Wetzel: Doing his best Alexander Wolff…

After a few days, the dust had settled on the Robert Marve saga. To the point where Eugene Marve retracted his statements, apologize to Randy Shannon, as well as the University of Miami.

Dad’s hollow warning to future recruits regarding the situation at The U? It fell on deaf ears as Ray Ray Armstrong and Dyron Dye as both committed to Miami last night at the Under Armour All-Star game.

I really wanted to let this one go and not say anything… but I can’t. Not after finally reading the biased article by Dan Wetzel over at Yahoo! Sports. A few folks forwarded me the link to the article that ran last Friday, but I ignored it. It was the holiday season, I was in a good place and frankly, I wasn’t in the mood for any more negativity. It’d been a long week.

When cleaning out the Inbox today, I found Wetzel’s piece staring me in the face. A few lines jumped off the page. I read on, much in the same way you double-take something vulgar on the Internet. You don’t want to look… yet you can’t turn away.

Which was exactly Wetzel’s point when he chose to put the University of Miami on blast regarding this Marve situation. An accomplished sports journalist and screenwriter, Wetzel was calculated in his trashing of the Canes.

For as much success as Miami has experienced the past three decades, it’s common knowledge this is still a small, yet brash fan base. A small private school with big time success. If you’re a Cane, you loved every minute of it. As an outsider, Miami was the poster child for Public Enemy #1.

Everyone’s second-favorite team eventually became whoever the Canes played on any given Saturday.

Wetzel’s been around long enough to know this. He jumped at the opportunity to appease the masses with this recent beat down. Most definitely a calculated move as kicking the Canes when they’re down is good business. Just ask Alexander Wolff. It got him the SI cover story on June 12th, 1995.

“Broken Beyond Repair” was an open letter to Edward ‘Tad’ Foote, where Wolff called for then UM-pres to shut down the football program. No knock on Butch Davis, but he was “Mr. Right” yet “Mr. Too Late”.

Six year later, Davis had the Hurricanes back – building it up the right way, stocking the cupboard with all the right kids. From the depths of probation to No. 2 in the land. A year later, even with his departure, national champs.

So easy a caveman could do it… and did.

Wetzel’s piece on the State of Miami in the wake of Marve? Nothing more than following Wolff’s blueprint. Pile on. Take the easier angle and appeal to the masses. Kick the Canes when they’re down. People eat it up.

Fact is, no one’s even talking transfer or restrictions if the junior Marve kept his temper in check, got his ass to class and competed harder for the starting job.

The real story here? How about the unearned sense of entitlement many a high school senior takes into his college experience. An out of control recruiting game and out-to-make-a-buck sports media has turned the process into a three ring circus. Players are out of control, with parents more overbearing as a stage mother.

If Papa Marve spent more time preaching to his son the value of competition and reminding him that a man is only as good as his word, #9 would’ve reacted accordingly.

He also wouldn’t have turned tail and quit.

Come hell or high water, the “kid that broke all Tebow’s records” would’ve showed Tebow’s heart and made it his mission to win the starting gig.

Spare the sob story, Danny Boy; “Marve found out this week that he was never anything more than a mercenary, just a pair of swift legs with a strong arm brought to the University of Miami to win games.”

Marve was no hireling. Players get as much out of the program as it gets out of them. NCAA Football is the resume that earns you a shot at the next level. You make a commitment, you honor it and you compete. At least, that’s what winners do.

It’s this newfound sense of entitlement that has teenagers negotiating for immediate playing time and a ‘guaranteed’ role as starter.

Based on Marve high-tailing it, he’s proved the stereotype. Being named numero uno and starting 11 games wasn’t enough. Team Marve didn’t like looking over their shoulder. They weren’t fans of the term ‘open competition’ or the true freshman QB who showed up early and came to play.

Marve sized up the competition, thought things over and bailed. Jacory Harris aside, Marve didn’t care for Mr. Shannon’s rules, either.

The first player on Randy’s watch, suspended for some late night tomfoolery also happened to be the kid the new coach was baking the program’s future on. Not off to a great start.

Marve didn’t step up and lead. He skipped out on class and when suspended for the second time in a season, he skipped town. Back to Tampa to talk ‘future’ with the fam and his overbearing former high school coach, instead of preparing with his teammates for the bowl game.

One side is working on becoming a team, while it’s former quarterback played ‘every man for himself’.

