The Beast : Spring Is In The Air

I love this time of year. While football season brings the most emotion, spring truly is much more action packed.

Basketball is wrapping up (though the women’s team still has a long way to go), baseball is revving up and spring football is getting underway. If you’re a true diehard, not one day of March is spent wearing anything other than the orange and green. There will be much to write about this next month – especially basketball and hardball – but for now, the focus is spring football.

Before we get into it, let me say this; I hate the minutia of spring ball. I don’t care who the starting strong safety or starting tight end is. Money time is the month of August and if you get too caught up in depth charts in March, it’s time to find a better hobby. There’s no reason to over analyze every position; especially before we’ve seen any action.

I know I talk about media access too much for the average fan, but the way I see it – the more access I get, the more you get.

After all that’s gone on around ‘The U’ the past four years, it’s inconceivable to me that there are only three open spring practice. It defies logic to me that the media still is only allowed to watch guys stretch and that there’s only communication with players and coaches before practice, not after. This is spring football; not Florida State week or a BCS bowl game.

With attendance as low as it’s been the past few years, every practice should be open. ‘The U’ should be bribing fans to to come down to Greentree to take in a Tuesday practice. So many wrong moves have been made with this program the past several years, that spring should truly be about the fans.

I have no doubt that some stellar ‘All Access’ pieces will be produced and that @HurricaneSports will fire off some informative tweets, but there’s also a reason that a pool reporter is allowed to travel with the President when he’s headed on a secret trip to the Middle East. The public deserves an independent account of the trip, just like UM fans deserve an independent and professional account of practice.

In sports, where is the proof that paranoia wins? Where is the evidence that Bill Parcells’ mantra of closing everything down equates to more wins than teams with more of a lax approach? Nick Saban and Alabama grant zero access and won a title. Before that, Southern Cal was winning hardware and their practices were wide open.

When Miami was putting together a 34-game win-streak and four straight BCS appearances, things were much more open than they are today. The Canes won five rings with open locker rooms, many more open practices, player accessibility after practice, etc. and this program hasn’t even sniffed a conference title since all that got shut down.

The point in this rant? Over the past half year I’ve talked to more pissed off donors and upset fans that have jumped off the bandwagon than any other time I can remember as a fan of ‘The U’ and it’s going to take more than three scrimmages to make up for that.

Fans want real access to this program; not just cool looking videos that anyone can see online and a few dozen chances to hear the head coach speak. Years ago, Dad could pick up Son early from school and jet down to Coral Gables to watch another group of Canes spending spring afternoons gearing up for Saturdays in fall. Not anymore.

Miami has a record of 35-29 over the past four years and there’s still an air of paranoia around spring practice, which again begs the question – when will someone prove there’s a difference between the difference in mindsets.

While on the subject, another issue – why is one scrimmage at Traz Powell, another in Palm Beach and why is the spring game at Lockhart? The mindset to appeal to fans north of campus makes sense, but what about those folks in Coral Gables, South Miami, Kendall, Perrine, et al?

While the Golden Era has been a breath of fresh air, the way spring ball is being handled – it reeks of the old regime.

What happens on the field this fall is ultimately what matters and in that aspect you have to believe that Miami will be markedly improved. Coach Golden has done a lot of things in a little time and you have to believe six months from now, you will see some great things out of this squad. You just wish you saw a little more out of Hecth this March.

IN OTHERS NEWS : We had an unbelievable edition of allCanes Radio this week. We heard from Coach Golden, Interim AD Tony Hernandez (who was very blunt in his comments about Frank Haith), Interim Baseball Coach JD Arteaga, women’s hoopster Riquna Williams and sixth-year senior Adrian Thomas. We also threw out some hints for our allCanes Radio trivia contest. Did you miss the show? If so, check it out.

We also had a great interview with second-year outfielder Chantz Mack, but we didn’t have time to get it in the show, so we posted it as a podcast. Have a listen.

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