Friday, March 21, 2008

CBS at 11:37 p.m.: "Stick a fork in the Hoosiers." And so it was done...


Friday March 21, 2008
11:50 p.m.

And at 11:37 p.m., after a pathetic and largely lifeless Hoosier performance, during a commercial break of the #9 Arkansas vs. #8 IU game at Raleigh in the first round of the 2008 NCAA basketball tourney, a guy you've never heard of at CBS Sports probably said to nobody in particular, something along the lines of, "Stick a fork in the Hoosiers."

And so it was done.

And with that, CBS pulled the plug on the Hoosier season, switching South Florida to #5 Clemson vs. #12 Villanova with eleven minutes left at Tampa Bay.

Wow!!!

Thank goodness I get CBS College Sports, formerly CSTV, which I've been watching for years.

I signed up for that NCAA.com web deal last Sunday after the tourney selections, but considering we'd gone down something like twelve with less than three minutes to go, there seemed little point of going to it.
Miami annually gets the lowest TV ratings in the country for CBS' coverage of the the NCAA basketball tourney, which perhaps tells you more about how truly different culturally this area is from the rest of the country than local politicians and Hispanic reporters at the Herald want to publicly admit, though I'm sure they would have a way of spinning that so that it would seem like we're just like everyone else. We're not.
Even worse, of course, though for the few devout college basketball fans of who are down here, we are forced to suffer with a sports media reporter at the Miami Herald, Barry Jackson, for whom the word dreadful barely begins to skim the surface.
Jackson is the Herald sports media reporter I promised you all I'd be taking to task in a future blog post for all his many errors of comission and omission and crimes against fairness and objectivity since I came back down here. (That post is coming, but there's SO much to include!)
It's so bad, that he doesn't even know when he's being made a fool of when he talks to a guy at CBS Sports who gives him the sports media equivalant of "play 'em one game at a time," witness this excerpt of Jackson's Friday column full of snarky condescending comments that Jackson doesn't pick up on.
Miami Herald
CBS has a method to its March Madness decisions
By Barry Jackson
NCAA Tournament TV chatter from the couch:
No matter which games CBS assigns to individual stations, some fans usually will be dissatisfied. The challenge for CBS programmer Mike Aresco, who crafts the regional maps, is identifying the games with the broadest appeal.
At 7 p.m. Friday, for example, Channel 4 was assigned North Carolina-Mount St. Mary's, even though the three other games at that time (including Mississippi State-Oregon) would appear, on paper, to be more competitive.
''The thinking is we would like to start you off with North Carolina, the No. 1 seeded team in the Tournament,'' he said. "We don't expect the game to be competitive. We would be switching fairly quickly if it isn't.''
Aresco said that approach was similar to his thinking for Thursday night, when Channel 4 had Belmont-Duke even though many Heat fans would have preferred to watch Kansas State (and likely No. 1 draft pick Michael Beasley) against USC (and top prospect O.J. Mayo). ''We like to give the East Coast a taste of Duke,'' Aresco said. That decision worked out well, with Belmont nearly upsetting Duke.
("We'd like to give the East Coast a taste of Duke..."
Right, like Duke isn't crammed down everyone's gullet; Kansas State and UCLA was never in the cards, and to ask about Oregon and Mississippi State, well that just shows your ignorance of your own area.
Dude, there are more people in South Florida right now who've moved here from Cuba within the past year, than there are people who've moved here from Oregon and Mississippi combined!)
Another tough call: Channel 4 is airing Connecticut-San Diego at 2:30 p.m. Friday. But if UM beats St. Mary's (on WFOR) at 12:30 p.m., would Canes fans prefer to watch Texas-Austin Peay at 2:45 p.m., considering Miami would play the winner?
''It's possible,'' Aresco said. "Our feeling has been Miami has been a Big East region for so long, and you have a lot of transplanted Northerners. . . . You go back and forth on decisions. It's not easy.''
(Nobody in Miami who's never been to Tennessee even knows where Austing Peay is located!)
Channel 4's 9:30 p.m. game Friday -- Arkansas-Indiana -- is the logical choice. CBS affiliates can request game changes, but they're not always granted.
• The good news is that all games are available for free on cbssports.com. DIRECTV also offers all the games for $69.
• If UM wins Friday, its next game would be 2:15 p.m. Sunday. . . . CBS assigned Ian Eagle and Jim Spanarkel to those games in Little Rock, Ark.
• CBS did its usual good work switching Thursday afternoon, taking us from Michigan State-Temple to the closer Xavier-Georgia game.
• CBS College Sports Network -- formerly called CSTV -- is presenting simultaneous Tournament coverage while CBS is broadcasting the games. Available in 25 million homes, CBS College is offering two games in their entirety (including Oklahoma-St. Joseph's at 7 p.m. Friday), plus live look-ins, interviews and highlights.
• CBS College borrowed Greg Anthony from ESPN to serve as a studio analyst. And in exchange for again being able to borrow Jay Bilas, CBS gives ESPN: 1. Better access at the Final Four; 2. Fewer restrictions on airing highlights. 3. Promotion for ESPN's women's NCAA coverage; and 4. The right to replay men's NCAA Tournament games on ESPN Classic.
_________________________________________________________________
Instead, as I write this, I'll listen to longtime South Beach Hoosier favorite David McCullough for the full hour on the Charlie Rose Show on WLRN-TV, Channel 17, the second Miami PBS station here, since WPBT-TV, Channel 2, the bigger PBS station, has been running Charlie at 3:30 a.m. for months now.

