You wouldn’t see this at a NFL game …

October 16, 2006
By Billy Dennis

[youtube]1JWeE9KqZjQ[/youtube]

… ’cause the pros are afraid of breaking a nail or something.

In all, 31 players combined were suspended following the brawl between Miami and Florida International University. And I got a kick out of the color commentary from who I assume was one of the Miami Hurricane players in the booth.

Yeah, this brawl was dramatic, because of the number of people involved. But baseball has several memorable brawls ever year and no one wrings their hands in despair over the decline in civilization. Good God, people. All the participants were wearing body armor. Get over it.

[tags]Miami,FIU,brawl,football[/tags]

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18 Responses to “ You wouldn’t see this at a NFL game … ”

  1. ollie on October 16, 2006 at 6:01 am

    I think part of it was that the University of Miami had built up a reputation of being a “bad boy” type program; interestingly enough their graduation rates continue to be above average by NCAA football standards.

    Also, people tend to get more concerned when it is football players that are brawling…darn it, why can’t they control their violence in a manner compatatible with us enjoying it? :-)

  2. Emtronics on October 16, 2006 at 8:46 am

    Well you didn’t watch the NFL yesterday when Michael Vick of Alanta was hit out of bounds on the Alanta sidelines and a brawl of sorts broke out.

  3. milk does the body good on October 16, 2006 at 8:48 am

    Or maybe because they realize it’s a game and not worth losing a paycheck or criminal charges. I can’t believe you are glorifying players who used helmets to pound on people?

    And I guess three players kicking one person who was down was okay because they have pads on.

  4. Cory on October 16, 2006 at 8:53 am

    They don’t call them the Miami CrackcoCanes for nothing. It pisses me off that these guys get a free ride to an extremely good school that costs Florida residents $50,000 a year last time I checked. It could very well be more now.

  5. sctobrien on October 16, 2006 at 11:12 am

    Billy,

    As usual, you missed a couple of things: as one above poster pointed out, one of the thugs was using a helmet to beat on people and another was trying to stomp on someone’s head.

    I haven’t seen a baseball player attack another baseball player with a baseball bat for a long, long time. Think the last was Juan Marical or something like that.

    Also, these are supposed to be college kids; you know, more enlightened folks seeking a higher education.

    This is one of the reasons I no longer watch much sports. I’m sick of the behavior of coddled athletes who are given passes for rotten behavior just because they can throw, kick or hit a ball.

  6. Emtronics on October 16, 2006 at 11:26 am

    I say can them all. No excuse for that kind of behavior. Cory is correct. They get a free education when there are kids with brains that can’t afford that oppertunity

  7. Billy Dennis on October 16, 2006 at 11:30 am

    I changed my mind. We should all be upset that violence broke out at a football game.

    I didn’t say there shouldn’t be suspensions … I’m saying this is nothing to get TOO worked up about.

  8. cgiselle12 on October 16, 2006 at 1:18 pm

    It wasn’t a headliner on the Today Show this morning, so I consider it old news already.

    At least no one exposed a nipple (gracious me!).

    I’m glad I don’t have to stare at the video to figure out who was beating who, that’s all I think.

  9. Bob III on October 16, 2006 at 2:00 pm

    As a scholarship athlete I think they are responsible for representing their school. Should something like this happen in the street, a bar, or any other public venue they would be in jail awaiting araignment and needing to post bail. Personally the two Miami players singled out (helmet off and other one kicking) should have their scholarships revoked. By the way, apparently one of these two was a captain for the Miami hurricanes. In addition, I heard on the radio that 700 kids were brought to this game in a promotion to “Join a Team, not a Gang” promotion. Ha!

  10. Silence NoGood on October 16, 2006 at 4:06 pm

    This has been happening all along, ever since hockey was invented.

    It is football folks, and college players and fans take things alot more seriously because they love the game, for the game, and drink plenty of beer and whiskeys in the mix.

  11. Airedog on October 16, 2006 at 9:36 pm

    These kids work harder than any scholarship free-rider..you try running windsprints in Miami heat and humidity. I understand coming to the aid of a guy you’ve suffered and sweat with on the field, FIU started this thing, and it got out of hand. I understand Lamar Thomas was fired as announcer for his comments but he’ll get another job,!! High graduation, high community involvement and hard workers with a team ethic. As for people complaining about the $50,000 tuition, so what . Miami is a private school..if you want a cheaper education go to FIU!!! Cheap shots on the Canes come from small minded people. WAY TO GO CANES!!

  12. ben on October 17, 2006 at 10:29 pm

    Is Airedog a troll or just a stereotypical University of Miami fan/worthless-piece-of-trash? I can’t tell…

    (btw, that’s my first real flame, so forgive me if it wasn’t very good. i’m usually trying to be civil!)

