The University of Miami

The University of Miami has a football team with a very appropriate name for the region. They are known as the Miami Hurricanes. The team is a member of the Division I Bowl subdivision conference known as the Atlantic Coast Conference. The football team is a fairly older team and was begun in 1926. They also have a record of being one of the most winning programs of the past 25 years. They have won five national championships in the years 1983, 1987, 1989, 1991, and 2001. Two players from the team have won the Heisman Trophy and they have the longest winning streak in the history of the NCAA with straight victories is 58 games.

The home games are played in the famous Dolphin Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. But before the present time, the team had a shaky start as far as where their home games were to be played. In 1926 work began on their temporary campus structure that was to seat 8,000 people. However, the day after the ground-breaking ceremony, a hurricane leveled most of South Florida and this put the project on a shelf. So for the next 11 years, the University of Miami played their home games in a stadium that was near Tamiami Park and also played some games at Moore Park.

Due to the storm in 1926, the new football team did not play its first game until October of that year and they won that game with a 7-0 win over Rollins. There were 304 people at the game. That season saw the team with two wins. They won a Thanksgiving Day game in Miami and then won again on Christmas Day of that year.

Their first name was the Miami "Warriors" and they kept this name until Jack Harding became the new head coach in 1937. The great coach was the Hurricanes coach from 1937-1943 and then again from 1945-1947. The reason for the 2 year gap was the same as it was for a lot of other college programs at the time. Jack Harding took a two-year break from coaching to serve for the US in World War II. When he returned to coaching it was to take the Hurricanes from the ranks of a small town college football status into the major college status. He was helped by the swelling enrollment of the University of Miami with hundreds of newly returned men from the fighting ranks of the USA as they took advantage of the new GI Bill. That first season after the end of World War II found the Hurricanes with a 9-1-1 record that included their winning the Orange Bowl that year.

The Miami Hurricanes have been blessed with a string of dedicated coaches that have given their all for the school football team. This string of coached includes Jack Harding, Andy Gustafson, Charlie Tate, Lou Saban, Howard Schnellenberger, Jimmy Johnson, Dennis Erickson, Butch Davis, and Larry Coker.

By the team's playing in their 3rd National championship in 1989 since 1983, the Hurricanes would become the collegiate Team of the 80's in a lot of people's eyes.

The thing about the Miami Hurricanes that is most striking is that not only does the team have to compete on the football field but it also has to deal with weather factors. The aftermath of the real hurricanes, such as Hurricane Andrew, would be hard for any team to overcome just once. But the Miami Hurricanes keep bouncing back after each natural disaster and appear to become stronger than ever. Maybe the saying is true about becoming stronger after that which does not kill one. At least in the case of the Miami Hurricanes that saying does seem to be true.