Let me see if I can explain it to you.
Sileo was booted from the University of Maryland program. I'm not sure exactly why. Sileo's wikipedia says it was because of allegations that he threw somebody out of a second story window. I never heard or read that. (I did hear from someone back around that time that there was a story floating around that he shoved head coach Bobby Ross in the locker room).
Sileo did play for us in 1986, a year we should have won the NC but in which we were upset in the Fiesta Bowl by Penn State.
My recollection is that Sileo was part of a DT rotation, I don't think he was the starter until halfway through the '86 season after Derwin Jones fractured his elbow.. I think the starting DL for most of the season was Bill Hawkins and Danny Stubbs at DE, and Jerome Brown and Derwin Jones at DT. Greg Mark at DE and Sileo at DT would come off he bench. Sileo moved into the starting lineup halfway through that season after Jones' injury. I don't know if Jones played in the Fiesta Bowl, I know that Sileo started and he did open the game with a sack. We blitzed on the first play and Winston Moss blew in there so fast that PSU QB ducked under and Sileo got the sack.
As you might remember, Derwin was a quiet, steady solid DT frnm a tiny Christian school in Dade County who started for us most of his career. He never had much of a pro career. Derwin, sadly, died from cancer while he was in his '30's.
Um Loses Derwin Jones For 6 Weeks - tribunedigital-sunsentinel
If you look at Sileo's wiki, it has a long paragraph with a lot of honors and exploits. I don't know if it's all true--I guess I have to assume it is. I had forgotten we actually sacked Schaeffer on the first play, although I do remember how fast Moss blew in there from the right side, setting up Sileo's sack.
That '86 season was the only one Sileo played for us and he did not start the entire season.
He was expected to start for us the next season, 1987. Brown and Danny Stubbs had graduated. I think the starting DL was supposed to be Hawkins and Greg Mark at DE, Sileo and Jones at DT. Just a few weeks or even days before the '87 season opened, there were questions raised about Sileo's eligibility. I think the questions came from the University of Maryland. I live in Maryland and I know that there is kind of an adult division called University College, which had night and weekend courses. I don't know if it has full time programs. I have the impression that it is somewhat different from the regular undergraduate college. Sileo apparently earned some of his transferred credits from the University College, not the regular undergraduate program. I believe that some administrators at the University of Maryland raised the question about the credits that UM had accepted for Sileo. Our academic administration started an intensive review and probably communicated with the University of Maryland. As I think about it, I think Sileo's five year eligibility from first starting college would have expired in '87.
I even believe there were some recriminations. I vaguely recall someone at University of Maryland responding to criticisms from our side or by the press by saying that they could not believe that academic staff at UM was so sloppy as to accept a telephonic explanation of Sileo's credits when he was first accepted and declared eligible at Miami the year before. The Maryland spokesperson thought it was awfully unprofessional and incompetent to not do the thorough checking necessary to review all his transferred credits. At the end, after Miami academic people did a thorough review, it was determined that Sileo had no eligibiity for the '87 season. Had the issue not been raised and had his academic record
not been subject to a thorough re-review, Sileo would have played the opening game and perhaps the rest of the season. Even if we found out early in the season he was not eligible, we would have forfeited any games in which he played and whether we would have been in line to play Oklahoma for the NC is doubtful. Suppose we forfeited and been given losses for the first few games of '87 after we had won them on the field--would we have still ended up playing for the NC? I doubt it.
Remember, that season we went undefeated and won the NC. Our team that year was probably nowhere near as talented as the '86 team which did not win it. Think of all the guys from '86 who were gone by '87: Alonzo Highsmith, Danny Stubbs, Winston Moss, Vinny Testaverde, Jerome Brown and others. When we found out during fall practice that Sileo was not eligible for the '87 season they moved an undersized Greg Mark inside at DT where he started most of the season at less than 240 lbs. I think his weight that year was about 238. The kid took a beating the entire year. That's why Jimmy Johnson said if there was one guy who he would want to take into a dark alley with him it would be Greg Mark. The kid, pound for pound, was tough as you could find. (Another kid who was nowhere on the national recruiting lists for his senior year in HS).
So, Sileo, whom I think should have been responsible for knowing his own academic history, must bear at least some responsibility for almost jeopardizing part or all of the 1987 season if he had gone ahead and played in any games. He also let down his teammates. To me, he was just a thug who came into the program as a retread who did give us some additional talent on the DL and rather than helping us almost win the NC for '86, is remembered (by me, at least) as the guy who almost cost us the '87 NC.
I'm trying to remember a brief conversation I had with Butch Davis a few years later. It was in that bar on Bourbon Street, Fritzel's, where a lot of UM fans would hang out when we were in New Orleans. It was just before the '90 Sugar Bowl, when we were to beat Alabama for the NC. Butch and Tony Wise were hanging out in the bar. They had just spent their first year with the Cowboys on the coaching staff. They loved the Canes, and their former players, so much, they came to the game. Their last season coaching at UM was '88. I have a vague recollection of something in the conversation about Sileo--I think I mentioned Sileo's name and I don't think Butch had such a positive reaction. Interesting, given that Sileo ended up with he Cowboys briefly. (see the text of Sileo's wiki which I've linked). Butch had been Sileo's position coach at UM.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Sileo
I don't listen to sports talk radio anymore. In fact, outside of my beloved Canes, I don't follow sports much anymore. How in the world somebody like Sileo could maintain some semblance of a career with his crudeness and trash-talking is beyond me. He's much worse than Don Imus whose career was almost derailed by one slip about the Rutgers women BB team. Sure, it was a bad comment, but not a pattern like Sileo.
If Manny is really bringing Sileo back to motivate the kids, maybe Manny is too young to remember all of Sileo's body of work, which as a player, was not that much. Who is around from the great defenses of the late '80's who could talk to our kids about the kind of mentality we are trying to restore? Sileo was only there really for one season.
There are so many exemplary football alums who established a body of work at UM and the pros over many seasons, and who played more recently. If our kids know Sileo, it is probably from his loud mouth on radio. What does that demonstrate? Trash talking? Is that what we want to bring back? I always kind of liked our outlaw image, but I was ambivalent. It brought us a lot of grief, too. Bring back the heart and savagery as players, not the trash talking.
EDIT: I went back and checked and realized that Bill Hawkins and Dan Stubbs were both still with the team in '87. That year we would have had three very good DE's, but we had to move Mark inside when Sileo was declared ineligible. I don't know who else could have played DT for us that year. I recall Russ Maryland getting into that '88 OB against Oklahoma, but he was still young. We had a slew of really good players that we lost from that '86 team.
