#544. The Memory of that Miami - Florida International Riot

Continuing our drive to make SBPDL the ultimate 365Black destination, a rehashing of a previous story is in order so as to explain the importance of today’s entry.

College football kicked off last week and people of all races were glued to the television screens as ratings for the opening weekend reached record highs:

“The NCAA season kicked off Thursday, Sept. 3, with a matchup between unranked South Carolina and N.C. State, which drew 3.26 million viewers between 7 p.m. and 10:04 p.m. The Gamecocks’ sloppy 7-3 victory outdrew ESPN’s 2008 season opener by 38 percent.”

“A nine-minute edition of College Game day Scoreboard drew 3.89 million viewers, leading into the Boise St.-Oregon throw down (3.86 million viewers).

“For the week ended Sept. 6, ESPN drew an average nightly audience of 3.73 million total viewers, per Nielsen live-plus-same-day ratings. The network also swept the three core TV demos, drawing 1.87 million adults 25-54, 1.8 million viewers 18-49 and 818,000 18-34s.”

During the opening weekend of college football, a seemingly isolated incident transpired in Boise, Idaho, as the Boise State Broncos defeated Oregon 19-8. Black running back Lagarrette Blount of Oregon decided to sucker punch a white player from Boise State and then challenge everyone in his path.

Seemingly isolated until you weave this incident into an interesting pattern that has been repeating itself in college football games in the 21^st century as Black people causing massive riots during games is now a common sight.

Blount was suspended for the season for his actions after the Boise State game, but in the annals of thuggery and football his actions barely elicit a blip.

In the 2006 Miami-Florida International football game, a brawl broke out between the nearly all-Black teams that took more than five minutes to breakup and ended in the suspension of 31 total player s(all-Black people) from the combined squads:

“With 9 minutes left in the 3rd quarter, Miami H-back James Bryant caught a 5-yard touchdown pass…

During the ensuing PAT attempt, FIU safety Chris Smith wrestled Miami holder Matt Perelli (white player) to the ground after the kick and appeared to punch him in the chin. FIU cornerback, Marshall McDuffie, Jr., kicked Perelli in the head.Miami players, including Calais Campbell, came to Perelli's defense, separating Miami and FIU players. FIU's Lionel Singleton punched Campbell in the back of the helmet, which was quickly followed by retaliation from both teams, escalating the fight to a bench-clearing brawl. Miami's Anthony Reddick swung his helmet at FIU players and Miami's Brandon Meriweather kicked an FIU player. FIU's A'Mod Ned, who was injured, came onto the field and swung at Miami players with his crutches. The fight lasted less than two minutes with Florida Highway Patrol State Troopers and FIU Police coming onto the field to restore order.

Officials needed several minutes to sort out the penalties. Ultimately, 13 players were assessed 15-yard penalties for fighting and ejected from the game (eight from FIU and five from Miami). Although the unsportsmanlike conduct penalties for fighting offset each other, Miami was forced to kick off from its own 10-yard line due to the original penalty against Bryant (penalized at half the distance to the goal).”

The incident made national headlines and was replayed on ESPN and other sports channels over and over again and of those 31 players who were suspended, all were Black people:

• For FIU: cornerback Marshall McDuffie, Jr., cornerback Chris Smith, offensive lineman Michael Alls, offensive linemen Chad Sales, linebacker Mannie Wellington, linebacker Michael Dominguez, linebacker Scott Bryant, defensive lineman Roland Clarke, fullback John Ellis, defensive back Cory Fleming, defensive lineman Reginald Jones, defensive back Robert Mitchell, linebacker Quentin Newman, defensive lineman Luis Pena, defensive end Jarvis Penerton, running back Julian Reams, defensive back Lionell Singleton, tight end Samuel Smith and wide receiver Chandler Williams
• For Miami: cornerback Carlos Armour, offensive tackle Chris Barney, H-back James Bryant, offensive tackle Tyrone Byrd, tight end DajLeon Farr, wide receiver Ryan Hill, cornerback Bruce Johnson, running back Charlie Jones, safety Brandon Meriweather, punter Brian Monroe, offensive guard Derrick Morse, cornerback Randy Phillips and safety Anthony Reddick

Miami ended up winning the game, but the evidence to support the notion that the University of Miami is the quintessential “THUG U” was cemented forever.

In 2003, a prominent Black player for Miami, Kellen Winslow, went on record as being a soldier for THUG U and more importantly, articulated a code of conduct that Black people at all schools live by:

"Yeah, I don't give a hell. It's about this U, man. I don't give a flyin' you-know-what about a Vol. I don't give a damn! He would do the same thing to me. It's war. They don't give a freakin' you-know-what about you. They will kill you. They're out there to kill you. So I'm 'a kill 'em. You write that in the paper. You write that. You make money off that. No, man, I'm pissed. All y'all take this down. I'm pissed, man. We don't care about nobody except this U. We don't. If I didn't hurt him, he'd hurt me. They were gunnin' for my legs. I'm 'a come right back at 'em. I'm a fuckin' soldier!"

