Bowled Over by Dolphin Stadium

University of Miami running back Javarris James remembers sitting in the Orange Bowl stands nine years ago and watching his cousin, Edgerrin, now a star NFL player for the Arizona Cardinals, run for 299 yards in an upset of third-ranked UCLA. The younger James recalls grabbing a handful of Orange Bowl turf and basking in the victory with thousands of other ’Canes fans.

Moments like that over the last 70 years made the Orange Bowl the revered stadium that it is. The Hurricanes won three national championship games on the Orange Bowl turf and had an NCAA-record 58-game home winning streak there from 1985 through 1994. There were other memorable moments, too: a famous speech by President John F. Kennedy to Cuban exiles after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, concerts, boxing, and even Olympic soccer matches in 1996.

But now, a new era is beginning.

Starting in the 2008 season, the Hurricanes will play their home football games in the 75,000-seat Dolphin Stadium. The University agreed to a 25-year lease with the facility, which is home to the NFL’s Miami Dolphins and Major League Baseball’s Florida Marlins. The UM Board of Trustees’ 17-member executive committee approved the move on August 21. City of Miami officials had discussed with UM the prospect of more than $200 million in Orange Bowl upgrades, but that would have provided only basic and infrastructural improvements at a major taxpayer expense.

“The Orange Bowl chapter of our history, in which we can all take great pride, will never close, and we are confident that the legacy of Miami Hurricanes football will live on and thrive as we move to a new location,” says UM President Donna E. Shalala.

Dolphin Stadium is one of the NFL’s premier venues. It not only has a higher capacity than the Orange Bowl (74,916 to 72,319) but also boasts 240 suites and 10,175 club seats compared with none for the OB. It has one of the world’s largest plasma TV displays, high-definition video boards, more than 1,600 television monitors throughout the stadium, and an all-new LED ribbon board. An estimated $300 million renovation project is adding 360,000 square feet of enclosed space to the stadium, built in 1987. The stadium’s solid history of its own includes hosting four Super Bowls, the annual FedEx Orange Bowl, and the upcoming 2010 Super Bowl.

Many of the UM traditions at the Orange Bowl (“Touchdown Tommy” and his cannon, the players running through the smoke tunnel, and The Ring of Honor) will be transferred to Dolphin Stadium. “The Orange Bowl never scored a touchdown. The Orange Bowl never cheered. It was the people who were there,” says UM Athletic Director Paul Dee, M.Ed. ’73, J.D. ’77. “As long as we continue to attract to the University of Miami the finest college players and the finest coaches, as long as we’re able to attract our fans to come to our games and support those student-athletes we put on the field, we can transfer the history to a new building.”

For UM coaches, the facility will be a powerful recruiting tool. “It’s going to be a wonderful experience and a great facility for us,” says head coach Randy Shannon, who once walked the sidelines of Dolphin Stadium when he was a defensive assistant for the Dolphins in the late 1990s.

UM players are excited about the move. “A lot of the players like the idea of playing on the same field that an NFL team plays on,” says defensive end Calais Campbell.

Dee Days Coming to a Close

Athletic director Paul Dee, M.Ed. ’73, J.D. ’77, announced he will step down from the position he has held since 1993. Effective June 1, 2008, Dee will trade his post for a spot on the UM faculty, most likely in the School of Law or the sports administration program.

“Paul Dee, after 27 years of leadership in two critical positions, first as general counsel, then as athletic director, has decided to step down at the end of the next academic year,” UM President Donna E. Shalala said in a statement to the public. “I’m pleased that he will be joining the faculty and look forward to his continued wise counsel.”

Prior to joining the University in 1981 as vice president and general counsel, Dee worked for the Miami law firm of Mershon, Sawyer, Johnston, Dunwoody & Cole and was a law clerk for Chief U.S. District Judge Charles Fulton in Miami. A nationwide search for a new athletic director is under way.