If there is a PBS station that does more fundraising than Miami WPBT-2, I've never heard of it!

I could be wrong, but I honestly think that freshman or no freshman, Eric Gordon has no idea of the volume and quality of the vehemence that's heading in his direction over the next few weeks from a justifiably disappointed Hoosier Nation, after just the latest in a long line of his
sleepwalking performances.

When champion Aussie tennis player Yvonnne Goolagong-Cawley spaced out for large periods of time during matches in the 1970's against players who didn't have her ability, they call 'em "walkabouts."

So what 'term of art' do we call the last and most disappointing Eric Gordon performance in Hoosier cream and crimson?

Let me know what you think, but with apologies to David Spade when he was on Saturday Night Life doing Weekend Update talking about Eddie Murphy, after showing a photo of Murphy from one of his many bad movies -perhaps Pluto Nash?- he deadpanned and said simply, "Catch a falling star?"'

Yep, I'll stick with that one until I hear a better description.

Listening to CBS' Jim Nantz and Billy Packer talk about him, especially in the middle of the second half of the ballgame, with references to things he once did, if you didn't know any better, you'd think that they were talking about someone who had just died.

And fifteen minutes later, all I can do is repeat my kernel of insight that I've been repeating to friends for weeks: please hire Tom Crean!
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080320/SPORTS15/803200492/1034/SPORTS15

Indianapolis Star
How many Hoosiers does it take to screw up a coaching search?
By Bob Kravitz
March 20, 2008

