Auburn Tigers

This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now on Amazon.com's Kindle for just 99 cents at:  amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1 

 

AUBURN TIGERS

            Based in the plainest little city on the plains.

A quick internet search shows that Auburn really had won a national championship before 2011, although you may be surprised to find out ‘Field and Stream’ magazine actually handed out such an award.

            After their win over the Ducks in the national title game they now have just as many championships in football as Vanderbilt.  And they did it with less than half the IQ.

            The Tigers pride themselves on finding the best coach available with no stone left unturned.  Their searches take them to every campus and airport tarmac in America.

            The time spent searching for coaches is made up by their rather unique and quick way of choosing a school president.  The title is merely given to the booster who gave the most money that season.

            There is much confusion around the rest of the country about what exactly the mascot is, a Tiger or a War Eagle.  But this is at least one subject that Auburn fans are not confused about.  The mascot is a tiger.  War Eagle is their salute, their holler, their shout-out, their battle cry for help.  But as anyone who has ever driven the back roads to Auburn knows, and they’re ALL back roads, the real mascot is a roadkill opossum.

            Legend has it a War of Northern Aggression soldier found an injured eagle on an old battlefield and somehow managed to sneak it into the first football game in 1892 with Georgia at Piedmont Park in Atlanta.  At some point the eagle escaped his owner and flew around the field as the Tigers went on to score and win 10-0.  At the end of the game the eagle crashed into the turf and died, possibly out of sheer boredom, or it being downtown Atlanta, might have been caught in the crossfire of a horse and buggy drive-by.  For some reason the fans have taken this as a good omen and continue the tradition of shouting “War Eagle” at games, gatherings, church, christenings and honeymoon beds.  It also began the tradition of bringing an animal as a date to Auburn games.

            Eagle VII, or Nova, flies around the field before every home game, frightening the local livestock both in and out of the stadium.

            The games with Georgia are called the “Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry,” and “A Damn Good Reason to Drink PBR On Saturday.”

A meeting of the Auburn Booster Club.

            In 1896 before a game with Georgia Tech, Auburn students greased or soaped the railroad tracks so the train bringing the Yellowjackets slid past the depot and the players had to walk the five miles back to town.  That used up a lot of soap, but it wasn’t like it was seeing any use anyway at Auburn. This may have caused the 45-0 whupping put on the Jackets that day.  Georgia Tech got its revenge by having the Auburn grads call them “boss” at work every day since.

            Nowadays students put on pajamas and ride floats in honor of the Wreck Tech Parade.  The PJs are a nice break from their overalls.

If you like what you've read so far just wait until you see the rest about Auburn and all the other SEC schools, as well as Texas, Texas A&M, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami. It's all in 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis and available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at:  Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1

Tennessee Volunteers

This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now on Amazon.com's Kindle for just 99 cents at:  amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1 

 

TENNESSEE VOLUNTEERS

            Based in Knoxville, Gateway to Pigeon Forge.

Knoxville once held a World’s Fair.  Really.  Never heard about that?  Don’t worry nobody else did either.  It was in 1982 and its greatest legacy to the region is paved roads.

The only people who actually attended were folks from Nashville and Atlanta who thought another Six Flags had opened up.  The biggest attraction was Deliverance World, in which unsuspecting sausage-fed Germans were led to their doom.

            Nearby Pigeon Forge actually does have an amusement park and is home to a national monument, Dolly Parton.  The area is known for its mountains.  She is also the most popular ride. 

            After crying babies on transatlantic flights and Celine Dion singing the theme from ‘Titanic’the University of Tennessee’s band is infamous for making the third-most annoying sound in Western Civilization---the incessant playing of ‘Rocky Top’ after every big play, score, sneeze, and breath taken on the field.  When the groundskeeper chalks the lines the band strikes up the tune.

            It is the only song they can remember and despite playing it over and over ad nauseam it never seems to grow old with UT fans, much like incest and moonshine stills.  It’s one of 7000 official state songs.

