Miami arrival: ACC culture shock?
By NEIL AMATO : The Herald-Sun
namato@heraldsun.com
Sep 15, 2003 : 11:35 pm ET

CORAL GABLES, Fla. -- You can't get sweet tea here.

But you can see lizards, coconut palms and bougainvillea on the campus of the University of Miami, which sits minutes from the municipal stadium in which its famous football team plays -- in the ACC, come next Labor Day.

It's an odd marriage -- a working-class crowd living and dying with a team that comes from ritzy Coral Gables, where one year of school costs $37,000.

But this city loves a winner, and the Hurricanes have been that, bringing home multiple national championships and rarely losing in the Orange Bowl, the rusty erector set that oozes more than history.

Miami is soon to be the southernmost ACC member, but the addition of the Hurricanes will be culture shock for both sides next football season. Miami, the city, is southern in a few ways. It's NASCAR country, sort of, with the Homestead track just down U.S. 1, which runs adjacent to the UM campus and goes by the name Old Dixie Highway.

Above U.S. 1, rapid-transit trains hum past, giving the tropical campus an urban feel. The surrounding city is full of immigrants, not just from Cuba. The hot weather, many say, leads people to be crazy about everything, not just Miami football. The photos and content in one local entertainment guide drove the point home: Miami is a different world, certainly different than the genteel ACC.

"Miami's a hedonistic, free-for-all place," said North Miami Beach resident Roger White, who rarely misses a UM football game.

On Saturday afternoon, White and some friends ate and drank at Sandbar Grill, a Hurricane-friendly establishment in the Coconut Grove section of Miami. On the big screen, they watched Ohio State beat N.C. State in triple overtime. Two people of about 100 at Sandbar were cheering for Ohio State, which beat Miami last season in the Fiesta Bowl for the national title.

It's a daily occurrence for Miami fans to talk about the late pass-interference penalty that helped Ohio State win in overtime in Tempe, Ariz. White saw the game in person, but he dislikes the Buckeyes more for their fans than for what happened on the field.

"We were outnumbered 10 to 1 in Tempe," he said. "We rolled up in [a Hummer] blasting 2 Live Crew -- you know, old-school Miami -- but we were gentlemanly as fans, and the team has taken on that persona.

"The Ohio State fans were so disrespectful and in my face. They were juvenile. It was miserable, so I loathe Ohio State now. They'll lose three games this year."

Even though the bitterness remains, Miami still can claim five national championships in football, which is five more than the combined total for Duke, North Carolina, N.C. State, Wake Forest and Virginia.

"I kind of joked, but the ACC doesn't realize they let an NFL team in that conference," said Miami baseball coach Jim Morris, a Greensboro native. "It's amazing to me what the football program has done."

Shortly before an interview last week, Morris was grilling one of his players about missing class. It seems UM, with fewer than 10,000 undergraduates, takes its academics seriously. Miami has maintained solid graduation rates among athletes, and it was one of eight schools to graduate at least 70 percent of football players who entered school from 1992-97.

Miami wasn't always winning with class, though. The Hurricanes went on probation in the mid-1990s for improper financial aid and other violations, and their antics on the field led to the creation of celebration penalties. The act has been toned down considerably -- no more fatigues at bowl games -- though the penalized exuberance reared its helmetless head in a close call two Saturdays ago against Florida. Miami fans are aware of the team's thug reputation, but they're not buying it.

"That's the old Miami," graduate Amy Batky said. "These are nice guys."

Batky sat on a youth-baseball field-turned-parking lot on a humid Saturday afternoon, tailgating with family and friends before Miami's 38-3 win over East Carolina. She and her sister, Cara, both went to UM and support the team rabidly. They've been to games at Tennessee, Penn State and elsewhere, including the Canes' regular bowl trips. The group created a Web site, crazycanes.com, which chronicles their travels and includes pictures from meet-the-team day.

Several in the tailgating group -- who feasted on shrimp, sandwiches and a variety of beverages -- had been coming to games at the Orange Bowl for more than 20 years, since they were kids. Gabe Palacios remembers the classic 1982 playoff game between the Miami Dolphins and San Diego Chargers. The Orange Bowl shakes when fans stomp on the metal bleachers, and that was the first time Palacios experienced the mini earthquake.