WASHINGTON -- This is the city that made committees famous. This is the nation's capital, where politicians too clueless and afraid to act form committees to study the feasibility of establishing other committees.
You want to know what I think of IU's 10-person blue ribbon -- got to love that blue ribbon -- committee to find IU's next basketball coach?
I think it's further evidence that my alma mater still has absolutely no idea what it's doing.
It botched the Kelvin Sampson hiring. It botched the Kelvin Sampson exit. Shoot, it even botched the timing on the establishment of this committee, undercutting its interim coach and his team by announcing it just days before the NCAA Tournament.
Now it's going to botch this. Ten people? It takes 10 people to find a basketball coach? Was Sen. Hillary Clinton right? Does it take a village?
It took a 16-person committee to hire the current athletic director, Rick Greenspan. And that's worked out so well, the new school president, Michael McRobbie, isn't even willing to trust his AD with doing the most important job of an athletic director: hire a head basketball coach.
If the school isn't confident enough in Greenspan's ability to hire a coach -- and after the Sampson affair, they shouldn't be -- then Greenspan needs to be sent packing. He's either the man or he isn't. He can't be both.
If McRobbie wants to save time and money, he can call me and I'll get this done in a month's time. Just give me an administrative assistant and a contract attorney and -- badda bing, badda boom -- IU has a big-name, big-time coach who will unify the fractured fan base and begin the process of restoring the program to its proper glory.
And I won't even ask for the school to pay six figures for a headhunting firm. Pay me instead.
I don't need 10 people to tell me that my Wish List begins and ends with Michigan State's Tom Izzo, Tennessee's Bruce Pearl, Louisville's Rick Pitino and maybe, just maybe, Memphis' John Calipari.
I don't need 10 people to tell me that my next List of Good Candidates (Who Didn't Make My Wish List) includes Baylor's Scott Drew, Marquette's Tom Crean, Georgia Tech's Paul Hewitt, Xavier's Sean Miller, Pitt's Jamie Dixon, Washington State's Tony Bennett, Gonzaga's Mark Few and Vanderbilt's Kevin Stallings.
(As for the rumored candidacy of Scott Skiles . . . nah. Great guy, good coach and as a Bloomington resident, the school would save on moving expenses. But he doesn't fit the profile.)
It's pretty simple: IU needs a slam-dunk sure thing as its next coach. Someone who has shown he can win big at this level of college basketball. Someone who is absolutely pristine when it comes to NCAA violations. (And before you say it, no, Bob Knight is not a good idea, no matter how many times Dick Vitale pleads for Knight's return.)
They can't screw this up.
But with 10 people, only one of them a former basketball player, there's every reason to think the IU administration will find a way to blow it.
Too many chefs. Too many agendas. Too many people who, frankly, have as much right being on this committee as I do dancing the foxtrot on "Dancing With the Stars."
There is one person with basketball ties on this committee. He's former player Wayne Radford. He played for the Hoosiers a pretty long time ago. After him, it's Greenspan and then a whole bunch of academics and lawyers, which can only mean IU might not have a coach until Oct. 1, at the earliest.
Let me ask a question: If McRobbie was looking to hire a provost, would he fill his search committee with former basketball players? This is the typical look-down-your-nose arrogance we see with academics when they poke their nose into athletics. I've got no issues with having a mix of academics and keen legal minds, but if I'm hiring a basketball coach, I want people who have played and coached basketball, people who don't need a headhunting company to tell them who's who.
If you talk to athletic directors around the state and around the country, they'll tell you: Hiring a high-profile coach has to be the work of a limited few. Ten blue-ribbon panelists means a 10 times greater chance this whole blue-ribbon thing will be screwed up.
The thing a 10-person committee does is help dilute the blame when the failed hire goes south.
My fear now is, a big-time guy like Izzo or Pitino will get a look at this ridiculous 10-person abomination, and they're going to wonder if the job is worth it. If you're a candidate, doesn't it give you pause? Who's in charge there? When the coach has an issue, does he go to the athletic director, or will another committee get formed?
They are complicating a fairly simple process.
It's interesting.
Today I'm going to watch Purdue, whose athletic director, Morgan Burke, took a potentially ugly situation and seamlessly orchestrated Gene Keady's exit and Matt Painter's arrival. It doesn't take 10 people. Just one, or maybe two or three, who truly have a clue.

Later tonight: "Condi's C Street Crew," or, MSNBC's cry for attention

South Beach Hoosier actually has some keen insight into what probably happened in January regarding the State Dept.'s contractors looking at the passport applications of Messers Clinton, McCain and Obama, borne of my years up in D.C. and knowing people who've worked for some of these government contractors, and in particular, worked for the State Dept.

I'm 99% sure it's not so much political as Temps in a room in a secure Rosslyn office building simultaneously relieving job boredom and letting their own curiosity get the better of them.