            For some inexplicable reason several artists have covered the tune, including Ms. Parton, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Phish. Columbia Records pressured Frank Sinatra to sing it but he chose to die instead.      

            Felice and Boudleaux Bryant took only ten minutes to write the damn thing in the Gatlinburg Inn in 1967.  I guess they got bored playing Tic-Tac-Toe with the live chicken in a box that town is famous for.  Ten minutes to create a lifetime of musical misery.  In a recent survey folks were asked what they would do with a time machine.  The top answer was to go back in time and meet Jesus.  The second was to stop the JFK assassination.  The third was to go back in time and kill Felice and Boudleaux Bryant.

            Proving the FBI has a sense of humor, the crime-fighting group used the title as a code name for an operation in the 1980s in which they caught several Tennessee politicians with their hands in the cookie jar.  The NCAA should take a cue from this action.

            The official fight song is ‘Down the Field’.  No one ever remembers hearing that one because it is a fine tune with a lovely medley, thus making it sound harsh to the average Vols fan.        

            The nickname Volunteers comes from the fact Tennessee is known as the Volunteer State.  In the War of 1812 they gained that reputation, especially during the Battle of New Orleans, which was actually fought after the peace treaty had been signed.  It was the first example of Vols piling on after a play was over.

            Their colors are orange and white.  Not the vibrant, alive orange of Clemson, but a sickly, pale cousin, much like their own ‘human’ cousins.

            Take some Push-up ice cream, leave it out in the sun until it melts, and you’ll get a color akin to Volunteer orange.

The color scheme came from daisies growing near the classrooms in 1891. If that idea was followed today the school colors might be the green of a marijuana leaf.

If you like what you've read so far just wait until you see the rest about Tennessee and all the other SEC schools, as well as Texas, Texas A&M, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami. It's all in 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis and available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at:  Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1

Kentucky Wildcats. Blue grass, blue fans.

This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now on Amazon.com's Kindle for just 99 cents at:  amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1

KENTUCKY WILDCATS

            Based in Lexington.  No, Frankfurt. Or Frankfort. No, that’s not right, it’s Louisville.  Nope, uh, Lexington! Yes, Lexington.  I was right the first time.  Maybe.  Who cares until basketball season anyway?

            Wherever it is the University of Kentucky is the forgotten member of the Southeastern Conference mainly because it should be.  First of all it’s not in the Southeast.  And it sided with the Yankees in that border dispute.  So it ought to be glad it’s even allowed to play with the big boys of the SEC when it comes to football.  They’re lucky the rest of us even talk to them.   

            The two main reasons they’re allowed in the SEC is to use them as punching bags in football and make the conference look good in basketball against those stuck-up snobs from Duke.

            Their greatest football coach was Adolph Rupp and he was their basketball coach.  Here was a man so mean it’s mystifying why he didn’t coach a man’s sport instead of wasting his genius on that round ball fad.

            Their second best football coach was Bear Bryant and he only stayed there eight weeks.  Why?  This is a state and college that prefers basketball and horse racing to football.  I’ll let you digest that a second or two. But what do you expect from a state that thinks their grass is blue.  Yeah, maybe if you’re smoking it.  I’ve driven through Kentucky twice and the damn grass is green.  Green I say.  Quit looking at the lawn through the prism of a mint julep glass and sober up.  The only thing blue is the mood there after every Wildcat football game.

Top of 2011 recruiting class.

            Football season in Lexington brings more suicides than a three-month-long winter solar eclipse in Finland.  These folk haven’t seen a national title since Harry Truman was President.  For you Auburn grads that was in 1950.  Harry. Truman.  Prez-e-dent.  Oh I give up.      

            Their school colors are blue and white, luckily already giving them half of what you need for a flag of surrender.

            They chose this color scheme in 1892, but for the 1891 season they had another color too.  Yellow.  Not just any Yella.  Like their collective backbone or lack of it, light yella.  Blue and light yella.  Now there’s a combo that’s guaranteed to put fear into the hearts of your opponents.  The colors of depression and cowardice.