  13. Cory on October 18, 2006 at 9:21 am

    Airedog, I grew up about an hour and a half north of UM, and I can tell you for a fact that 90% of their scholarship football and basketball players are pieces of (forgive the language, Billy) shit. You take a poor kid out of the ghetto, give him a free place to live and all the money he/she wants in the party capital of the US, and they turn into a thug 10 times worse than the thug they were before. Not to mention, they WASTE SPACE AND TIME at UM, because they’re not there for an education. They’re at UM because they can’t read or write, but they can run fast, or hit hard, or throw a ball 60 yards. It’s not just UM. It’s pretty much every big football/basketball school in the country.

  14. ollie on October 18, 2006 at 2:32 pm

    Hmmm, to all of the Miami Hurricane detractors, you might want to
    read this

    You might not believe this — you might not want to believe this — but over the past decade, Miami has had fewer player arrests or NCAA-related incidents than almost any other major program in the country. Miami has not had 20-plus incidents involving shoplifting, assault, gun charges and failed drug tests over the past two years, as Tennessee has. Miami has not had to dismiss a star player for earning money through a phony job, as Oklahoma has. Miami has not had a star linebacker accused of sexual assault on the eve of its bowl game as Florida State did last year. And Miami’s most recent Academic Progress Rate (956) placed it in the top 20 to 30 percent of all Division I football programs.

    To the Miami lynch mob, however, none of this seems nearly as relevant as, say, its tawdry sportsmanship in a Cotton Bowl played 15 years ago, or the fact that the ‘Canes showed up to a Fiesta Bowl two decades ago wearing army fatigues, or an NCAA Pell grant scandal that occurred more than a decade ago. As one major newspaper put it this week: “Miami has been a dysfunctional program for over two decades with only slight detours into decorum. All the talk of a cleaned-up program, of a sharper image, is just hot air. The brawl illustrates that.”

    What I’ve learned more than anything this week is that there is a deep, deep cultural divide between Miami and mainstream college football. Miami’s program is not like everybody else’s. Whereas schools like Alabama and Michigan pride themselves on traditions built over 100 or more years, Miami’s “tradition” sprouted up virtually overnight. When I go to a game at a Florida or an Auburn, I see gray-haired boosters in sweaters and women in sundresses tailgating on a picturesque patch of campus. When I go to a Miami game, I see guys in jerseys and girls in tank tops tailgating on a muddy grass field next to a decrepit stadium in one of the worst neighborhoods in Miami. Is it any wonder the former is so adamantly unaccepting of the latter?

    The fact is, a large part of “The U’s” identity derives from its “street” roots under Howard Schnellenberger, who built a powerhouse by not only recruiting the kind of athletes who grew up with little to no discipline but also, along with successors Jimmy Johnson and Dennis Erickson, encouraged their brash, often over-the-top showmanship that marked so many of Miami’s great teams in the ’80s and early ’90s. While the type of individuals Miami recruits has changed, that freewheeling style has remained, annoying and offending college football’s more buttoned-down establishment. For the most part, however, it’s been fairly harmless stuff — touchdown dances, taunting, stomping on the Louisville logo, etc.

    So, it is documented that they have fewer incidents and that they have higher graduation rates than most.

    I suppose what bothers most people is that the players are loud mouthed and swaggering.

    Don’t get me wrong: the Hurricanes are not my team (I cheer for Navy, which had the best graduation rate in a recent survey! :-) , Notre Dame and Texas (which currently has a terrible graduation rate).

    But you know, dancing after a touchdown doesn’t make someone a thug.

  15. some guy on October 18, 2006 at 4:15 pm

    Yes, they are dumbshits. All they do is play football and get injured. They also get offered an education, that they don’t take it seriously enough. The ones from the ghetto do become trash, most of them…act out the ghetto-uneducated-thug-lifestyle. They should be expelled for good, and be forced to repay the free education they recieved, so that money can be better spent on someone that wants to learn.

    Those guys are turds.

  16. ben on October 18, 2006 at 5:42 pm

    I disagree with that writer’s opinion that the Louisville logo-stomping and taunting are equivalent to a TD dance. Logo-stomping and taunting are both poor sportmanship because they disrespect the opponent and say ‘you suck’. A typical TD dance is just a celebration, and says ‘I rule’. I see a big difference there.

    Although I must admit that the writer is spot-on about most dominant programs having a much older fan demographic than Miami does. I was born and raised amidst one of those ‘old-school’ (relatively) football cultures, so I guess I’m predisposed to hate those young Hurricane whippersnappers.

  17. ollie on October 19, 2006 at 2:55 pm

    ben: yes, the Hurricanes typically display poor sportsmanship.

    But since when does being an athletic jackass make one a thug?

    Remember that these guys graduate at a higher rate than other football players and have fewer “official” legal incidents.

    To me, a thug is someone who mugs, robs, steals, rapes, etc.

    Not someone who maybe taunts a bit too much or gets in a football game brawl.

  18. ben on October 19, 2006 at 6:59 pm

    Just a clarification: I never used the word ‘thug’.