If Robert Marve and family are all about protecting themselves and their best interest, why shouldn’t the University of Miami do the same?

Break a commitment or contract in ‘real life’ and there are consequences and penalties. Quit a job before your options vest and you’re not seeing that money. Sign a contract to sell your home, change your mind, try to get out of it and see what happens.

If a player commits to a program, it’s and three to four year commitment. Coached passed up others to bring said superstar on board. A game plan is built around the new talent. Up and leave and you see a ripple effect on your depth chart.

Players have the right to leave, but it can’t be easy. These are college kids, on campus to learn life lessons. We’ll call this one, “giving up something to gain something”. You can go, but you can’t go anywhere. You can also stay here, compete and live up to your commitment.

As a head coach of a vulnerable program in rebuilding mode, Randy Shannon had to draw a line. Being a teacher and leader of men, one final lesson for the young Marve.

To those programs who feel it’s alright to tamper with Miami’s starting quarterback; no mas. Shannon isn’t having it. To the critic too ignorant to understand why, pay closer attention.

Banning a player from going to a conference school is a no-brainer. So is blocking a transfer to all state schools. Eliminate the “why here, but not there” argument completely. Those who tamper, Shannon had to draw the line.

Without these transfer criteria and no repercussions for tampering, where does the game go?

Who comes calling next year? Who gets in a player’s era about depth charts and a lack of playing time? Commitments mean nothing and coaches are re-recruiting kids already signed with other programs. Promises are made and frustrated kids are breaking their word, picking up and going where the wind blows.

Everybody pays in the end. The program takes a hit and recruiting has a void to fill. On the other side, players fail to live out a valuable lesson — at a time when it should be all about learning, becoming more responsible and growing into men.

Wetzel says Shannon is out to intimidate his players; “dare to leave and I’ll bury you”.

Not even close. There’s a lesson here for all parties involved and there are repercussions for one’s actions.

Wetzel also quipped, “Clearly at Miami you’re a piece of meat. If you’re going to go there, you better hope and pray it works out. If not, they might try to bully you off to the other end of the country”.

Safe to assume Wetzel didn’t take the time to read Gary Smith’s piece in SI last fall. The legendary sportswriter actually formed his opinion after spending time with Shannon.

Smith didn’t see the same bully Wetzel describes:

“One day the freshmen would chip in a few bucks and join the 35 or 40 other players who’d eat pancakes and eggs and catfish that [Shannon would] pick up at 5 a.m. at Jackson Soul Food to fill their bellies before their 6:30 meetings, and they’d begin to see another side of him.

Then they’d risk entering Randy’s office with an upperclassman and find their teammates, seven or eight at a time — often the players who’d come from the harshest circumstances — lounging about as if it were their rec room. Some rifling through his desk drawers, closet and refrigerator for snack bars, muffins or peanut butter and jelly that they’d pitched in for him to buy. Some dozing in a chair. Some watching TV or game film, or talking life with him.

Somehow he’d sense what was troubling them, sometimes before even they could. They took things to him that they wouldn’t drag into white coaches’ offices, not in a million years, nor even the offices of those black assistants who’d been raised by schoolteachers and ministers. Because those guys wouldn’t get it, man, couldn’t possibly know what it was like for Javon Nanton to have grown up with a mother on crack and a dad missing from his life, or for safety Kenny Phillips to have three buddies who were shot and killed in separate incidents, all within a few weeks.

They’d tiptoe around the raw stuff, those assistants, trying to say the correct thing, or spoon out something straight from the coaches’ can. Not Randy. Players could take the worst to him, and the worst from him. They could talk to him in shorthand. They wanted what they could smell all over him: survival.”

A few years ago this time, Team Marve didn’t feel the head coach was a bully, either.

Shannon was a huge reason Robert ended up at Miami. In an article Dad called Randy ‘the next Tony Dungy’ – at the time, a recent Super Bowl winner, a quiet leader, a teacher and stand-up human being.

Since then, what or who in the equation has changed? My money is on the flighty pupil, not the wise teacher who’s remained steadfast. The one who’s endured real hardship and has overcome real adversity.

Process that Dan Weztel and you’ll finally see the guy Gary Smith told everyone was “hiding in plain sight”.

In the end, here’s hoping you’re a better man than Wolff — capable of eating crow, or at minimum mustering up a heartfelt apology.

Robert Marve. A kid with potential that gave up too quickly and created this mess.

Randy Shannon. A solution, not the problem.

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