"I was thinking, 'This place is coming down,' " Palacios said between sips of Presidente beer.

Tammy Vieco, another Miami grad, led the group's resounding "no" when asked if the Orange Bowl should be torn down. The school plans to remain in the stadium, though President Donna Shalala said major renovations need to occur. While financing is worked out with the city, fans are happy with what Cara Batky called "a beautiful dump."

"Look at the rust hanging off the top," Vieco said. "We wouldn't have it any other way."

Shalala enjoys the communal feel of the stadium and the surrounding area. "It's just like someone's home. It's not perfect," she said. "There's always something going wrong. It leaks.

"It has personality and the energy of the immigrants of Miami. It's a special place."

Many residents rent out their yards for parking -- $25 for a prime spot. The city benefits by handling concessions, including lucrative beer sales in the stadium. A 16-ounce plastic bottle runs $5.75 for domestic, $6.50 for import.

Beer consumption can make the Orange Bowl tough on the opponent, but it can also create problems in the stands. That is why Shalala said she would like to end beer sales at the Orange Bowl.

"I'd do it in a minute," she said. "Whether we'll ever do it, I don't think so. I think we shouldn't have alcohol at college games. ? We want to make sure it's an atmosphere that people can bring families."

Anderston St. Germain, whose father came to Miami from Haiti 30 years ago, said he could hear, from home, the cheers from the Orange Bowl during the Sept. 6 Florida win. He lives 60 blocks away. St. Germain went to the ECU game, along with his father, Fritz, and sat in the general-admission section, where fans go out of their way to "welcome" the visiting team and its fans.

"Don't nobody wear purple no more," shouted Emmanuel Volcy at the Pirates. It was one of the tamest insults hurled at ECU.

The general-admission section is the closed end of the Orange Bowl, which opened in 1937 with 22,000 seats. Today, the stadium seats 72,319, bunching the fans close to the field and putting most in backless seats. No back support encourages fans to stand, which encourages noise, which can only help the home team.

"When you sit in there, if you're the visiting team, and you're in that closed end zone, you're in for a world of pain, you know," said offensive-line coach Art Kehoe, who has been a player or coach at Miami since 1979.

"People [complain] about the bathrooms and no replay scoreboards, the parking, but when you get your [rear end] in that seat, that environment matches anywhere in the country."

The Miami campus in Coral Gables also can compete with the rest of the country, simply because of its setting and climate. The baseball stadium, soon to be renovated thanks to a $3.9 million gift by Miami resident Alex Rodriguez, and the new soccer and track stadium are surrounded by palms. The upper Florida Keys are an hour away, and the young-adult playgrounds of South Beach and Coconut Grove are a short drive, even in South Florida traffic.

"It's a great place to go to school if your priorities are in order, but if you don't, it's a dangerous place to be because of all the outside influences," said tennis coach Bryan Getz, a South Florida native who played at Duke. "But I love Miami, and I could see myself here for 40 years. To be able to be [outside] 365 days a year, it's paradise."

 

U.VA. NOTES
Sep 16, 2003

LOCAL APPEARANCE: The defending NCAA champion Virginia men's lacrosse team will play an intrasquad scrimmage Sunday at Collegiate School's Jones Field.

The scrimmage, which is free, will start at 2 p.m. At 1, U.Va.'s coaches and players, including All-Americans Tillman Johnson and John Christmas, will put on a free clinic and demonstration. All ages are welcome, and no equipment is necessary.

Richmond is "an area where you'd love to see lacrosse grow," Virginia coach Dom Starsia said.

This will mark the third consecutive year U.Va. has played its fall intrasquad scrimmage at Collegiate, and "it's turned into a really nice day," Starsia said.

Virginia's goalies include freshman Bud Petit, a Collegiate graduate, and Starsia likes the fact that the event helps generate interest in the local Geronimo youth program.

For information, call Andrew Stanley at (804) 741-9703.

KICKOFF SET: Virginia's next football game, Sept. 27 against Wake Forest, will start at 3:30 p.m. and be televised by ABC.

About 2,500 tickets remain for the game at Scott Stadium. For information, call (800) 542-8821.

HONORED: U.Va.'s D'Brickashaw Ferguson has been named the ACC's offensive lineman of the week for his play in a 59-16 win over Western Michigan. Ferguson, a 6-5, 265-pound sophomore, is a two-year starter at left tackle. U.Va. did not allow a sack Saturday and rushed for 217 yards, its best output in seven games.