I'll be posting that around 9 p.m. tonight, before the IU-Arkansas basketball game, and I'll truly be surprised if I am not more accurate in providing some insight into this story than whatever MSNBC force feeds its tiny audience tonight, if they repeat their hysterically funny reporting of last night with Keith Olbermann, Dan Abrams and longtime SBH bĂȘte noire Andrea Mitchell.

"Condi's C Street Crew" will likely be attacked by former Colin Powell prima donnas from their high-horse perches across academia and at the CFR, for the whole weekend.

So much for Condi enjoying the first weekend of March Madness!

In the Heart of a Great Country, Beats the Soul of Hoosier Nation

In the Heart of a Great Country, Beats the Soul of Hoosier Nation
"In the Heart of a Great Country, Beats the Soul of Hoosier Nation." -South Beach Hoosier, 2007

#IUBB, #bannersix

#IUBB, #bannersix
Assembly Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana; Click photo to see video of Straight No Chaser's version of Back Home Again In Indiana, 2:37
The South Florida I Grew Up In

Excerpts from Joan Didion's Miami, 1987, Simon & Schuster:

In the continuing opera still called, even by Cubans who have now lived the largest part of their lives in this country, el exilo, the exile, meetings at private homes in Miami Beach are seen to have consequences. The actions of individuals are seen to affect events directly. Revolutions and counter-revolutions are framed in the private sector, and the state security apparatus exists exclusively to be enlisted by one or another private player. That this particular political style, indigenous to the Caribbean and to Central America, has now been naturalized in the United States is one reason why, on the flat coastal swamps of South Florida, where the palmettos once blew over the detritus of a dozen failed booms and the hotels were boarded up six months a year, there has evolved since the early New Year's morning in 1959 when Fulgencio Batista flew for the last time out of Havana a settlement of considerable interest, not exactly an American city as American cities have until recently been understood but a tropical capital: long on rumor, short on memory, overbuilt on the chimera of runaway money and referring not to New York or Boston or Los Angeles or Atlanta but to Caracas and Mexico, to Havana and to Bogota and to Paris and Madrid. Of American cities Miami has since 1959 connected only to Washington, which is the peculiarity of both places, and increasingly the warp...

"The general wildness, the eternal labyrinths of waters and marshes, interlocked and apparently neverending; the whole surrounded by interminable swamps... Here I am then in the Floridas, thought I," John James Audobon wrote to the editor of The Monthly American Journal of Geology and Natural Science during the course of an 1831 foray in the territory then still called the Floridas. The place came first, and to touch down there is to begin to understand why at least six administations now have found South Florida so fecund a colony. I never passed through security for a flight to Miami without experiencing a certain weightlessness, the heightened wariness of having left the developed world for a more fluid atmosphere, one in which the native distrust of extreme possibilities that tended to ground the temperate United States in an obeisance to democratic institutions seemed rooted, if at all, only shallowly.

At the gate for such flights the preferred language was already Spanish. Delays were explained by weather in Panama. The very names of the scheduled destinations suggested a world in which many evangelical inclinations had historically been accomodated, many yearnings toward empire indulged...

In this mood Miami seemed not a city at all but a tale, a romance of the tropics, a kind of waking dream in which any possibility could and would be accomodated...
Hallandale Beach Blog
http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/

Hallandale Beach Blog is where I try to inject or otherwise superimpose a degree of accountability, transparency and much-needed insight onto local Broward County government and public policy issues, which I feel is sorely lacking in local media now, despite all the technological advances that have taken place since I grew-up in South Florida in the 1970's. On this blog, I concentrate my energy, enthusiasm, anger, disdain and laser-like attention primarily on the coastal cities of Aventura, Hollywood and Hallandale Beach.

IF you lived in this part of South Florida, you'd ALREADY be in stultifying traffic, be paying higher-than-necessary taxes, and be continually musing about the chronic lack of any real accountability or transparency among not only elected govt. officials, but also of City, County and State employees as well. Collectively, with a few rare exceptions, they couldn't be farther from the sort of strong results-oriented, work-ethic mentality that citizens here deserve and are paying for.