Black people would love for the story of rioting and college football to end here, but in 2004 a brawl occurred during the rivalry game between Historically White Colleges the University of South Carolina and Clemson University, which both field nearly all-Black teams:

“…a massive fight resulted during the after two Clemson players hit a South Carolina wide receiver on the helmet after an incomplete pass with 5:56 left to go in the fourth quarter ^[2][3]. Some players on the field from both teams engaged in shoving and punching and both benches practically cleared as chaos erupted on the field. State Troopers, as well as other local law enforcement officers, entered the field to restore order. No fans ever entered the field. Play was suspended for six minutes.

"The fight overshadowed the last game Lou Holtz participated in as Carolina's head coach, as he retired at the end of the season. Holtz quoted that he "is going to be remembered along with [former Ohio State coach] Woody Hayes for having a fight at the Clemson game". Holtz then handed the coaching reins to Steve Spurrier. Clemson won the game 29-7.”

Black people have a historic record of rioting in major cities in United States and this has carried over into the football stadiums on college campuses where thousands of white people now pay to watch these riots occur for their enjoyment.

Stuff Black People Don’t Like includes the memory of that Miami – Florida International riot, for it shows that the Blount incident at Boise is not an isolated occurrence. Rioting and unsportsmanlike activity is a part of college football and the pervasive THUG U mentality helps to ensure that it stays that way.

#72. Athlete-Students Graduating from College

As SBPDL celebrates the 2009 College Football season's imminent arrival, we must pause to remember why we are doing this.

College football - and the National Football League - hold adult men in perpetual captivity during fall weekends and this vice leaves them incapable of performing any other activity during this time period.

Grown men head back to their alma maters to watch 18-22-year-olds play football on Saturday's and then on Sunday, they watch individuals who have the innate capacity to fail the Wonderlic Test in glorious fashion play an occasional football in between commercials.

College football is big business, as one conference (The SEC) has just signed a television contract worth $205 million through 2025. College football is a massive business that allows many schools to survive and flourish, and causes other conferences to fold up if they can't negotiate to keep their product on television.

Were it not for college football, Black people - especially males - would not be attending historically white colleges:

"Data show that Black male students often feel isolated, marginalized and invisible on predominantly White campuses. Dr. Mac Stewart, the chief diversity officer and vice provost for minority affairs at OSU, says that was the reality officials at the university discovered with the Black men on campus. “We had to do something to address this issue,” he says. “We first started with a focus group of Black male students. They made some suggestions.”

Black athletes, especially college football players at the 120 FBS schools, are some of the most notable people on their campus, so only if coaches could find a way to get more Black people on their teams, then perhaps Black people wouldn't feel marginalized.

Looking at The University of Georgia is an interesting case study in examining the reality of Black people's inability to get into schools, unless they possess the all important life skill of running with the football:

"Since the late 1990s, Black student enrollment at the University of Georgia, the state’s flagship university, has hovered between 5 percent and 6 percent, despite promises by the university’s administration to improve the school’s pursuit of Black students. In 1998, Blacks constituted 6.2 percent of the university’s enrollment. After significant dips in 2001 and 2003, the university rebounded, increasing its Black enrollment to nearly 6.8 percent in 2007. But the number of Black men remained disproportionately low.

"The numbers took a dramatic turn in 2008, however. In the fall of that year, 104 Black males enrolled at the university, an 18 percent jump from fall 2007."

If, in 2008 only 104 Black people enrolled at UGA, that means that nearly 25 percent of that class were from the football team, as the 2008 recruiting class for the Bulldog football team (not including walk-ons) were largely Black people.

While in school, these Black people help their nearly all-white institutions of higher learning defeat other Black people attending all-white institutions of higher learning.

But what doesn't happen, unlike the few white people who play football for these cash making cows, is that the Black athlete-students do not graduate, whereas the white student-athletes graduate:

"Georgia Tech’s football players had the nation’s best average SAT score, 1028 of a possible 1600, and best average high school GPA, 3.39 of a possible 4.0 in the core curriculum. But Tech’s football players still scored 315 SAT points lower on average than their classmates.

At the University of Georgia, the average football SAT was 949, which is 239 points behind the average for an undergraduate student at Georgia — and 79 points behind Tech’s football average. The Bulldogs’ average high school GPA was 2.77, or 45th out of 53 teams for which football GPAs were available. Their SAT average ranked them 22nd."

More to the point, is this story, which also discuss the lack of Black head coaches, as it points out the graduation rates of Black people at major college football schools:

"...report released Monday by The Institute for Diversity & Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida. It shows that the gap between the graduation success rates for white and African-American football student-athletes has increased from 14 percent in the 2007 report to 17 percent in the new study, although the grad rates for African-American football student-athletes has increased. While the 2008 numbers show that 76 percent of white football student-athletes graduated, only 59 percent of African-American football student-athletes graduated. The Institute arrived at its findings by reviewing data collected by the NCAA from member schools over a six-year period, using the freshman classes that entered college from 1998 through 2001."