WAITING GAME: The U.Va. men's basketball team and Cornelio Guibunda remain seriously interested in each other, but a commitment from the 6-9, 205-pound native of Mozambique doesn't appear imminent. Guibunda isn't expected to choose a college until he gets a qualifying standardized-test score, which could be at least another month.

Guibunda is a senior at King & Low-Heywood Thomas School in Stamford, Conn. He took an official visit to U.Va. over the weekend, as did 6-8 forward Kevin Langford of Fort Worth, Texas. Langford's brother Keith plays at Kansas.

ONE-TWO PUNCH: In Virginia's win over Western Michigan, coordinator Al Golden's defense scored two touchdowns. Twelve seconds in the third quarter, senior cornerback Almondo Curry raced 23 yards to the end zone with an interception. Late in the final quarter, redshirt freshman cornerback Tony Franklin ran back an interception 45 yards for another TD.

Not since Nov. 21, 1992, had the Cavaliers returned two interceptions for touchdowns. In U.Va.'s 41-38 win over Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, linebacker Randy Neal scored on returns of 37 and 30 yards, respectively.

GROOMING SCHOOL: Starting cornerbacks Curry and Jamaine Winborne were pressed into service as true freshmen in 2000, before either was fully prepared to play the position in Division I-A.

Groh has had the luxury of bringing their understudies, redshirt freshmen Franklin and Marcus Hamilton, along more slowly. They've played extensively on special teams and in U.Va.'s pass-prevent packages.

"It is certainly our wish that it will remain that way this year," Groh said, "and then I think we'll have these guys well set up for the future."

DOUBLE TROUBLE: The three true freshmen who played for the first time Saturday at WMU included wideouts Deyon Williams and Fontel Mines.

Groh said he expects Williams and Mines to pose different challenges for defenses "as their games evolve."

The 6-3, 185-pound Williams, from Upper Marlboro, Md., ranked among the D.C. area's top track-and-field athletes last spring. Mines, a Hermitage High graduate, stands 6-5 and weighs more than 210 pounds.

"All receivers have to find a way to create space . . . and to do that a receiver's got to have some distinguishing qualities," Groh said. "One of them is great vertical speed, another one is savvy and quickness and elusiveness, and the third one is size."

Williams, who caught a 35-yard touchdown pass against the Broncos, is one of Virginia's fastest players.

In Mines, who wasn't thrown any passes Saturday, the Cavaliers "have a player who, when he learns how to really take advantage of using his size, ought to be able to overmatch defensive backs as far as his size and his power are concerned," Groh said.

"He's got good speed, but he doesn't have rare speed. What he's got is rare size." - Jeff White


 

A reflection of FSU's will or a hint of its weakness?
By LINDA ROBERTSON
Miami Herald

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - The Florida State Seminoles have been proclaiming that the past two seasons were aberrations. Those nine losses - highly uncharacteristic of the most consistently excellent college football program in the country. Dissension and sniping - very strange coming from Bobby Bowden's laid-back little Panhandle world. Chaos off the field - weren't those the sort of problems that dragged other teams down?

This was to be the year that Florida State got back on track. When Bowden proved that he's not getting old and he still has firm control of his players, dadgummit. When the defense and quarterback Chris Rix finally realized their potential. When the distractions and disgraced former quarterback Adrian McPherson were forgotten.

The first two convincing victories seemed to indicate that Florida State was out of its rut. But it was hard to tell which FSU team showed up Saturday night in a 14-13 salvage job over Georgia Tech.

Was it the one with a defense that had not allowed a touchdown this year or the slumbering, lumbering one that allowed a 47-yard touchdown run by P.J. Daniels and made freshman quarterback Reggie Ball look like the old Charlie Ward?

Was it the one led by a mature and respected Rix or the one that let out a d"ja vu groan when Rix threw an interception with his offense poised to score on the four-yard line?

Was this the team that quickly staunched a 10-point deficit against Maryland or the one held scoreless for three quarters by the unranked Yellow Jackets?

Well, the scoreboard tells us this is the new and improved Florida State but scoreboards are too small to tell the entire story.

The Seminoles looked as discombobulated against Tech as they did last year against Louisville. All the progress they made in the first two games evaporated on a sweltering night in Doak Campbell Stadium.