This is particularly true in the town I live in, the City of Hallandale Beach, just north of Aventura and south of Hollywood. There, the Perfect Storm of years of apathy, incompetency and cronyism are all too readily apparent.
Sadly for its residents, Hallandale Beach is where even the easily-solved or entirely predictable quality-of-life problems are left to fester for YEARS on end, because of myopia, lack of common sense and the unsatisfactory management and coordination of resources and personnel.

It's a city with tremendous potential because of its terrific location and weather, yet its citizens have become numb to its outrages and screw-ups after years of the worst kind of chronic mismanagement and lack of foresight. On a daily basis, they wake up and see the same old problems again that have never being adequately resolved by the city in a logical and responsible fashion. Instead the city government either closes their eyes and hopes you'll forget the problem, or kicks them -once again- further down the road.

I used to ask myself, and not at all rhetorically, "Where are all the enterprising young reporters who want to show through their own hard work and enterprise, what REAL investigative reporting can produce?"

Hearing no response, I decided to start a blog that could do some of these things, taking the p.o.v. of a reasonable-but-skeptical person seeing the situation for the first time.
Someone who wanted questions answered in a honest and forthright fashion that citizens have the right to expect.

Hallandale Beach Blog intends to be a catalyst for positive change. http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/

Hallandale Beach's iconic beachball-colored Water Tower, between beach and A1A/South Ocean Drive

Hallandale Beach's iconic beachball-colored Water Tower, between beach and A1A/South Ocean Drive
Hallandale Beach, FL; February 16, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Hollywood in Cartoons, The New Yorker

Hollywood in Cartoons, The New Yorker
"Gentlemen, I am happy to announce that as of today we are closing down our Washington news bureau and moving the entire operation to L.A."

Hollywood in Cartoons, The New Yorker

Hollywood in Cartoons, The New Yorker
"O.K., so I dig a hole and put the bone in the hole. But what's my motivation for burying it?"

Hollywood in cartoons, 10-21-06 Non-Sequitur by Wiley, www-NON-SEQUITUR.COM

Hollywood in cartoons, 10-21-06 Non-Sequitur by Wiley, www-NON-SEQUITUR.COM
The Magic of Hollywood: A motion has been put forth that we should seek to create rather than imitate. All in favor of killing this silly notion, nod in mindless agreement...

Miami Dolphins

Miami Dolphins
South Beach Hoosier's first Dolphin game at the Orange Bowl came in Dec. 1970, aged 9, a 45-3 win over Buffalo that propelled them into their first ever playoff appearance.

Sebastian the Ibis, the Spirited Mascot of the University of Miami Hurricanes

Sebastian the Ibis, the Spirited Mascot of the University of Miami Hurricanes
Before going to my first U-M game at the Orange Bowl in 1972, a friend's father often would bring me home an extra 'Canes game program. That's how I came to have the Alabama at U-M game program from Nov. 16, 1968, which was the first nationally-televised college football night game in color. (A 14-6 loss to the Crimson Tide.) After that first ballgame against Tulane, as l often did for Dolphin games if my father wasn't going, I'd get dropped off at the Levitz parking lot near the 836 & I-95 Cloverleaf in NMB, and catch a Dade County Park & Ride bus, going straight to the Orange Bowl. Onboard, I'd get next to the window and listen to WIOD's pre-game show on my Radio Shack transistor radio. A few times, I was just about the only person onboard besides the bus driver, which was alright by me. Once at the Orange Bowl, if I didn't already have a ticket, I'd buy a game program for myself and one or two for friends or teachers before heading to the ticket window, since you usually couldn't find a program vendor once inside. I probaly had a friend or my father with me for just under 40% of the U-M games I ever went to, but you have to remember that the team, though blessed with several talented players, like Chuck Foreman and Burgess Owens, was just so-so to average at best, and the games were usually played on Friday nights, so it wasn't exactly high on everyone's list of things to do. Depending upon the opponent, if I was alone, I'd often have entire areas of the Orange Bowl to myself. (Wish I had photos of that now!) For instance, I had a good portion of the East (open) End Zone to myself against Oklahoma in the mid-70's, when the Boomer Schooner and the Schooner Crew went out on the field after an Oklahoma TD, and the Schooner received an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty from the refs, as would happen years later in an Orangle Bowl Classic game. (Against FSU?) I was there for the wins and losses under Pete Elliott, Carl Selmer & Lou Saban, and the huge on-field fight in '73 when under eventual national champion Notre Dame (under Ara Parseghian), they called a time-out with less than a minute to go, and already up 37-0. Their rationale? To score another TD and impress the AP football writers; final score 44-0. Well, they got their wish and beat Alabama 24-23 for the title at the Sugar Bowl. A year later, thanks to my Mom's boss, she and I saw Ara's last game as head coach of the Irish in the Orange Bowl Game from the East End Zone -in front of the Alabama cheerleaders!!!- in an exciting 13-11 Notre Dame win over Alabama and Bear Bryant, a rematch of the '73 national title game. I was also present for the U-M's huge 20-15 win under Pete Elliott against Darrel Royal's Texas Longhorns, the week Sports Illustrated's College Football preview issue came out with Texas on the cover, below. I was also present for lots of wins against schools called College of the Pacific, UNLV and Cal-Poly San Luis Obsispo, which I'd then never heard of before.

Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders, April 28, 2007

Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders, April 28, 2007
Photo by Mario J. Bermudez. April 28, 2007 at Dolphins NFL Draft Party at Dolphin HQ, Davie, FL

Of cheerleaders past and present

Given South Florida's unique version of the melting pot -con salsa- demographics and mindset, these women in the photo above are surely what most South Floridians would consider attractive women. But for this observer, who's spent hours & hours at IU cheerleader tryouts and who has known dozens of cheerleaders -and wannabes- in North Miami Beach, Bloomington, Evanston and Washington, D.C., the whole time I was watching these members of the Dolphins' squad perform, I couldn't help but compare them and their routines to those of some IU friends of mine who ALWAYS showed true Hoosier spirit & enthusiasm. Sitting at my table right near the stage and still later, while watching the long lines of Dolphin fans of all ages waiting to snap photos of themselves with the cheerleaders, I couldn't help but think about those friends who always left me and other Hoosier fans feeling positive & optimistic. Was there anyone I saw in Davie who possessed these valuable intangibles: the dancing precision of IU Red Stepper -and Captain- Gail Amster, my talented and spirited Phi Beta Kappa pal from Deerfield (IL), who always sat next to me in our Telecom. classes as we took turns entertaining the other; the ebullient spirit & energy of two Hoosier cheerleaders -and captains- from Bloomington, Wendy (Mulholland) Moyle & Sara Cox; the hypnotic, Midwestern, girl-next-door sexiness of Hoosier cheerleader Julie Bymaster, from Brownsburg; or, the adorable Southern girl-next-door appeal of former Hoosier Pom squader Jennifer Grimes, of Louisville, always such a clear distraction while sitting underneath the basket? Nope, not that I could see. But then they were VERY tough acts to follow!!! And that's not to mention my talented & spirited friends like Denise Andrews of Portage, Jody Kosanovich of Hammond & Linda Ahlbrand of Chesterton, all of whom were dynamic cheerleaders -and captains- at very large Hoosier high schools that were always in the championship mix, with Denise's team winning the Ind. football championship her senior year when she was captain -just like in a movie. That Denise, Jody & Linda all lived on the same dorm floor, just three stories above me at Briscoe Quad our freshman year, was one of the greatest coincidences -and strokes of luck for me!- that I could've ever hoped for. You could hardly ask for better ambassadors of IU than THESE very smart, sweet and talented women. In a future SBH post, I'll tell the story of one of the greatest Hoosiers I ever met, the aforementioned Wendy Mulholland, the Bloomington-born captain and emotional heart of the great early '80's IU cheerleading squads, and the daughter of Jack Mulholland, IU's former longtime Treasurer. The acorn doesn't fall far from a tree built on a foundation of integrity & community service! (After he retired, Mr. Mulholland was the first executive director of the Community Foundation of Bloomington and Monroe County. I used to joke with Wendy that her dad's name was the one that was permanently affixed to the bottom of my work-study checks for years, while I worked at the Dept. of Political Science's Library, first, at the Student Building in the old part of campus, and then later, after it was refurbished, in magnificent Woodburn Hall, my favorite building on campus.) In that future post, I'll share some reflections on Wendy's great strength of character and personality; my intentions of returning to Bloomington a few weeks before Fall '82 classes started, so I could help Wendy train and work-out to rehab her knee, so she'd feel confident in trying-out for the squad again, following a bad knee injury that'd left her physically-unable to try-out for the squad the previous spring, a big disappointment to those of us who cared about both Wendy and the team; my incredulity at, quite literally, running into Wendy while walking down a sidewalk one afternoon a few years later in Evanston, IL, when we were astonished to discover we were both living there, with me trying to hook on with a Windy City advertising agency, and Wendy then-attending Kellogg (KGSM) at Northwestern, right when the WSJ had named Kellogg the #1 Business School in the country. I'll also share a story about Wendy performing a true act of kindness towards me in 1982, when I was having a real emergency, and she went above-and-beyond what I had any logical reason to expect. Yet, Wendy, along with her very helpful dad, Jack, came through for me when I was in a very bad time crunch. I've never forgotten Wendy's kindness towards me, and her true Hoosier spirit. There's NOTHING I wouldn't do for Wendy Mulholland.

