Hurricanes Beginning The Trek Back To Normalcy
Oct. 26, 2005
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – The sixth-ranked University of Miami football team is with the rest of South Florida, slowly getting back to its normal day-to-day routine. Many of the coaches and student-athletes are still without power or water and all have been inconvenienced by Hurricane Wilma in some way. But while their off-field lives are still not quite back to normal, preparation for the North Carolina Tar Heels on Saturday offered some sort of familiarity.
Head coach Larry Coker and the Hurricanes are hoping that their matchup against North Carolina will help the rest of South Florida get back to normalcy as well.
“I don’t want to overstate the importance of our football program,” Coker said. “South Florida is important to us and I think we’re a big part of South Florida. We hope people can enjoy a break from the monotony of all the terrible things that have happened. You see so much on the news that is so depressing. All you see is everything down and the destruction. Hopefully, for a few hours, people can enjoy some Hurricane football.”
The normal sounds of campus life were absent with classes at the University halted until next Monday, but the team still practiced early Wednesday afternoon under clear and cool skies at the Greentree Practice Fields. What would have been a full day of waiting for power and water to return to their homes was replaced by football for the players on Wednesday. They were asked by Coker to be at the Hecht Athletic Center a 7 a.m., no small task given that there was no electricity to power alarm clocks.
“(The players) asked, `Coach, how am I going to wake up? There is no electricity’ I told them to wake up and get here,” Coker said. “They all woke up and got here. That’s a tribute to them.”
Preparation will continue Thursday afternoon for the noon kickoff Saturday at the Orange Bowl.
“We’ve responded pretty well,” Coker said. “There are obviously a lot of distractions. There are a lot of coaches and players without power, but they’ve dealt with it well. We’ve practiced well the last couple of days and guys have been here to work. That’s all we can ask them to do.”
