Football Works Out Early Before Floyd Blows Past
Sept. 14, 1999
By JEFF SHAIN
AP Sports Writer
CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) – The early Hurricanes get the work.
Racing to beat the effects of Hurricane Floyd’s passing, No. 8 Miamiwas onthe practice field shortly after dawn Tuesday to get in a full workout inpreparation for Saturday’s showdown against No. 3 Penn State.
“Oh man,” said tackle Robert Hall, who estimated he got four hours ofsleep before hitting the practice field at 7:30 a.m. “I didn’t do too welltoday. But I think overall we had a good practice.”
It marked the second straight day the Hurricanes adjusted their practiceschedule to account for Floyd, a massive storm looming off Florida’s Atlanticcoast.
Coach Butch Davis called an unscheduled workout for Monday afternoon,usually a day off, before giving the team an early wakeup call Tuesday.
“It’s not always easy … to take the time this morning, get up early andcome in and take this small window of opportunity with the weather and have asgood a practice as we possibly could have,” Davis said.
Though tropical storm-force winds and scattered rain arrived aroundmidday,Floyd proved to be little threat to the campus. Hurricane warnings werereducedto tropical storm warnings by late afternoon.
Davis said the Hurricanes would resume their usual practice scheduleWednesday.
“It’s tricky,” quarterback Kenny Kelly said of the changes. “You neverknow what tomorrow’s schedule is going to be. So we play and see what happenstomorrow.”
Kelly and his teammates certainly don’t seem to be fazed by hurricaneupheaval.
Last September, the threat of Hurricane Georges forced Miami into alast-minute postponement of its game against UCLA. Rescheduled for earlyDecember, Miami handed the Bruins their first loss with a 49-45 upset.
“To some extent, last year’s UCLA preparation was a little bit of adry runfor these kind of situations,” Davis said. “All of our players got anopportunity to get home last night, help their families board up if theyneededto and spend some time with them.”
If anything, the UCLA win has led to lighthearted suggestions thathurricanepostponements could be something of a secret weapon for Miami.
At last month’s kickoff luncheon, Davis joked that he and athleticdirectorPaul Dee were discussing which game on the schedule needed to be moved to theend of the season. And earlier this week, Dee referred to the firstSaturday inDecember as “our annual hurricane makeup day.”
Davis took a more serious tone Tuesday. He recalled the 1996 season, whenpreparations for a game against East Carolina were hampered by four days ofrain and lightning. Miami lost 31-6.
“It was the most atrocious weather that you’ve ever seen,” Davisrecalled.”We tried to watch film, we tried to practice in the gym, we had a halfwaysloppy practice one day, then we went back to the gym the next day.
“We got beat and I vowed then that whatever we had to do – practice at 6a.m., midnight, whatever – we were going to practice. You don’t play very wellif you don’t prepare well.”
And what would it have taken for Davis to forgo practice Tuesday?
“The National Guard dragging us off the field,” Davis said.
