Some of you may have heard by now about the UofMiami vs FIU Brawl. Some of you may have heard about the suspensions they levied out. Then the updated suspension (one whole addendum for Miami). What some of you may not have heard are the comments by the University.
Evidently, a brawl in Football that involved nearly the entire team is good for one whole game of suspension. Of course, for Miami, the next game is against Duke, so there's a good chance they'll win regardless. The next game? Not so much an easy ride, so maybe they need those players back. One game suspension it is. Miami president Donna Shalala
calls the penalty fair. Now if I were you I'd be worried.
In baseball even, suspensions tend to last 3-5 games for brawls. And this is coming from baseball, which didn't even suspend people for being on steroids a few years ago! Now, you might be thinking (although misguidedly), heck, those guys are adults, they're professionals, they're supposed to be able to handle it yada yada yada. Yeah, except when Albert Haynesworth stomped on Gurode's face a week ago the five-game suspension levied against him was considered outrageously short. He might be out of a job now because of it (the Titans are possibly going to cut ties) and if he does end up being cut, there's a decent chance he won't even find another job in the NFL.
Apparently at the University of Miami, stomping on someone is good for a one-game suspension (reports point to at least one player having done so, although apparently not quite as effectively as Haynesworth, which sort of means something, and yet doesn't really, as if someone shoots at you and misses with a gun you're not going to want the punishment to rest on whether he hit you or not). The claim is that 'standards have been set' over there, but it looks like some eerie precedent of "hey you, reserve lineman, sitting on the end of the bench, come over here, son. I want a word with you." Followed by "I'm putting you in the game... the next time the runningback comes near you, beat the living daylights out of him. Don't worry we'll only suspend you for one game."
Wonder how many teams are going to want to play Miami next year after all the stuff they've done
this year. FIU's not much better, but at least they dismissed players...
