WHITLOCK BLASTS OPEN THE DOOR

Moments after I read a brutally honest and necessary column by Jason Whitlock of FoxSports.com, I opened my emails to see that my friend Mike had read it, too. He sent me a link to the column and a simple note of "Amen". Which is eerie, because that's the exact word I'd uttered to myself upon having finished reading it.

Here's Whitlock's column, in case you have yet to read it.

Who killed Sean Taylor and why is unknown to us at this point. But the fact that Taylor is a Miami Hurricane is both ironic and symbolic. The Miami Hurricane program is to college football what hip hop has been to popular music, and this isn't about it being a good thing or a bad thing. But it is a cultural thing.

The Canes' rise during the 1980s was embossed by victories over two of the oldest and accomplished (read: whitest) programs in the history of college football: Nebraska and Notre Dame. On January 1, 1984, the upstart Hurricanes beat Nebraska, 31-30, in the Orange Bowl in one of the very best football games ever played. But it was more than that. It was a changing of the guard.

Miami was a commuter school. Its players were loud and brazen and, yes, intimidating. Two seasons later the Hurricanes swamped Notre Dame, 58-7, the second-worst loss in school history. Gerry Faust was already out as Irish coach by then, but that game was the nadir of Notre Dame football in the post-World War II era.

With those victories, and subsequent ones over Oklahoma, the brash and, let's not forget, highly talented, Hurricanes introduced college football to an entirely new culture. Miami, like many of the black athletes who peopled its roster, had no history of which to speak. So when the Hurricanes walked into the Big House or Notre Dame Stadium, they were not awed. They did not speak in hushed or reverent tones. Instead, the Canes just walked in and kicked ass.

And they were even scarier in their own 'hood, the Orange Bowl, where they won 58 consecutive games over a ten-year span.

What's all this have to do with Sean Taylor? Maybe nothing. But Miami's impact upon college football has been no different than hip-hop's on popular culture. Miami was the first school--or first Division I-A school, I should say--where black players could be black. You could talk smack at Miami, and your head coach wasn't going to admonish you for showing up your opponent. You could showboat and that was okay, as well. You could show up to a pre-Fiesta Bowl cookout in fatigues and equate the game to war and then walk out on that cookout and, well, if Tom and Martha in Iowa didn't understand what that was all about, forget those crackers.

Of course, none of the Miami image--the fatigues; Luther Campbell on the sidelines, paying out rewards for great hits; the 7th Floor Crew, etc.--would have mattered if the Canes were not an excellent football team. Which, over the past 23 years, they have been more often than not. It's not just the outstanding talent that has strutted onto the field at the O.B.--just a partial list would include Michael Irvin, Bennie Blades, Michael Barrow, Warren Sapp, Ed Reed, Willis McGahee, Jeremy Shockey, Clinton Portis, Edgerrin James, Dan Morgan, Ray Lewis, Russell Maryland, Cortez Kennedy, etc., etc., etc.--in that era. It was their confidence that blew you away. Miami was never, ever meek.
The Hurricanes never backed down from a fight, figurative or literal. And as the years passed even the most traditional and/or racist college football fans would have to grudgingly give Miami--to use a term that wasn't around before Miami became "The U"--its props. And let's allow that Miami has long been a "black thing". The famed 1988 game at Notre Dame, which was dubbed "Catholics vs. Convicts"? Wasn't that just a euphemism for "Whites vs. Blacks"? Sure, the Irish were led by an African-American quarterback that day--and all season--but only Miami played football as expressively as Run D.M.C. belted out "Walk This Way."

None of which is to blame Sean Taylor for his own murder. Nobody knows what happened. But what you see a lot in Miami football is a lot of what Whitlock, in his essay, either explicity writes about or implies in his essay. Believe it or not, there are college football fans who have grown up having never known a pre-Hurricane world. They do not realize that players never used to believe that "everyone was disrespecting us" before a big game. That there was a time when cornerbacks and wide receivers didn't treat every minor triumph as if they'd just won the Super Bowl.

That all began with Miami. Heck, if Miami had never come along--though it would have, somehwere-- we wouldn't have an "excessive celebration" penalty. Whitlock, in his essay, talks about black culture in a sense being cannibalistic. That black-on-black violence is out of control, and that maybe Sean Taylor's death will propel the African-American community to at last face that fact and rise up against what Whitlock calls "the black KKK."

I'm a white man living in the largest urban area in the country. I don't know everything about black culture, but I live in New York City and I follow big-time athletics for a living, and so what I'm about to write may not be politically correct, but tell me if it isn't factually correct: by and large, what I observe among too many young black males is a grasp for self-esteem that wasn't nurtured in them as children. The bling, the guns, the smack-talk, the misogyny--all aspects that are celebrated frequently in hip-hop music--emanate from a feeling of powerlessness. You don't see white athletes thumping their chests--well, you didn't used to, but now so many young white people want to be black that you do see that.

All of it, to me, stems from insecurity. From a need to be recognized. You will reckon with me, they seem to be proclaiming. The reasons for all of this go all the way back to the slave ships, of course, and I don't have the time, nor the educational background, to explain all of the reasons behind that attitude here. But what you see on the street--the over-arching priority of not being disrespected; the urge to flaunt your wealth or whatever else you have going for you; the complete absence of self-deprecation or humility--is exactly what you saw at Miami.

Is it a coincidence that not a few Miami players have been involved in violent deaths, two of whom have been victims in the past thirteen months? That the greatest hip-hop stars of the past decade, Tupac and Biggie, were murdered violently, their homicides never solved, and that quite likely the shooting deaths of Hurricanes Bryan Pata and Sean Taylor may never be solved? Maybe.

On Wednesday Jalen Rose and Marcellus Wiley appeared on ESPN2's "First Take", and both talked about how big-time athletes are targets. But c'mon. We don't really believe that. I don't. Big-time African-American athletes who live the P Diddy lifestyle are targets. Peyton Manning isn't a target. Tom Brady isn't a target. They may be famous and have the same problems other celebrities such as George Clooney or Lindsey Lohan have in terms of privacy, but they aren't targets. Mostly because they did not grew up in environments where many of their African-American teammates did, have not been exposed to the same people or situations.

And this isn't strictly a black-or-white issue. There was an outstanding feature on HBO's "Inside the NFL" last Wednesday about the Jones brothers, running backs Thomas (Jets) and Julius (Cowboys). The Jones were raised by a pair of utterly devoted parents, their mom a coal-miner, in the predominantly white (and poor) town of Big Stone Gap, Virginia. Thomas graduated from Virginia and Julius from Notre Dame, as you probably know. The Jones--the parents, two sons and five sisters--are a close-knit family and all seven kids even made a written pact to stay in touch with one another at least once a week as grown-ups.

Listening to Thomas and Julius speak, it became evident how little they needed to thump their chests. How apparent it was to them that they owe their success not only to themselves but to the people who provided for them. Watching it all, there was only one answer that was obvious: the difference was love. They knew they were loved as children, and it shows in how they behave as adults.

When the piece on the Jones brothers ended, HBO cut to the studio where Costas, Carter, Collinsworth and Marino were seated. Collinsworth, who I agree with only when I'm breathing, was the first to speak: "All's I can say," said Collinsworth, "is let's hear it for parents getting it done."

Exactly.