            Even Kentuckians could see where this was a mistake so they dropped the yella for the white, preferring a sad surrender without the running-away-screaming part.

            When it came time to decide what shade of blue to use the school president Richard Stoll pulled off his tie and held it up for a vote.  The students voted to get him a valet to choose his ties for him.

If you like what you've read so far just wait until you see the rest about Kentucky and all the other SEC schools, as well as Texas, Texas A&M, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami. It's all in 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis and available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at:  Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1

Mississippi State Bulldogs. Why?

This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now on Amazon.com's Kindle for just 99 cents at:  amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1

MISSISSIPPI STATE BULLDOGS

            Based in Starkville.  Otherwise known as Starkvegas, Starkpatch, or just plain stark.

The natives here would like you to believe the town is named after some dude named Stark, maybe someone cool like Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man. The reality is the name comes from the one-word description given the place by the first settler.  He quickly became an ex-settler and kept moving. 

Starkville is the place mullets went to live.  It’s original name, and this is the gospel truth, was Boardtown.  Boredtown is more apt.

This is the place that arrested American icon Johnny Cash for picking flowers, which he immortalized in his song ‘Starkville City Jail’.  Johnny failed to mention he was three sheets to the wind at the time he was plucking the posies.

Cash is not the most infamous felon to walk these streets.  That ‘honor’ goes to George Kelly Barnes.  You may know him by his nickname Machine Gun Kelly.  Machine Gun matriculated at Mississippi State for two years while studying agriculture.  He was asked to leave when his unique and bullet-based method for eradicating the boll weevil destroyed the entire cotton crop in 1919.

                     MSU’s most famous and successful student, Machine Gun Kelly.

Charles Lindbergh landed here once.  Once.

Supposedly the sport of tee ball was invented here when local youths were slow to pick up the nuances of baseball.  Complicated maneuvers like throwing the ball and hitting the ball.  This was a source of endless shame to Starkville native Cool Papa Bell, one of the greatest baseball players of all time. 

            They play at Davis Wade Stadium at Scott Field.  Or is it Scott Wade Stadium at Davis Field?  Or Scott Davis Stadium at Wade Field?

            It was built in 1914, the same year Mississippi rejoined the Union.  The Holly plant lines the sideline fence forming a prickly barrier, but it’s not a problem since Bulldog fans never have a reason to storm the field.

            The Holly produces berries that are toxic to humans but not to the larva of the Double-striped Pug moth, which is a big booster of the program.

Starkville is where Christopher Walken goes for more cowbell.  Every fan brings one and rings it incessantly despite an SEC ban on the damn things.  They’re only supposed to ring them in between plays, but the average State fan can’t even read the rule much less follow it so they ring them all the time.  The use of so many cowbells has led to a massive problem of lost cattle roaming the state during football games.

It is the second-most annoying tradition in the Southeastern Conference, surpassed only by the Volunteers’ obsession with the song ‘Rocky Top’.  The song is more annoying because more people care about Tennessee football so more people have to hear it.

The origin of the cowbell tradition is nebulous, but most agree it started in the 1930s when a cow wandered onto the field during a game against Mississippi.  Why this one instance among many of cow-wandering at the cow college would garner attention in Starkville is a mystery, but since State won the game the students took a Hindu-like reverence to the cow as a good luck charm.  But unlike the Hindus these fans continued to eat their lucky charms.      

For awhile students would bring cows to the games, but they kept confusing them with their dates, so they brought only the cowbells.

It took decades before two professors in the 1960s got the idea to weld handles onto the bells, making them louder and easier to use.  Students make them on campus and sell them through the bookstore, which has plenty of room since it’s not cluttered up with any books.

The noise got so bad that in 1974 the conference passed a rule against artificial noisemakers at football and basketball games.  It was a 9 to 1 vote.  Ironically, State got confused and voted to ban the cowbell while Auburn mistakenly voted to keep it, believing at the time the vote they were casting was for more cows.