They did not look like No. 10 in the nation. They looked like No. 10 in the Atlantic Coast Conference. They looked flat. They looked like they didn't know Tech upset Auburn last week.

They were fortunate to win and they know it. They've got a lot of work to do before Miami visits on Oct. 11.

"I don't know yet how we won," Bowden said. "It was a game where they won the battles but we won the war. Their heart was bigger than our execution."

Bowden also called the desperate turnaround "54 minutes of getting beat and six minutes of winning."

His team showed flashes of 2003, but mostly it looked like the 2001 and 2002 editions of Florida State.

Rix redeemed himself with a rugged three-yard touchdown plunge and a five-yard touchdown pass to P.K. Sam late in the fourth quarter. But for most of the night he looked flustered and his passes seemed irrational.

FSU abandoned the running game too early and relied too heavily on Rix. He may have become only the second FSU junior to surpass 5,000 yards since Chris Weinke, but he does not yet possess Weinke's crafty game management skills.

He is hard to fathom and, according to his teammates, hard to love. On the one hand, he can be careless enough to sleep through a final exam, and get suspended for the Sugar Bowl. On the other hand, he seized the initiative in building team unity over the summer. So much depends on Rix's growth this year, and so much about this team is reflected in him.

Georgia Tech exposed Florida State's biggest weakness, which is inconsistency. The Seminoles were up and down Saturday, following big plays with dumb ones. Sometimes the defense shone and in the last seven minutes the offense shone, but it was only in bursts. FSU played a rare complete game in the 37-0 defeat of North Carolina. They need to try again next week against Colorado.

FSU made a tremendous goal-line stand midway through the first quarter, halting Tech runners on four straight plays from the one-yard line. There were critical sacks by Eric Moore and a fumbled caused by Kevin Emanuel .

And yet this same defense - one that returns 10 of 11 starters - allowed the Rambling Wrecks to hang on to the ball for 23 minutes and six seconds of the first half to FSU's six minutes and 53 seconds. A fake punt that fooled FSU's first-team defense resulted in a Tech field goal.

The coaching staff gets part of the blame. Tech was usually a step ahead in its choice of plays. A tad more productivity to go with all that possession time and Tech would have had its second upset in a row.

Give FSU some credit. As Bowden acknowledged, last year's team would not have fought back to win the game. It had neither the resourcefulness nor the moxie that is fermenting within this group. The 2002 season began to unravel when fourth-ranked FSU lost at Louisville and team chemistry deteriorated. FSU dominated Miami and couldn't win.

This year will be different, the Seminoles have promised. The question is, was Saturday's escape a hint of the new FSU or a reversion to the old?
 

Worst sports town? Columnist blasts Falcons no-shows
By MATT WINKELJOHN
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer

The Georgia Dome was sold out Sunday for the Falcons' home opener against the Redskins, and fans were as loud as they've been in recent memory. Some of the visitors, however, were not impressed after Washington overcame a 17-point deficit to win 33-31 as Atlanta lost its second straight home opener.

Although team officials announced attendance of 70,241, there were at least 15,000 empty seats in the first quarter, as many fans were lined up outside gates having problems getting in the Dome.

Even when everybody was in the building, there were thousands of no-shows. That prompted Washington Post columnist Michael Wilbon to write this in Monday's Post:

"Speaking of [injured quarterback] Michael Vick, with him on the sideline the triflin' folks here in Atlanta -- about 10,000 by this estimation -- opted to eat their tickets rather than support a team that beat Green Bay on the frozen tundra in the playoffs. You want the worst sports town in America: Here it is. They don't sell out the playoff games to see the Braves, who seem to make the playoffs every year, and they didn't fill the Georgia Dome [Sunday]. If it's not college football, they couldn't care less, even about the Falcons, until Vick comes back."

Indeed, there were big chunks of vacant seats Sunday. But the fans who were there were very loud early in the game, when Washington tackle Chris Samuel was guilty of three false starts in the first half. "I couldn't hear a thing," he said.

Washington also had three defensive encroachment penalties in the first half. The Redskins had no false starts or encroachment penalties in the second half.

"Kind of ridiculous," said Redskins coach Steve Spurrier said of the early penalties. "I don't know if the crowd got quieter [in the second half] or what."