ESPN's 30 for 30: The "U" by Billy Corben

"It's all about the 'U'!"

An inescapable phrase while living in sunny Miami, Florida.  I grew up here through the 80's and 90's, and trust me, I knew all about the Miami Hurricanes.  My fifth grade teacher, Mr. Randall, had University of Miami posters all over his class room.  Personally, I was a Florida State University fan (and went there from '98 to '03), and while most kids were cheering for Randall Hill and Gino Torretta, I was watching Charlie Ward and Tamarick Vanover.

Of course, I was still a young kid and really didn't understand what all of it meant and stood for.

The "U" by Billy Corben, which was shown last night at Miami City Hallin Coconut Grove was nothing short of fantastic.  Corben, who is best known for another Miami documentary, Cocaine Cowboys, put together an "honest and accurate," according to Howard Schnellenberger, portrayal of the birth and growth of Miami Hurricane football program.

It trails back through the years, showing Miami's horrible history of racial tension and what a predominant local, ghetto, poor, and black football team did to bring a city together to root for the city's team of bad boys.

There were great moments of achievement, such as winning 5 national championships or the briefest moment of showing a 74% graduation rate; and also showing the low moments in the program's history, such as a game versus the University of California where they dirty danced and showboated their way into national villainy.

There were also other notable moments, such as local South Florida writer, radio host, and personality Dan LeBatard saying, "Randy Shannon was not the first black Head Coach of the University of Miami, Jimmy Johnson was," or the "fatigues game" versus Penn State, or the rivalry with Notre Dame.

Eventually everything is wrapped up with the Financial Aid scandals of 1995, and the recent destruction of the Orange Bowl.  Corbin makes the point that The "U" is in the hearts of the players and the fans, and in the "State of Miami" (the areas of Dayton Beach west to Tampa and all the way south).

After the screening of the film, director Billy Corben answered questions along with several University of Miami players including Randall Hill and Lamar Thomas.  Edgerrin James was in the audience at one point, but had left earlier.

They fielded several questions but there were several things that I was curious about, but didn't get a chance to ask.

The film subtly hinted at the extremely racial undertones of the entire situation, but I felt it wasn't addressed as much as it needed to be.  Not only was College Football a sport that was completely surprised by the behaviors of ghetto blacks, but College Football is a sport of Southern Whites, probably only second to NASCAR.

For example, the dominant teams of the sport are University of Texas, University of Alabama, University of Florida, Florida State University, Notre Dame, and Tennessee.  Except for USC, most big name College Football programs are located in the deepest of all Southern States or in the heart of the Midwest, like Michigan or Ohio State.

I couldn't even image what their reaction must have been when they saw a team of black men from Overtown and Liberty City.  Remember, there was barely even hip-hop music in existence, much less rap.  And those were underground movements, nothing even remotely close to receiving any national attention.

The film even shows a game in which the players walk off a plane to play at the Cotton Bowl, and they're handed a gift bag with a bale of cotton in it.  Maybe I wanted to have the obvious stated, but handing gift bags with bales of cotton to a group of young ghetto black kids, who were raised in an environment of race riots, was horrendously insensitive.

But, more than that, these men overcame those situations in their own way, by including their own cultural identity through dancing and celebrations, and did it in a dominating fashion.

I really wanted to know if they felt that sports had moved forward from that point?  Chad "Ochocinco" Johnson and Terrell Owens are two NFL football players that are constantly the focus of sports media judgement for their dancing and celebration, which is a part of black sports culture.  Or the fact that Michael Vick went to jail for taking part in dog fighting, another indictment of black culture (my counter argument being that Deer Hunting, which is more prominent with whites, doesn't even get a brief mention for "animal cruelty").

Additionally, I was curious about how they felt about general racist policies of the NCAA which were addressed in the film through Uncle Luke's "pay-for-play"money schemes, where he financially rewarded players for making good plays.  Of course, as Uncle Luke hints at in the film, he mainly instituted the scheme to counteract NCAA policy that "student athletes" only receive enough money for tuition, books, housing, 3 meals a weekday, and $30 for weekend meals from Universities as part of playing football for the school.

For more affluent students, they turn to Mommy and Daddy for things like clothes, spending money, or whatever else they need.  Or sometimes they even get jobs to make up the difference in money.

The kids coming out of Liberty City, Overtown, and many of the other neighborhoods that fueled the University of Miami's football program into national prominence, couldn't really turn to Mommy or Daddy for spending money, and even worse, as addressed by Bennie Bladesin the film, some students even had their own children that they had to raise while being fulltime students and fulltime football players.

Generally, it can be summed up that the white administration, personified by school President Edward T. "Tad" Foote II, sure loved the money the blacks brought in, but didn't quite so much like the culture that came along with it.  Which is also seen currently in the NFL and NBA.

The other question I would've liked the players to have answered was how they handled academics.  At FSU, I personally saw and knew about some academic cheating that went on with football players.  On the other hand, from everything the movie showed, the University of Miami didn't exact hold an "athletes first" policy.

Again, these are black men from the ghetto being thrust into a University that prides itself in being a top level academic college.  Other "football factory" schools, tend to have obscenely low graduation rates of their athletes, while also having the occasional academic scandal.  Florida State, again, being a good recent example of that.

To my knowledge, the only scandals that the University of Miami was involved in had to do with helping keep these men in school and making their lives easier while attending so that they could afford to do something as basic as eat or buy a new pair of jeans (because otherwise they wouldn't be able to).

Overall, this film was an enlightening experience.  Any single Miamian raised here through the 80's and early 90's has to watch this film.  It will probably make all those little things about Miami make a lot more sense.  I'd even be willing to say that those teams had a greater impact on Miami than most people are willing to admit.  Look around you, and even at yourself, and I'd be willing to bet you'd see a whole lot of swagger wherever you look.

UPDATE:  I forgot to mention, but really wanted to, the score for the film was done by up and coming Miami record label, Honor Roll Music (home of Awesome New Republic), who were featured last year in a New York Times article about the Miami music scene.

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Tags: The "U" by Billy Corben

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 7th, 2010 at 6:24 am and is filed under Counter-Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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