If you like what you've read so far just wait until you see the rest about LSU and all the other SEC schools, as well as Texas, Texas A&M, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami. It's all in 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis and available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at:  Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1

  

Georgia Tech Yellowjackets get stung.

This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now on Amazon.com's Kindle for just 99 cents at:  amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1

GEORGIA TECH YELLOWJACKETS

            Based in Atlanta for the sole purpose of giving Thursday night ESPN games a nice skyline shot.

The 1893 Georgia Tech team pictured here in the beautiful heart of the main campus.  I swear the first man lying down on the right is the late Graham Chapman from Monty Python.  The late Herve’ Villechaize, better known as Tattoo, is third from the right top row.  Stand up, Herve’.  Oh, sorry.

Tech has the best fight song in college football, ‘I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech', despite the fact its melody was stolen from a Lithuanian vomiting ballad.  It’s the only fight song ever used to bridge a diplomatic gap in international relations.    

During the famous 1958 Kitchen Debate in Moscow, then-Vice President Richard Nixon got into an argument with Soviet head Nikita Khrushchev.  In order to find common ground the two world leaders sang the only song they both knew, ‘I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck'.  Nikita had heard the song sung by the Tech Glee Club on the Ed Sullivan Show, although the prudish Sullivan made them sing “heck” instead of “hell.”

            The incident solidified belief on the Georgia campus that the Atlanta school was full of pinkos.  Here are the lyrics:

“I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech and a hell of an engineer.

A helluva, helluva, helluva, helluva, hell of an engineer.

Like all the jolly good fellows, I drink my whiskey clear,

I’m Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech and a hell of an engineer.

Oh, if I had a daughter, sir, I’d dress her in White and Gold.

And put her on the campus to cheer the brave and bold.

And if I had a son, sir, I’ll tell you what he’d do,

He would yell “TO HELL WITH GEORGIA’ like his daddy used to do.

I wish I had a barrel of rum and sugar three thousand pounds,

A college bell to put it in, and a clapper to stir it round.

I’d drink to all the good fellows who come from far and near,
I’m a ramblin, gamblin’ hell of an engineer. Hey!”                                 

It’s based on an old tune called ‘The Son of a Gambolier.’  Gambolier is Gaelic for “one who gambols.”  Or is it gambles?  Here is the original song:

“I’m a rambling rake of poverty

From Tiprery town I came.

‘Twas poverty compelled me first,

To go out in the rain;

In all sorts of weather,

Be it wet or be it dry,

I’m bound to get my livelihood

Or lay me down and die.

Then combine your humble ditties

As from inn to tavern we steer,

Like every honest fellow

I takes my whiskey clear,

For I’m a rambling rake of poverty

And the son of a gambolier.

I once was tall and handsome,

And was so very neat,

They though I was too good to live,

Most good enough to eat;

But now I’m old, my coat is torn,

And poverty holds me fast,

And every girl turns up her nose,

As I go wandering past.

I’m a rambling rake of poverty,

From Tippery town I came,

My coat I bought from an old Jew shop,

Way down in Maiden Lane;

My hat I got from a sailor lad

Just eighteen years ago,

And my shoes I picked from an old dust heap

Which everyone shunned but me.”

Not exactly a ditty you’ll hear being hummed down at the Anti-Defamation League office.         

The song has actually been used by many colleges with different lyrics, but it’s the Tech version that holds sway.

Name another college fight song sung by the likes of John Wayne in the movie ‘The High and the Mighty’, which was the movie spoofed by ‘Airplane’, and Gregory Peck in ‘The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit’, and Daffy Duck in a cartoon.  It’s even been sung in space and on boats crossing the English Channel on D-Day.

Former Beatle Paul McCartney bought up the copyrights for one version of the song.  Some idiots on a Diversity Task Force at Tech tried to screw with the lyrics in the 1990s to make the song more politically correct.  They were told to suck it by the students and the song remains the same with apologies to Led Zeppelin for that last line.

Their other fight song is ‘Up with the White and Gold’.  Kind of pales in comparison although it does have one memorable line:  “We’ll drop our battle axe on Georgia’s head.”