So, were it not for college football, Black people would barely be attending historically white colleges at all (here is a list of the top 25 football programs in 2004 and also the Black ratio of athletes to general students. Note the graduation rates for some of the schools white players... they look a little off):

Top 25                          Black Football          White Football
                  Players Graduation %    Players Graduation %

1 UNIV. OF S. CAL.                        61%                     60%
2 LOUISIANA STATE U.                      34%                     56%
3 UNIV. OF OKLA.                          28%                     41%
4 UNIV. OF MICHIGAN                       36%                     58%
5 UTEXAS-AUSTIN                           33%                     45%
6 UTENN-KNOXVILLE                         26%                     78%
7 OHIO STATE UNIV.                        28%                     58%
8 KANSAS STATE UNIV.                      52%                     64%
9 FLORIDA STATE UNIV.                     43%                     65%
10 UNIV. OF MIAMI                          47%                     57%
11 UNIV. OF GEORGIA                        51%                     86%
12 PURDUE UNIV.                            53%                     63%
13 UNIV. OF IOWA                           45%                     62%
14 MIAMI UNIV. (OHIO)                      25%                     70%
15 WASH. STATE UNIV.                       47%                     71%
16 UNIV. OF MISS.                          52%                     53%
17 UNIV. OF FLA.                           44%                     38%
18 BOISE STATE UNIV.                       57%                     47%
19 TEXAS CHRISTIAN U.                      50%                     61%
20 W.VIRGINIA UNIV.                        36%                     58%
21 OKLAHOMA STATE                          32%                     52%
22 UNEB.-LINCOLN                           41%                     69%
23 UMD-COLLEGE PARK                        38%                     71%
24 UMINN-TWIN CITIES                       31%                     58%
25 UNIV. OF UTAH                           42%                     ***

                  Fall 2002-03 FT Enrollment

Top 25                        Black    Black Student
                  Student %       Athletes %

1 UNIV. OF S. CAL.            6.5%            34.0%
2 LOUISIANA STATE U.          9.3%            33.2%
3 UNIV. OF OKLA.              6.3%            27.2%
4 UNIV. OF MICHIGAN           8.1%            16.8%
5 UTEXAS-AUSTIN               3.6%            24.9%
6 UTENN-KNOXVILLE             7.1%            28.7%
7 OHIO STATE UNIV.            8.1%            16.3%
8 KANSAS STATE UNIV.          2.6%            21.8%
9 FLORIDA STATE UNIV.        12.2%            34.5%
10 UNIV. OF MIAMI              9.3%            36.2%
11 UNIV. OF GEORGIA            5.1%            31.4%
12 PURDUE UNIV.                3.2%            18.8%
13 UNIV. OF IOWA               2.3%            13.7%
14 MIAMI UNIV. (OHIO)          3.6%            15.0%
15 WASH. STATE UNIV.           3.1%            22.1%
16 UNIV. OF MISS.             13.0%            40.6%
17 UNIV. OF FLA.               8.6%            30.0%
18 BOISE STATE UNIV.           1.2%            14.2%
19 TEXAS CHRISTIAN U.          4.8%            33.0%
20 W.VIRGINIA UNIV.            4.3%            25.1%
21 OKLAHOMA STATE              3.3%            20.1%
22 UNEB.-LINCOLN               2.0%            13.9%
23 UMD-COLLEGE PARK           12.1%            19.6%
24 UMINN-TWIN CITIES           4.0%            15.6%
25 UNIV. OF UTAH               0.8%             9.1%
One Black writer wrote an interesting article where he pointed out this:

"On Saturday, Kansas coach Bill Self answered questions about junior Tyrone Appleton returning to Gary, Ind., for the funeral of a friend who was murdered. Appleton missed Saturday’s practice but will be back for today’s game against Dayton. Rick Telander, a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, asked Self if as a society we’ve come to expect young athletes to deal with the murder of friends and family members.

“It happens far too often,” Self said. “Of course once is way too much. Last year we had two individuals (Darnell Jackson and Rodrick Stewart) who had family members that were murdered in drive-bys the same week.”

Now, let’s take a moment to be bone honest. I don’t have to identify the race of Appleton, Jackson and Stewart. Whenever there is a story about athletes and murder, it’s relatively safe to assume they’re black. Peyton Manning’s boyz from the ’hood are unlikely to be gunned down."

Stuff Black People Don't Like includes their athlete-students graduating from college, for, when you look at the data, the main reason Black males are even in college is for the enjoyment of the white alumni. Were it not college football, Black males wouldn't be major colleges anywhere. As it is, Black males are still barely in colleges anywhere.