It's All About "The U"

It's All About "The U"
South Beach Hoosier's first U-M football game at the Orange Bowl was in 1972, age 11, against Tulane in the infamous "Fifth Down" game. In order to drum up support and attendance for the U-M at the Orange Bowl, that game had a promotion whereby South Florida kids who were school safety patrols could get in for free IF they wore their sash. I did. Clearly they knew that it was better to let kids in for free, knowing their parents would give them money to buy food and souvenirs, perhaps become a fan and want to return for future games. The ballgame made an interesting impression on The New York Times, resulting in this gem from the "View of Sport" column of Oct, 14, 1990, labeled 'Fifth Down or Not, It's Over When It's Over.' -"In 1972, aided by a fifth-down officiating gift in the last moments of the game, Miami of Florida defeated Tulane, 24-21. The country and the world was a much different place that fall because The New York Times took time and space to editorialize on the subject. ''Is it right for sportsmen, particularly young athletes, to be penalized or deprived of the goals for which they earnestly competed because responsible officials make mistakes? The ideal of true sportsmanship would be better served if Miami forfeited last week's game.' South Beach Hoosier hardly needs to tell you that this was YET another New York Times editoral that was completely ignored!

The issue I took with me the night of U-M's 20-15 upset of #1 Texas at the Orange Bowl

The issue I took with me the night of U-M's 20-15 upset of #1 Texas at the Orange Bowl
College Football, Texas No. 1, Hook 'em Horns, Sept. 10, 1973. Living in North Miami Beach in the '70's, my Sports Illustrated usually showed up in my mailbox on the Thursday or Friday before the Monday cover date. And was read cover-to-cover by Sunday morning.

The Perfect Storm

The Perfect Storm
U-M QB Ken Dorsey, Miami Hurricanes Undefeated National Champions 2001, Jan. 2002

Miami's Romp in the Rose

Miami's Romp in the Rose
Miami running back Clinton Portis, Jan. 7, 2002

Why the University of Miami should drop football

Why the University of Miami should drop football
June 12, 1995

REVENGE!

REVENGE!
Steve McGuire and Miami Overpower No.1 Notre Dame, Dec. 4, 1989

How Sweet It Is!

How Sweet It Is!
Miami Whips Oklahoma For The National Championship, Pictured: Dennis Kelleher, Jan. 11, 1988

My, Oh My, Miami!

My, Oh My, Miami!
Steve Walsh and the Canes Stun FSU, Oct. 12, 1987

Why Is Miami No. 1?

