Miami is going to end up with sanctions; I do not think it will be as bad as everyone wants to believe in the first 48 hours.

These are all fairly easy opinions to come to.

I am a Canes fan and make no apologies for it. I think we need a few more like me, because the national voice has always been so against the ‘Canes that without people like me there would be NO ONE to defend the ‘Canes.

I think the most important opinion I can come to is that the storm is that we are in the most vicious part of the tempest currently. The media always runs with these ALLEGATIONS, and that is fine. That is what makes them money. However, they generally do a less showy job of covering the aftermath. This will be a long investigation. There are factors in the ‘Canes favor here. Those are two things that you will not hear the media discussing. You will hear a lot about the death penalty and lack of institutional control and SMU and failure to monitor and any other damning phrase associated with college football.

What we know is more favorable than what we don't at this point. But there is one indisputable fact.

I know I am a ‘Cane. Nothing that can be said to me will ever change that. And if that is true, then everything else just falls into line behind it.

Hold tight and strong, and know that bad things are going to be said. In a nutshell, that is the essence of being a ‘Cane, isn’t it?