This is one of the most disgusting displays of conduct in collegiate sports history. The ACC has handed down one-game suspensions for several of the participants in Saturday’s Miami / Florida International brawl. Such suspensions are laughable when you consider Anthony Reddick was swinging his helmet like a medieval weapon. If he’d connected with an opponent’s skull, he could’ve killed somebody. Thankfully, the ACC changed their ruling Monday afternoon, suspending Reddick “indefinitely”. But Gene Wojciechowski asks an important question in his ESPN.com article: what should the penalty be when one’s conduct crosses the line from unsportsmanlike to criminal? Wojciechowski calls for coach Larry Coker and analyst Lamar Thomas to be fired and some of the players to be permanently dismissed from their football programs. Watch the video and tell me what you think. Personally, these boys would never put on a uniform again if I had my say.
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Nikolaus Zinzendorf:
Preach the Gospel, die, and be forgotten.
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I think that those boys need to be kicked off of the team. It is so sad to sit there and watch all of those players beat each other up. Whether they like it or not, they are role models to those younger than themselves. I’m just glad that Joshua is not old enough to see that on tv. It’s just a game….
What about the responsibility the coaches have? Should these guys be punished, too? I’d hate to see them lose their jobs, but it sounds like that’s a possibility. I’m glad that Joshua isn’t old enough to see that kind of behavior, too.
No, I don’t think the coaches should lose their jobs. Assuming the coaches are in some form of parental role in the lives of these guys, I don’t think they should lose their job for the way their players behaved. I wouldn’t want to go to jail as a parent for something my kids did. That’s their responsibility. They should face those consequences. But on the other hand, these coaches are part of a university and they have a responsibility to that institution. In that regard, you could make a case for them losing their job.Personally, I don’t think the coaches should be fired. I don’t think this brawl is a direct reflection of their coaches.
I agree, Sunny. Firing the coaches over this would be like you losing your job because a fight broke out in your 3rd grade class a few years back. I think the coaches probably bear some level of responsibility in this, but to fire them ignores the poor decisions these players made. What is it about this season? A few weeks back we had Albert Haynesworth kicking an opponent in the head. Now we have this. What’s next?
Yeah, Jason, but you have to think about one “minor” statistic… In the past 7 games Miami has been involved in 2 brawls. TWO. That stat there is enough to make me think that at least Coker should be worried about his job right now.I don’t know about FIU’s past, but the Hurricanes have always been nothing better than low life thugs. I mean, I heard that an injured player came out on the field and started swinging his crutches at opposing players. There is NO excuse for that.FIU just shows me that they have no class either since they didn’t back down and got right in the mix with them. Personally, I think the one game suspension is garbage. The ones who were involved should be kicked off the team; all of them. If ONE of them stays on, that just shows me that the coaches don’t have the guts to discipline their players. If that happened on one of my dad’s teams… let’s just say that there would have been another brawl in the locker room afterwards.Miami has shown me nothing but terrible sportsmanship for the past 2 decades of football. It’s really nothing to hear someone tell you, “Oh, Miami got in a brawl again…” How bad is that? What does that say about THE COACHING STAFF? Sure, you wouldn’t send a parent to prison for a crime their child committed, but is a child’s actions not a result of a parent’s upbringing? I know I would blame myself if my child acted like that. Yes, there are bad seeds, but how is it that 100 of them all end up on the same collegiate football team?To me, it just seems like blatant irresponsibility on behalf of the coaches. If they respect you and know that you won’t allow that crap, it would NEVER happen. Not happen once and certainly not happen 2 out of every 7 games.The players are idiot thugs, there’s no doubt, but the coaches should be given just as much blame as the players.Steve Levy said it all: “People, what are we doing?”
I hear you Jake. Miami’s a team of thugs, plain and simple. I heard the story about the player swinging his crutches, too. Classless.And part of the coach’s job is to instill discipline in his players. What is discipline? It certainly reflects conduct both on the field and off. But what we saw in this brawl was something that extends beyond coaching. A coach can teach a kid to listen to the snap count or not jump off-sides, but when your guys start gang-fighting and swinging their helmets, I put that on the players. But you make a good point: what do you expect when you perenially sign guys with character issues? If Coker’s guilty of anything, it’s recruiting a bunch of street thugs. Sadly, I think Coker’s fate was sealed long before this ugly episode. I think this pretty much cements his dismissal.
