I Went to a Fight and a Football Game Broke Out

This is video from last Saturday's game between the University of Miami and Florida International University. Watch it and keep an eye out for 4 guys. #24 and 26 in white (FIU), #19 in orange (Miami), and the guy swinging his helmet like a club

See them? Great players, huh? Now let's get to what really bothers me. FIU decided that they weren't going to deal with this crap from any of their players. The two who were deemed to have started to fight (24 and 26) were expelled from the university. Another handful of players were suspended indefinitely from the team for their part in the fight. On the other hand...

The University of Miami decided to suspend one player indefinitely. That's the one swinging his helmet. And #19 (who's the defensive captain, by the way), the one stomping on any opponent he can get near (and don't forget the spikes on the shoes)? He got the same suspension that all of the other suspended players from Miami got. One game. Against Duke (which is like a JV team at other schools). And that one game suspension was mandated by the Atlantic Coast Conference, not from the school. One Frikin Game! And according to the president of the University of Miami, Donna Shalala, this qualifies as a "clear message" that this conduct will not be tolerated, and that her penalties are "comparable" to those handed down by FIU. WHAT?

To be really tough, she tacked on community service so her student athletes could turn this into a "learning experience". These convicts are going to be let out into the community? They should be in jail! What's even better is that President Shalala made her terribly mild disciplinary decision without even watching the tape of the fight. She said that she wanted to rule with a level head and not get any more mad than she already was, and since she was at the game and saw what happened, she didn't need to see anymore. Obviously she is a moron. She needs to get her head out of her ass and hand down some real discipline.

The sad fact is that college football is run by money. Miami doesn't want to lose any of their players for too long. That could jeopardize their chances of making a postseason bowl which in turn makes millions of dollars for the university. So the message to these thugs in pads is that they can go out, beat someone over the head with their helmet, and it's OK.

And the ironic thing? 700 kids were invited to this game by the Miami-Dade police department. Why? It was "Join a Team, Not a Gang Night." Too bad all these kids saw was a gang fight.