Why Is Miami No. 1?
QB Vinny Testaverde, Nov. 24, 1986

Miracle In Miami

Miracle In Miami
The Hurricanes Storm Past Nebraska, Halfback Keith Griffin, Jan. 9, 1984

Special Issue: College Football

Special Issue: College Football
The Best Passer, George Mira of Miami, Sept. 23, 1963

1984 College & Pro Spectatcular

1984 College & Pro Spectatcular
A Pair Of Aces: U-M QB Bernie Kosar & Miami Dolphin QB Dan Marino, Sept. 5, 1984

Pro Football Hall of Fame Special Issue

Pro Football Hall of Fame Special Issue
Dan Marino, Class of 2005, Aug. 2005

FACES OF THE NFL

FACES OF THE NFL
A Portfolio by Walter Iooss Jr., Ricky Williams, Miami Dolphins, Dec. 9, 2002

Coming Back

Coming Back
Jay Fiedler rallies Miami to a last-second win over Oakland, Oct. 1, 2001

Dan's Last Stand

Dan's Last Stand
At 38 and under siege, Dan Marino refuses to go down without a fight, Dec. 13, 1999

The War Zone

The War Zone
In the NFL's toughest division, the surprising Dolphins are on top, Lamar Smith, Dec. 11, 2000

Down and Dirty

Down and Dirty
Jimmy Johnson's Dolphins Bury The Patriots, Steve Emtman, Sept. 9, 1996

The Sunshine Boys

The Sunshine Boys
Now Playing in Miami: The Dan Marino and Jimmy Johnson Show, May 11, 1996

HOT & NOT

HOT & NOT
Miami loves Pat Riley but wants to give Don Shula the boot, Dec. 11, 1995

NFL PREVIEW 1995

NFL PREVIEW 1995
Which of today's stars are locks for the Hall of Fame? Dan Marino for sure. But who else? To find out, we polled the men who do the voting. Sept. 14, 1995

Sportsman Of The Year

Sportsman Of The Year
Don Shula, Dec. 20, 1993

Dan The Man

Dan The Man
Dan Marino Saves The Day For The Dolphins, Jan. 14, 1991

Dangerous Dan

Dangerous Dan
Dan Marino Passes Miami Into The Super Bowl, Jan. 14, 1985

Super Duper!

Super Duper!
Wide Receiver Mark Duper Of The Undefeated Dolphins, Nov. 19, 1984

Air Raid! Miami Bombs Washington

Air Raid! Miami Bombs Washington
Mark Clayton (burning Darryl Green) Sept. 10, 1984

Rookies On The Rise

Rookies On The Rise
Dan Marino: Miami's Hot Quarterback, Nov. 14, 1983

New Life In The WFL

New Life In The WFL
Warfield, Csonka and Kiick of Memphis, July 28, 1975

Zonk! Miami Massacres Minnesota

Zonk! Miami Massacres Minnesota
Larry Csonka, Jan. 21, 1974

Pro Football, Miami Is Rough And Ready

Pro Football, Miami Is Rough And Ready
Larry Csonka & Bob Griese, Sept. 17, 1973

Miami All The Way

Miami All The Way
Bob Griese, Jan. 22, 1973

It's Miami and Washington

It's Miami and Washington
Mercury Morris Speeds Past The Steelers, Jan. 8, 1973

Kiick and Csonka, Miami's Dynamic Duo

Kiick and Csonka, Miami's Dynamic Duo
Larry Csonka & Jim Kiick, Aug. 7, 1972

Sudden Death at Kansas City

Sudden Death at Kansas City
Miami's Garo Yepremian Ends the Longest Game; (kneeling) placekick holder Karl Noonan, Jan. 3, 1972

New Pro in a New Town

New Pro in a New Town
Miami's Frank Emanuel, Aug. 8, 1966

Old-style "Obie" the Orange Bowl Committee mascot

Old-style "Obie" the Orange Bowl Committee mascot
The iconic image I grew-up with in Miami, before FedEx got into the picture