A Very Good Sport

I've never been a big fan of the University of Miami football program. First of all, the teams themselves were just so frigging dominant. This, I'm saying, in that from the late 70s (Jim Kelly's hey day) all the way to the early part of this decade (the Ken Dorsey era), Miami probably had the most dominant program of the era (5 national championships, almost always ranked in the top 20, etc.)...................................................................................But it wasn't just the program's success that bothered me. I didn't like the image of it, either. I don't know if you remember or not, but the 'Canes of that era had a major-league swagger to them - an arrogance, if you will. They also had a reputation for being thuggish/intimidating. And, yes, folks, one could clearly get the impression that the bulk of the players revelled in this bad boy status. I mean, it was almost impossible NOT to root against them................................................................................So, yeah, it does feel kind of weird that I'm actually rooting for Miami now. Why am I rooting for them? Three little words, folks - coach Randy Shannon................................................................................For those of you who don't know the man, coach Shannon was actually a player on one of those Miami teams; the 1987 national championship team in fact. But to say that this guy wasn't one of the typical Miami players is an understatement............................................................................................To make a long story short, Randy Shannon grew up in the most dire of circumstances. At the age of three (for instance), his father was murdered. At age ten, both of his brothers became addicted to crack cocaine (they later died). A few years later, his sister died of AIDS. And at age sixteen, Shannon himself fathered a child. But, instead of allowing these circumstances to destroy him forever, Shannon worked his way through high-school and was awarded a scholarship to play football at the University of Miami. Since then, he's had a brief NFL career, worked his way up the coaching profession, and, yes, presently coaches at his alma mater.....................................................................................How's he doing there? Well, after a little bit of a tough start, it appears that the Hurricanes are back. They're presently 5-1 and ranked 8th in the country. And, yes, folks, after they beat the Oklahoma Sooners a few weeks back, I'll admit it. I got a little lump in my throat.......................................................................................But it obviously isn't just results on the field that we're looking at. Shannon, instead of reconstituting that bad boy image of the 'Canes, has brought about some real perspective on campus. The first thing he did was to eliminate the players' names on the jerseys (a "there is no i in team" approach, obviously). But even more so than that, he's totally focused in on academics. If a player misses a class and/or his grades fall below a certain grade-point average, that player just doesn't play. And when he recruits a player, he talks to the family about basically everything. The only thing that he doesn't talk about? Yeah, you got it, football. That'll take care of itself, he figures....Go Canes.