MiamiJoe
Sophomore
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2012
- Messages
- 1,039
You bring back memories.you are so right about those fifties teams. The best was probably the team played Clemson in the OB and the next year in the Gator bowl. Mighty Mouse Jack Hackett was the QB. Two things. First Paul Bertecelli. He came out of nowhere and started as a true freshmen. Second I think Jeff George was nixed by JJ. I may be wrong.Reggie was Class of '82 at Killian. He played QB as a Senior on a team that lost to Vero Beach in the State Semis, a team Killian would've beaten 8 times out of 10. It just wasn't their night. I played LB at Sunset and they smoked us 47-0. Sounds pretty bad until you consider that they won their first two playoff games that year 35-0 against Hialeah and Jackson. Although they were beaten in the regular season by Columbus that year, that team was on a different level. Tons of team speed and Reggie was a wizard at running the option. Hard to believe he wasn't even a starter as a Junior but their QB that year, Michael Frederick had a way better arm and was good enough to get a scholly to Kansas.
The '83 Championship squad was packed with Dade County kids which made that Championship even sweeter. On Offense you had Eddie Brown from Miami High, Dave Heffernan from Columbus, Juan Commendeiro from South Miami, Alonzo Highsmith from Columbus and my old team mate Paul Bertucelli from Sunset in the starting lineup. On Defense, guys like Fred Robinson from Jackson, John McVeigh from Columbus, Julio Cortes from Columbus, Kenny Sisk from Southwest, Jack Fernandez from Miami Springs, Rod Bellinger from Gables and Reggie Sutton from Killian all starting or playing huge roles in the Championship game.
The team was already pretty **** good before the '83 class (great as they were) got there. The role that Lou Saban's recruits played in putting The U on the map was completely glossed over in Billy Corben's film. Watching it, you would think we were playing with bums before Schnellenberger got there. Schnells had his early success due in huge part to Saban's recruits and went 8-4 in 1980, 9-2 in 1981 and 7-4 in 1982 with Jim Kelly being lost for the season in the opener. Saban did a tremendous job as a recruiter and was responsible for making the moves that allowed our program to lock down Dade County in the ensuing years.
Such great memories! Those ragamuffins from Dade that nobody else wanted came out of nowhere. I've been following UM football since maybe before many of your parents were born. Over the years, I lived up north, out west, didn't get to go to a UM game since maybe 1964, when Bob Biletnikoff was our QB and went to Gainesville to see us lose to the Gators. The year after Mira, Sr., The Matador, one of the greatest Canes ever, and the start of the career for guys like Pete Banaszak, Russ Smith, and some others.
I'd hardly seen UM between the late '60's and maybe the 1981 team. Even on TV. I started seeing us again, occasionally, on TV in about '80 or '81. I couldn't believe how things seemed so different. I just remember a bunch of nasty guys at UM. I remember that kid from up here, Kevin Flanagan, from Woodbridge, VA, who was just a nasty hitter. In the few times I'd seen the Canes on TV since about '68, I just remember a bunch of teams that were just sadly, losing. We had some good individual players, but we were always outclassed. I almost never saw UM for about a decade and then all of a sudden these really tough teams starting about '80.
When I say nobody else wanted our kids, it was really true. I had a long talk back around '85 or so with the staff guy who ran the Hurricane Club. We were having a combination Hurricane Club and alumni reception in Washington, DC. We were going to informally honor Vinnie and Eddie Brown (Eddie didn' show). Both were to get some awards from the NFLPA later that night. I was trying to follow recruiting and the couldn't understand why UM was getting almost nobody on the national lists from the recruiting gurus of the time (Emfinger, Lemming, others). This guy from the Hurricane Club was telling me, "Listen, we take kids nobody else wants. Look at Jerome Brown. He was a bad kid. Nobody else wanted him." Although he was a Parade A-A. That might have been an exaggeration, but there was probably some truth to it, as well. He was just a Miami type kid.
I do think that might have been the same winter or spring we were trying to recruit Jeff George, but the HC guy was telling me about this prospect from Edison, another QB. I can't even remember his name. Had a fantastic arm, but not a hard worker. Ahh, I remember, Greg Jones. Ended up transferring to W.Va. I think he backed up Major Harris. Had another guy from Edison, also ended up transferring there--I think it was Basil Proctor. You guys don't remember, we had a lot of busts in Jimmy's first two classes. Only about a third of each class were significant contributors. You'd be amazed if I could pull out the recruiting classes from '85 and '86. So many kids who did nothing. We did get some gems, though. Like Steve Walsh, Leon Searcy, Russ Maryland, a bunch of others.