The official Ramblin’ Wreck car was unveiled in 1961.  It was a 1930 Model A Ford Sport Coupe restored in grand fashion.  There had been several cars around campus over the years that had been called the Wreck and the first one anyone can remember was actually traded in for another jalopy.

Some claim the name comes from Tech grads that plied their living in South America around 1900 and engineered machines to traverse the jungles of that wild continent.  The contrivances were called rambling wrecks by the natives.

There used to be a race between Atlanta and Athens every year beginning in 1929 called the Flying Flivver, but the cows on the road got thicker the closer they came to UGA, which made it too dangerous.  The Ramblin’ Wreck Parade took its place every Homecoming Week in which students design and build wrecks to drive.  Or they just find a GM product.  Many of these devices have exploded and burned on the parade route.

Dean of Students James Dull decided sometime before ’61 that the school needed an official wreck so he began a statewide search.  The search ended when he walked out of his apartment and found the 1930 Model A Ford Sport Coupe sitting in front of the building.  A little pleading with the owner and the car was theirs.

The Wreck has seen its share of trouble.  It’s been borrowed unexpectedly and without permission twice.  In other words, UGA fans purloined it.  It was painted orange by Volunteer fans in that sickly color they’re fond of.  And it’s even been shot.  An Auburn fan was suspected of the gunplay, but residing in downtown Atlanta it’s amazing it hasn’t been shot more than once.

If you like what you've read so far just wait until you see the rest about LSU and all the other SEC schools, as well as Texas, Texas A&M, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami. It's all in 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis and available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at:  Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1

The Angola State Prison Tigers, or LSU

This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now on Amazon.com's Kindle for just 99 cents at:  amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1

ANGOLA STATE PRISON TIGERS, or LOUISIANA STATE

            Based in Baton Rouge, which is French for “I did not tell him to spike the ball.”

I would like to tell you LSU was the first college team to play a bowl game outside the United States in the 1907 Bacardi Bowl in Havana, Cuba.  But since anyone who has ever traveled to Louisiana knows it is not really a part of America we don’t want to start off with a lie.  Those will come soon enough.

            The ‘people’ down there speak a version of English that is so akin to gibberish that they might as well still be speaking French.  If you saw the Adam Sandler movie ‘The Waterboy’ you might remember an actor portraying an overall-wearing assistant coach who seemed to be making fun of the way Creoles speak with an over-the-top dialect of mush-mouthed utterances.  In reality he is Dean of the English Department at LSU and a much sought after speaker on the local lecture circuit.

            The fact that all of the middle of the country’s detritus is flushed down the Mississippi River to back up in Louisiana may explain the debauchery and depravity of the denizens of America’s Drainhole.

Their current head coach is Les Miles, who landed the job after failing to replace Curley in the Three Stooges.  Despite having won a national title in ’07 he is always on the hot seat because of his questionable decisions on the sidelines, such as showing up.

He was once caught on camera eating grass and it wasn’t even part of a brownie.

            LSU once hired Vanderbilt coach Gerry DiNardo but he was summarily dismissed because he could never bridge the gap with his players.  Not the language gap, the intelligence gap.  But what do you expect from a ‘people’ who find biting the heads off mud-dwelling insects a culinary delight.

Current Bama coach Nick “Lucifer” Saban once coached LSU but left to seek greener pastures in the NFL in Miami, where in one day he met more people who spoke English than in his entire stay in Baton Rouge.

Their colors are purple and gold, the same color as the bruises they wake up with after a game.  And this is just the fans.

Their mascot is Mike VI, or Mike the Tiger, a Bengal/Siberian mix who lives in his own tiger habitat across from the stadium.  His diet consists of feral pigs, bulldogs (English and regular), elephants, other tigers, yellowjackets, gators, and yankees.

Before each home game an agitated Mike is enticed to enter a cage on wheels.  He is then carted into the stadium with six cheerleaders riding on top of his cage…OH MY GOD SOMEBODY GET A GUN….Make that five cheerleaders.

