In most cases, I won’t read anything in Sports Illustrated, still bitter from their 1995 article telling the University of Miami top brass to drop football. Ironically, 12 years later it’s the same mag which has written the ultimate piece on head coach Randy Shannon.
This time around it was Gary Smith who wove the tale of the Canes first year leader who is singing Miami’s praise for their hire last December.
Read this article, people. I’ve see people asking for a Cliff Notes version online. Could you be any lazier? We have 11-pages of good ink on our new head coach and a headline on the front cover. We all bitch that there’s no good ink out there on The U and that the media hates us, yet here’s an article and many are too complacent to read it. Come on now…
Click here to read the article now. If you prefer to save for later, click here for a printable version of the piece. Get a hard copy in your mitts and take 15 minutes to get lost in this piece – and make sure to do so pre-Oklahoma this Saturday. If you want to know why a handful of Canes believe there could be some magic on the 8th, this is a big reason why.
The right guy is in charge of this program. Bar none. From a program saving standpoint regarding wins and losses to a life saving standpoint regarding current and future Canes. The program couldn’t be in better hands…. Read on – and to Mr. Smith, thanks for the stellar read.
.:Canes305:.
I just linked up to it from Cote’s Blog and wow! I couldn’t believe the great job Gary Smith did. It also worries me a little bit that this man could just as easily blow up. It seems he could be holding so much pain inside; he is a therapist’s dream case.
With that said I’m sure football is his therapy and watching boys become men is very rewarding. We’ve all learned a lot about our coach these last few months and I admit I was skeptical about the hire at first. Not because it was Coach Shannon, love coach, I just didn’t know anything about him. He never had the headlines like Schiano or Spurrier. All I wanted was more offence, and Coach Leach from Texas Tech was my personal front-runner, even though he was never even in the running. The one thing I knew I wanted was for Coach Shannon to be spared. Every year his name would come up as a candidate to replace another coach at some other school and every year I would say, great that’s all we need.
That has all changed and it started with all the rules and rearranging the locker room. You could see it last year if you looked hard enough, the resentment building within the team. The defense was leaving it all on the field but they never were off it very long. The offence couldn’t sustain a drive and give the defense time to catch their breath. Once Shannon started to utter the words “team” and “family” you knew he was working with a broken bunch.
Then came the recruiting, man this guy is out-of-hand. He pieced together a pretty good class this year and 2008 looks amazing. I remember reading that Urban Myer wasn’t worried about recruiting in S. Florida he was able to do so; so freely while Coker was in the big chair, everyone was. One of Randy’s first order of business was to put the wall up once again and re-establish the “State of Miami”. Again Urban said I’ll get the Broward and Palm Beach kids, sorry Urban but your bologna has a 1st name, it’s spelled B— —T. Randy’s wall extends to Orlando and as west as Tampa. If this class is anywhere near what it is today; fagetaboutit!
Really long story short, I have no doubt, Dee got this one right.
I just want to say i loved what i saw last weekend and that was some intensity and some heart. enough said.
oh and i got my tickets for the oklahoma game. I’ll be in sex 35 row 36. Go Canes. flying out tomorrow la to denver to oklahoma city. GO CANES
DOC in Cali
It was a great freaking article…Very soon the return to the top will be ours.
Go Canes!
Once again, thank you Chris for the heads up on another stellar piece about the new MAN in Coral Gables.
Hopefully we will see the past repeat itself this weekend in Norman. I can see the headlines now should we kick azz,,,,,
“NORMAN,,,, WAS THAT U???”
I’ll be down next weekend for what looks to be my final visit to the OB. Bittersweet to say the least. Planning an ALLCanes visit to say hello and spend some $$$.
JMG
Tampa