It's a Canes Thing

One of the mantras attached to the University of Miami football program is that "It's a Canes thing." That motto gets tossed around by fans and players alike, but rarely do outsiders stop and wonder what the meaning behind it really is.

Being a fan of this team doesn't necessarily make us special in and of itself. There is a similar level of devotion and passion for fans of most other teams around the country. What makes us different is the expectations to which we hold our program, and the belief that it is in our manifest destiny to control the college football landscape.

Whereas a program like Florida or Tennessee might be content with an SEC crown, I don't know anyone who ever counts our Big East titles amongst our accomplishments. Similarly, fans of storied programs at Notre Dame and Nebraska would like to contend for titles every year as they once did, but they gradually have become accustomed to lesser levels of success. Not here. Never here.

The University of Miami football team is a unique animal. True to its namesake, it burst upon the national landscape like a whirlwind. No program in modern history has ever matched, nor will ever match, the domination of it's competition like that of Miami's between 1983 and 1992. The sudden explosion of talent took the country by surprise, and unsurprisingly, many outside of Coral Gables were not pleased.

Over the years, the program was spun as public enemy #1 by major media outlets. Perhaps it was jealousy of our success. Maybe it was our speed-oriented defenses making traditional option-based attacks obsolete. Or maybe, just maybe, it was a long-standing, ingrained racism that still permeated throughout the nation. These cocky urban black kids were making a mockery of teams that prominently featured typical All-American corn-fed white boys.

Who knows the real reason why this team came to be hated so. Certainly the players did little to help their image on and off the field, but it's undeniable that they were singled out from a fairly large crowd of deviants. The result? Fifteen years after the end of our Decade of Dominance, this team is still labeled "Thug U" despite near spotless arrest records and admirable graduation rates. The media continues to take shots at our program for the slightest mishap, even when the team has sunk into irrelevance.

So what does it mean to be a Canes fan? Let me be so bold as to make the following analogy. We all live in a country that is misunderstood by the rest of the world. Many would replace the word "misunderstood" with "vilified". For many reasons, people can't seem to accept a relatively new nation's dominance over the rest of the world and it's established civilizations. And as Americans, we have the rooted belief that the destiny of those around us is and should be managed in part by our own actions.

Our great country certainly has had it's fair share of questionable policies and ill-fated wars. We've made more mistakes in our past than we care to count. However, even as the years go by and the impact of said mistakes begins to fade, there is almost no willingness to forgive on the part of the rest of the world. No matter what we do from here on in, the United States will always be hated for what it has done in the past.

Similarly, the Hurricanes are a relatively young program when compared to traditional powers at Michigan and USC. At best, this should have been a middle-of-the-road team that bowed before the Nebraska's and Oklahoma's of the world. Instead, the program came to define excellence on the field and in turn has become as isolated as the nation it resides in.

If you travel, people will be as likely to mock you for being a Canes fan as they are to show you disdain if you are an American in a foreign land. That isolation gives rise to the U. That "U" on our helmets signifies many things, but I believe above all it stands for Unity. Together, our players stand alone against the rest of the country. Their brotherhood is envied by those who don't have it, and shunned upon by those who don't understand it. When those kids take the field, they literally are living the "us against the world" mentality.

The bond they share as brothers is the irresistible force that compels Canes fans to devotion. It's the underlying element of Kellen Winslow's famous "All about this U" rant that nobody besides us seems to understand. There is a certain feeling of pride when you walk into the room and everyone hates you for being the very best. That is why the disappointment of recent seasons at Miami has run so deep, and why the University chose a former Hurricane to run the show. Only a man like Randy Shannon could fully appreciate what it means to be a Hurricane.

Our success has produced a unique expectation that is difficult to find anywhere else for an extended period of time. Some teams in different sports may expect a championship for limited periods of time, knowing full well that these things are cyclical. Miami is unique in that we full expect to compete for the national title every year. Anything less is unacceptable.

Do you know why it still hurts to much when thinking about the 2003 Fiesta Bowl? It's because something was taken away from us. Not just something that was earned, but something that belonged to this team. It belonged to them from the start. It belongs to them at the beginning of every season and only is relinquished to someone else when we fail to live up to our own expectations.

Call it hubris. Call it arrogance. Call it what you will. If you can't understand it, then that's probably because it's a Canes thing.