Opposing players must pass by Mike to enter their locker room…OH MY GOD HE’S GOT THE QUARTERBACK….Tradition had it that every time Mike growled the Tigers would score a touchdown that game so fans took to pounding on his cage to rile him up.  Civilization and PETA complained so that tradition has gone the way of other LSU favorites, like bear-baiting and inbreeding.

Mike used to travel with the team, but that stopped in 1970 when his cage overturned on a highway and he escaped long enough to run for governor.

Mike also appeared at the 1984 Mardi Gras parade…OH MY GOD HE’S GOT THE MAYOR…where he blended right in with the drunken carnage.  Pranksters once cut the locks on his cage before the LSU-Tulane game, allowing Mike to roam freely across the campus long enough to become enrolled in the masters program.

LSUsports.net reported Mike “playfully knocking down several small pine trees” before he was cornered in the track stadium and tranquilized and returned to his cage.  Ironically, this also happened to Huey Long.

The first live tiger mascot, Mike I, was purchased in 1936 from that world famous tiger haven the Little Rock Zoo.  He reigned for 20 years before dying of pneumonia in the midst of a six-game losing streak in 1957.  So great was the love for Mike that school authorities were afraid fans would give up hope, so they were not alerted to his death until after the losing streak came to an end.  Then they gave up hope.  When LSU fans yell “Tiger bait” at you, take them at their word and run.

In 1958, Coach Paul Dietzel decided to motivate a group of players who didn’t get on the field much by giving them a cool name to rally around.  He chose the term ‘Chinese Bandits’ because according to the comic strip ‘Terry and the Pirates’ they were the most vicious people on earth.  The players lived up to their name and the team went on to win their first national championship.  The group even got their photo in ‘Life’ magazine:

                              This photo led directly to our entanglement in Vietnam.

If you like what you've read so far just wait until you see the rest about LSU and all the other SEC schools, as well as Texas, Texas A&M, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami. It's all in 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis and available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at:  Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1

THE MIAMI HURRICANES---KEEPING THE NCAA INFRACTIONS COMMITTEE IN BUSINESS SINCE 1952

     This is a chapter from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available for under a buck on Kindle at:  amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

      If you like what you see here, wait until you see the chapters on FSU, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Texas, Texas A&M, and all the SEC teams.

MIAMI HURRICANES

            Definitely NOT  based in Ohio.

Reborn under coach Howard Schnellenberger in the early 1980s the Canes became the team of the decade under first his and then Jimmy Johnson’s hair.

            The mascot is an ibis, a gawky, white bird representing northern transplants found on local beaches.  Recruiting is easy at Miami.  Young men are taken to South Beach, handed a one hundred dollar bill then told to meet their chaperone back at the mojito stand in 24 hours.  The ones who show up the next day are immediately sent back home.  The rest are rounded up at local jails and made to mark their X on letters of intent.

            I don’t want to say this program attracts trouble like a cow attracts flies, but they first went on NCAA probation in the 1950s.  I don’t think the NCAA even existed at the time.  But when they did finally convene their first order of business was to deny the Hurricanes any bowl games for two years just on general principles.  The NCAA Infractions Committee has a branch office in South Dade County.

            Sports Illustrated printed a story in 1955 about Miami in which it was pointed out the school got caught giving transportation to prospective recruits because Coach Andy Gustafson was too “…aboveboard in his methods.  He knows better now and will let the alumni do the inviting. This method has worked for years, even in the Ivy group…”

            Wink wink, nudge nudge.

            Many illustrious coaches have come through Miami, including Dennis Erickson, Butch Davis, and Lou Saban, whose short-lived reign ended when some of his players tossed a Jewish man into a lake.  Fortunately this is one fad originating in Florida that failed to catch on with the general public, although I am to understand that in Australia dwarfs have been substituted.  Butch Davis left for the bright light of Cleveland and the NFL.  That bright light is the Cuyahoga River burning.  (Yes, I know, old joke.  But too easy to pass up.)  Butch was fired there, so he ended up at with the Tarheels.  He immediately instituted a plan to make UNC as successful as Miami.  Which explains why they are now on probation and Butch is at loose ends.