I could go on and on.
You guys have to remember--we didn't build the late '80's teams with a lot of blue chips. We took kids that nobody appreciated, no name kids that Butch and Jimmy properly evaluated as to potential and mentality. We developed them. We didn't a lot of the big name recruits. We really didn't. We got the south Florida kids that were underappreciated. They might have been blue-chips in our own evaluations but not nationally. We also looked for a particular kind of athlete I think. Kids that could really run.
I remember seeing Oklahoma State in a minor bowl in December 1983, and had I known that I was watching our future coach I would have paid much closer attention. I just remember that even then, JJ had a kid from Merritt Island, I think. He was going into Florida and probably Texas looking for speed.
I just don't think any observers, particularly not journalists and recruiting gurus, appreciated what kind of football culture existed in Florida, particularly south Florida. Our kids had nothing, often they were among the poorest, and they had to overcome the most.
Heck, when we won the NC again in '87, one of my friends went over to the stand outside the White House where the team was going to visit Reagan. It was cold, but some of the kids did not even have jackets or coats. They probably had never been in cold weather, didn't know what to expect, and didn't have much money for clothes, especially heavy coats and jackets which are expensive. (Heck, I don't even know if you can shop for that stuff down there....I remember a friend of mine who did have money who was going out to Burdines to look for a heavy jacket for a road game one year. I have more heavy coats and jackets than I know what to do with.)
I also remember stories of how poor the players were when it came to eating. There was a story about Bruce Fleming, one of our LBs from that era, a tough kid from western Pennsylvania, who, according to the newspaper, was eating cereal for dinner over the weekend. He lived in an apartment with some other players, and I guess they didn't have a card at the cafeteria on campus where they would eat during the week. I guess there wasn't much meal money given to players then and maybe no training table. It sounds like we really had a spartan regime in the early to mid-80's, including the weightroom.
I suspect a lot has changed. We're doing so much better money-wise. But back then we were so strapped that President Foote was taking the bowl money for the general fund and that supposedly ****ed off Schnelly, or so the story went. And that's why he left.
Those guys, Saban, Schnellenberger, and even JJ did more with less. Back then the boosters could help with recruiting but I don't know much about money. A friend of mine used to go to breakfasts with recruits, write letters to recruits, but he told me he was never once asked for money for a recruit. Maybe there was a trusted inner circle who did that, if it was done at all.
EDIT: Thinking about Saban's recruiting Back in the mid-80's, I had to call a bank down in Coral Gables, and I ended up talking to a manager, her last name was Greaves. I asked if her husband was Gary Greaves. Yes, I remembered him from the UM teams of the late '50's. (We had some good teams in the '50's, mostly poor working class white kids from rust belt, mainly Pennsylvania, upstate NY, Ohio, etc.) She was an avid UM fan. Back then, before Jimmy's teams started winning, a lot of older UM fans were lamenting the loss of Howard. They did not like or trust Jimmy. They all thought the world ended when Howard left.
Well, Mrs. Greaves and I had a great talk. She was telling me that Howard was a great recruiter, but Saban was the best. She said that if he had stayed, we would have won a NC even sooner. She said that there was never a kid who, if he wanted him, couldn't get him.
Well, everyone hears the story about how Jim Kelly didn't go to PSU because paterno wanted him for LB. About thirty years ago, one of my then neignbors told me the real story. Somebody had to take the SAT or ACT for him so he could get into UM. The guy I was talking to was from East Brady, Kelly's home town. This is the first time I've even said anything about this to anybody and I guess it might be true. I don't like spreading lies if not true but what the heck. Is he going to sue me for libel? I hope not. It was probably not that unusual. I heard one of my cousins had somebody else take the SAT for him so he could get into the Wharton School of Finance. So it happens at a much different level, too, I guess. (I haven't seen that cousin in 40 years, if that). When I took those tests, in the mid-60's, I never heard of anybody cheating.
Jeff George was coming until Craig Erickson also committed saying he wasn't afraid of competing with George.