Under Siege from ESPN
| 7
|
by user Kkfla737
Under Siege
The ESPN Hype Machine is doing its best to finish the Miami Program off.
It has been a bad year for the University of Miami Athletic Department. The Football program is underperforming and in shambles, the Basketball team failed to meet expectations and the Baseball team was on probabtion. (though the reached the College World Series.) Things however got much worse for the Miami Athletic Department on Saturday Night as the now infamous melee with cross town rival Florida International took place on the field of the venerable Orange Bowl.
Florida International's fans and players came into the Orange Bowl Saturday night spoiling for a fight and they certainly caused enough trouble for the cross town Canes to last a lifetime. Many F.I.U. players grew up UM fans and are still bitter that they didn't get an offer to play at UM. Many F.I.U. students are upset they didn't get accepted to UM, and the FIU administration led by President Modesto (Mitch) A. Maidique is bitter that they are in the same town as UM. I am told that when President Maidique stumbles across a student wearing UM merchandise on the West Miami Dade FIU campus, he raises holy heck. Miami never should have played a school full of envious, bitter elements, but alas the damage has now been done. (I find it interesting that in its reporting ESPN has yet to mention that Florida International is already on NCAA probabtion for Football practice violations.)
No question exists that Miami's players acted in a fashion that brings great embarrassment to the University, its alumni and to its fans. In addition, I agree with the media critics who state that while Florida International was clearly the aggressor, Miami bears much of the responsibility because their players did not have the maturity to simply walk away when provoked.
Miami should punish all players involved and revoke the scholarships of former Frosh All American Anthony Reddick, and All-American Brandon Merriweather the two most flagrantly misfits the other night. However, Miami should not be subject to any of the inane suggestions and over hype that have floated on the ESPN family of networks in the past few days.
ESPN's commentators seem to forget that schools like Southern California, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Florida State have had far more off the field incidents which actually involved hurting innocent people and reflected poorly on student athletes than Miami has over the past ten years. In fact Miami has had exactly one scholarship player arrested in the past 5 seasons and that player never had charges filed against him. On the other hand, Tennessee had 24 player arrests in the last 20 months! And what about Florida State and Florida, Miami's two in state rivals? As a Florida alum and Gator fan I can truly say that the Ron Zook era in Gainesville was far worse from a discipline standpoint than the Larry Coker era in Coral Gables. As far as Florida State is concerned Bobby Bowden allowed both Ernie Sims and AJ Nickleson to play last season after they had committed violent crimes. But all of this is not important to the commentators on ESPN who simply want to hype what seems to be a big story.
ESPN has ruined College Football in so many ways. Whether it is over hyping of certain matchups and teams or totally destroying the proud legacy of ABC Sports, which for years was the flagship network of College Football, ESPN has been at the forefront of destroying objective thoughtful coverage of the game. For whatever reason, ESPN has had a chip on its shoulder with regards to the Miami program for a few years now. When ESPN's commentators have useful suggestions about how to make College Football a better game we should listen, but when the excercise selective memory and lack objectivity we should turn them off.