I agree you can only go so far with teaching a player, but I also believe that if they respect their coach and what he teaches them that nothing like that would ever happen. I just feel like Coker has never earned the respect of his player and that’s why they continue to do the crap they’ve always done: because nobody has stood up to them.
Coker’s gone anyway, so it probably doesn’t matter. I don’t hear a lot of people clamoring for Lamar Thomas to lose his job. Seems like people are a bit more forgiving toward a program like FIU that hasn’t had the historic problems like Miami has. But a coach needs the respect of his players. I’d be ashamed if my players embarassed me like that.
I agree that Coker wasn’t going to survive after this season, but this event certainly sealed his fate. Butch Davis had made great strides in cleaning up the Miami program and recruiting more quality individuals, but obviously The U has regressed back to its classless self.What is really sad – I heard on ESPN radio that some organization in Miami that encourages kids to participate in sports rather than join gangs had brought 700 kids to the game that day. Probably not the kind of example they had in mind.
Matt, I hadn’t heard that about the kids at the game. That’s terrible.Lamar Thomas is a Canes TV analyst, not the FIU coach. Looks like he did lose his job. Here are his comments as the brawl was taking place:”Now, that’s what I’m talking about. You come into our house, you should get your behind kicked. You don’t come into the OB playing that stuff. You’re across the ocean over there. You’re across the city. You can’t come over to our place talking noise like that. You’ll get your butt beat. I was about to go down the elevator to get in that thing.”
Lamar Thomas was fired. He’s clearly an idiot.http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=2628184
okay, so I was a few seconds late 🙂
Coker should be fired…because he is not a good coach. Not for this incident. Get rid of the thugs on the field.
Some of the players should be suspeneded for the year, the kid who was swinging his helmet should face criminal charges for using his helmet as a weapon and the kid, no 19 i think, should be kicked off the team for good for stomping on the player FIU player who was on the ground. Coker needs to be fired as well, Butch Davis had started the clean up the U and they canned him and Coker took them to several Nat’l Championship games, but what has he done since then. Now we are starting to see what kind of kids that Coker has recruited. Coaches have a certain responsibility to make ‘real’ men out of these guys. You are taking kids from the street and giving them a hope and a future – what kind of morals are you instilling in them?
I don’t think they canned Davis. As I recall, they were in the top 5 his last year, and complained because they weren’t in the BCS title game. He left on his own for the NFL, didn’t he? Coker did well with Davis’ recruits (winning the championship his first year), but true, he hasn’t done much since. And things seem to be going downhill.They need to show “Helmet guy” and “Stomping guy” the door. They should be gone for good.And I think Coker would have been gone at seasons end anyway – because they’re not winning nearly as much these days – but I’d think this pretty much seals the deal.I heard someone (on radio, I believe) say yesterday that “you know, Davis is available.” I don’t see him returning to Miami. He cleaned it up once. Been there, done that.
I’ve never been a big Miami fan (mostly because of things like this), but I really thought Coker had a good program running there. He seems to be a classy guy. Apparently Miami will always be Miami.
Greg, I think you’re right. If I remember correctly, Davis left for the pros of his own volition. But the point is that he did clean up this program somewhat. Just a few years later, the U is as classless as ever. Cory, I’m sure Coker will turn up again somewhere. Coaches with national championships on their resumes (even if they won with another coaches players) usually aren’t unemployed very long.
It’s one thing to recruit a kid with a questionable past. But you’d think that after a few years in the collegiate setting, you’d see some growth from these kids. Instead, you get a full-on melee.
When I first saw the fight between the two football teams I was in shock. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I would never thought I would see something as violent as that on college football. Also, I may get in trouble for this comment but I have to say it. FIU deserved to get its but kicked on the field. I don’t condone violence but FIU treat their students like dirt or at least certain students. Watching Miami literally beat the crap out of them made me LMAO. They deserved every smack, kick, and punch. I am not exactly a big fan of University of Miami but that day I was cheering them on when that fight broke out. Also, the comments made by Lamar Thomas was made it that much more enjoyable. You don’t go talking all that smack in the OB. Miami just put those boys in check and the whole world had a front row seat. I wish they hadn’t fired Lamar Thomas. He told it like it was. Lamar if you ever get to read this great job. I will buy you a steak dinner and we can reminise about that game. I am over in Tampa were you use to play.