            The campus is set in a high crime area of the city, which may explain the mobster-like names of their two Heisman Trophy winners, Gino Torretta and Vinny Testaverde.  You usually find names like those in the credits of movies where Joe Pesci’s character has murdered and stuffed their bodies in a trunk.  Oklahoma legendary coach Barry Switzer called Testaverde the best quarterback he ever saw.  Switzer was famous for being color blind when it came to race relations with his players.  Testaverde became famous for just being color blind, which he revealed after becoming famous for throwing lots of interceptions with Tampa Bay.

Illustrious players include Jim Kelly and Ray Lewis.  Lewis has been called the most badass player in the NFL despite crying like a baby when questioned by Atlanta police after a killing involving his posse during a Super Bowl party.

Florida is a big rival.  The two schools vie for the War Canoe Trophy.  If you go to the official website of the Miami Hurricanes football team, Hurricanesports.cstv.com, and look up this trophy in the Traditions site you’ll see this nugget of joy:

“An authentic Seminole war canoe, hand carved and painted by Seminole Indians from a 200-year-old Everglades cypress tree felled by lighting...”

Felled by ‘lighting’?  Are even the trees in South Beach so fashion-sensitive they swoon when lit by bad lighting?

The canoe is now on display in Miami’s Sports Hall of Shame when it’s not being used to run contraband by hospitality majors.

Back to that bird mascot the ibis.

On the official website it’s described as a bird of strength, of speed, of knowledge, and of courage.  A leader of its species.  It’s a wonder it doesn’t come with its own cape and alter ego.  All this hype for a fowl that looks like a pelican that lost its pouch in a jai alai bet.

            This ibis is wise because it’s the last member of the animal kingdom to take cover before a hurricane hits.  The last?  How wise is that?  After the alligators have amscrayed upstate, after the manatees have migrated to safer coves, after all the panthers and bears have booked flights out, the procrastinating ibis is found loitering in building supply stores in Homestead buying what’s left of the plundered plywood and nails.

            The ibis is also believed to be the first animal to reappear after the storm passes.  Sounds like looter mentality.

            The ibis was announced as the school’s official mascot in 1926 on Larry King’s local radio show.  His name is Sebastian after the butler from the 1960s TV show ‘Family Affair’ played so brilliantly by Sebastian Cabot.

            But before Sebastian the Ibis there was Hurricane I…the dog.

A friend of the school had moved from New Haven, Connecticut to Miami.  He provided a boxer with a fine pedigree to be the mascot of Miami.  His name was Hurricane I.  The dog that is, not the owner.

            The prize-winning brown and white canine’s real name was ‘Beaubo of Box Haven,’ so he readily accepted his new name and the other dogs stopped making fun of him.

            Well, that is until they saw him in his mascot costume.  It consisted of an orange and green blanket with his name in huge letters on it.  He also had a helmet to wear. 

Hurricane I right before his final flight.  Since he left no note it’s not sure why he pawed open the escape hatch and leaped out of the moving plane.  Maybe the cape made him believe he was Superman’s dog Krypto.  Maybe he was distraught after leaving Handsome Dan VI.  Maybe it was the sheer embarrassment.  Either way he was last seen sailing over the Everglades.  Local folklore tells of a pack of feral boxer/panther mixes roaming the swamp, biting unsuspecting Florida and Florida State fans.

            No word on why the school stopped using dogs as mascots but there was a nasty rumor floating around in the 50s that Hurricane I had lived with the Yale mascot Handsome Dan VI for two years up in Connecticut.      

            This was decades before the movie ‘The Birdcage’ made it okay for this sort of relationship to be had in Miami.

            Orange, green, and white are the school colors.  They represent the orange tree with the orange for the fruit, the green for the leaves, and the white for the pasty tourists on South Beach.  The orange is known as ‘pylon orange.’

      If you like what you've read please check out all the other teams in the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at:

         amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW