The University of Miami women’s track and field team fell one spot to No. 14 in the latest Trackwire 25 rankings released Tuesday.
The Hurricanes have four individuals and one relay ranked in their respective events by Trackwire. Junior All-American Lauryn Williams ranks third in the nation in the 60-meters while sophomore All-American Charlette Greggs ranks ninth in the 400-meters.
Miami has two freshmen jumpers ranked by Trackwire including triple jumper Tabia Charles who is ranked third, and long jumper Brenda Faluade who is ranked 11th.
In addition, the UM 4×400-meter relay is ranked fourth in the nation according to Trackwire.

When someone thinks of the key players on the women’s basketball team, Melissa Knight is not the first name that they mention.

However, Knight is a solid player on both ends of the floor and has made the ‘Canes starting five one of the best in the nation.

“With Melissa in the lineup, we don’t have any weaknesses,” Head Coach Ferne Labati said. “The starting five is all capable of getting double figures which makes it difficult to play defense against us. Our bench will come in and blend, but the starting five is very solid and Melissa has been a big part of that.”

Growing up in Philadelphia, Knight was a competitive athlete who played soccer as a child. As she got older, however, she realized that she had to make the switch to basketball.

“I played soccer my whole life until I got to high school, then newspapers and colleges started coming at me, and I knew I had to switch sports and concentrate on basketball,” Knight said.

She is not the type of player that worries about numbers. She is a team player, and her measure of success is in the number of victories that her team gets.

“I’m not worried about scoring; as long we keep winning as a team, then that’s the most success you can ask for,” Knight said. “I wanted to come and be on a team that was successful when I was here.”

Knight continues to improve as a player too. She worked hard in the off-season to improve her game so that she would be able to play a larger role this year.

“We recruited Melissa because she is a very good shooter and she’s worked very hard on her game and in the weight room to get that starting spot,” Labati said. “She wanted to start and she knew she would have to beat people out to get that spot and she did.”

Anyone who meets Knight is amazed by her personality. She is always laughing and having a good time.

“I’m goofy, everyone says that I’m goofy because I always like to have fun, I’m always smiling and I am always telling jokes,” Knight said.

She credits her sister for introducing her to basketball and her parents for their support, but there is one player that she admires on the floor.

“I wouldn’t say my game is like anybody’s, and I watch college more than the NBA, but I would say I would want to model my game after Allen Iverson because I like him as a player and he’s from Philadelphia,” Knight said.

As a junior, Knight is expecting big things for the rest of this season and beyond.

“She works hard and keeps getting better, so she is poised to be a great player for us next season,” Labati said.

As for this year, there is some unfinished business remaining, such as winning the Big East conference.

“We want to go out of the Big East with a bang,” Knight said. “Winning the Big East Championship is number one on our list, and even though we will get to the Tournament, we still want to win the Big East and go to the Final Four.”

Darren Grossman can be contacted at d.grossman@umiami.edu.

We should all be thankful for the opportunity to root for Hurricane athletics.

No, this is not merely propaganda intended to lure fans into the Convocation Center for basketball games. This is merely a reminder that if you assess our sports teams from top to bottom, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better school in the country.

The best example of Hurricane dominance would be our football team. There is no other university in the nation that would label an 11-2 season featuring an Orange Bowl victory over state-rival Florida State a “disappointment.” Oklahoma and Michigan may be elite programs, but they are not expected to win it all every year like the ‘Canes are.

The football team has come a long way from the early 1990s, when the Hurricanes were hated for being “criminals” and “thugs.” Now we are hated for the right reason (because we win all the time), leaving other programs green with envy. Every opponent the football team has treats their game against UM as the biggest of the season.

Hurricane football can be compared to Duke basketball nowadays, as college basketball fans outside of Durham, North Carolina, passionately hope that the Blue Devils lose every game. In both cases, the team is hated because it is always good. The hatred from opposing fans should be accepted as the ultimate sign of respect.

It is important to have a coach that conducts himself the way Larry Coker does. Coker is a major reason why the Hurricanes are not only great athletes, but respectable citizens as well. Character has become an important attribute for a Hurricane to have, unlike the Dennis Erickson Era, where you could get away with anything as long as your 40-meter time was under 4.5.

The Hurricanes’ dominance does not end with the football program. Our baseball team, led by another class act in Jim Morris, is a perennial College World Series contender. This year, the ‘Canes will begin the season tied with defending-champion Rice as the top team in the nation. The program recruits itself, and if you look at the rosters of professional baseball teams, a Hurricane or two generally appears.

The women’s basketball team has surprised everybody but itself this year. Before the season started, forward Shaquana Wilkins claimed that the Hurricanes were solid enough to make the Sweet 16. After their blistering start in the Big East, however, the ‘Canes are now thinking about the Final Four. Tamara James may be the best player in the Big East not named Taurasi, and the Hurricanes may have their strongest chance to beat Connecticut in years.

Most schools would be content with three athletic programs enjoying that kind of success. Miami, however, is competitive in every single sport. The men’s tennis team enters this season ranked No. 35 in the nation. The women’s tennis team usually finds itself in the NCAA Tournament. The volleyball team is only three years old, yet it has already enjoyed a 26-match win streak. The women’s track team is currently No. 14 in the Trackwire 25 rankings.

I think my point is clear. Instead of whining when the football team actually shows a little mortality and loses a game, or groaning when the baseball squad fails to sweep every single series, sit back and enjoy the ride. Go to as many sporting events as you can because when your time at UM is up and you have people asking you what is was like to go to such a dominant athletic institution, you’ll want to impress them with tales of incredible athletes and games that you were privileged enough to watch in person.

Eric Kalis can be contacted at e.kalis@umiami.edu.

The hard fought battle bore no rewards against Notre Dame as the ‘Canes (16-2, 5-2 in the Big East) were defeated 59-50 Wednesday night in the Convocation Center.

Wednesday marked the 15th meeting between the two schools. Notre Dame (12-7, 5-2) now leads the series 12-3. The ‘Canes have only had success once against the Irish in Coral Gables.

The Hurricanes were ranked No. 17 nationally and second in the Big East behind UConn coming into Wednesday’s game. They will undoubtedly drop in the national polls and vie for third place in the conference.

“Obviously we’re very disappointed with what happened tonight,” said Head Coach Ferne Labati. “We were very tentative tonight. We really didn’t play our game.”

The ‘Canes finished shooting just 37 percent overall, while the Irish managed 44.2 percent. Notre Dame was highly successful at the line, connecting on 81.8 percent of its shots.

Things didn’t look so bleak at halftime, however. The first half was close after the ‘Canes jumped out to an early lead with a Chanivia Broussard basket. Miami widened its lead to 18-11 after a Shaquana Wilkins fast break. Notre Dame was able to remain in it, but the ‘Canes finished the half still leading 28-26. Wilkins and Imani Dhahabu each had six points, while Wilkins added five rebounds. McCormick led the half with five assists and a block.

In the second half, Miami lost much of its momentum fairly quickly. A few controversial calls, coupled with a breakout game from the Irish’s Jacqueline Batteast and Megan Duffy, helped Notre Dame hold onto its lead for the remainder of the contest. UM leading scorer Tamara James finished with 12 points.

“We all had it in our minds that we were going to go out and play hard,” James said. “We just had a bad game, I mean, teams have bad games.”

Miami faces Big East rival Rutgers at 2pm on Saturday in the Convocation Center.

“We just have to go on,” Labati said. “This is just a little bit of a setback tonight but we’re going to rebound-we’re definitely going to be…ready to play on Saturday.”

Melissa Teich can be contacted at m.teich1@umiami.edu.

Over the last week, I had a chance to sit down with the football team’s Assistant Head Coach/Offensive Coordinator Art Kehoe. Kehoe currently holds the longest tenure of any UM athletics figure.

Q: Was it a good decision to interview in-house for the offensive coordinator position?

A: Everybody has his or her own ideas, but I think that’s why Larry interviewed in-house. He likes what we are doing on offense, and he likes our balance on run and pass, and what he does with different personnel groups, so it was a good decision to keep it in-house. The key to our success is we try to get the ball in everybody’s hands.

Q: Does Dan Werner getting the position create a rift between him and the other coaches who interviewed for the job, but did not get it?

A: No, we are all striving to move forward and we all have goals, but we realize we are part of a tremendous program and we are lucky to be a part of it. We have won 46 of 50 games – no one is even close to that – and we have put more people in the NFL than anyone in football and played in bigger games than anybody in football. No school has ever done four [BCS] bowl games in four years. Certainly, we are all competitive and we all wanted a shot at that job, but we have one of the best jobs in the country anyway and our No. 1 goal is to keep this thing on track.

Q: What would you say to people who argue that this last season was not a good year?

A: Every year, I find out when you have a program like UM, you tend to dwell on the negative things, the guys you don’t get recruiting, and the games you don’t win. The fumbles and the turnovers were the difference between us going to the national title game this year. So, in our off-season film study, we will concentrate on those things and on the games we lost. The reality is that this program is remarkable. We have 17 first round picks in the last four years; no team has ever had more than 11 or 12 in a four-year period.

Q: The University of Miami is in the middle of recruiting season. Can you talk a little bit about the recruiting process?

A: We are fortunate to have some of the best recruits in the country in our back yard, and we are fortunate to go out of state and get the big name players as well. We’ve done a heck of a job of recruiting and winning. The point is I know we will do well in recruiting, but the thing is people will dwell on the few guys we won’t get. That’s just the nature of the beast.

Q: What are your thoughts on the performance of Brock Berlin last season? Will he be the starting quarterback next season?

A: I think Brock Berlin struggled but it wasn’t just him, the offensive line struggled as well. We had 34 penalties in 13 games, which is disgraceful. At the minimum, we have to cut that in half and we had 14 or 15 sacks and we would like to knock that number down too. People want to blame it all on Brock, but it was his first year starting and he won’t give up his job easily. It will be an interesting battle for the position and whomever we decide on, that guy will have to be better than what we had last year, but we have a lot of areas we need to improve in.

Q: What kind of pressure does being expected to win the title put on this team every season?

A: Coach Coker tells our team every year that each season is a journey and you have to take one game at a time. The next two years we are going to have total focus of our players because we are opening with Florida State, and they are the barometer that this program is judged on. We want to try to win the state of Florida, the conference, and then the culmination is to play for the national title. If you tell your team the goal is to win the national title and you get knocked off early, you may knock your team off from accomplishing any of the goals they want to accomplish.

Darren Grossman can be contacted at d.grossman@umiami.edu.

The men’s tennis team can’t wait to get into the thick of the upcoming season. The ‘Canes are ranked No. 35 in the polls to start the season and hope they will climb higher as the season continues.

The team got off to a great start this past Sunday by defeating No. 38 Southern Methodist. Head Coach Brian Getz couldn’t have been happier with the team’s performance.

“It was a huge win for us,” Getz said. “We talked about how the first match was going to hopefully set the tone for the rest of the season and all of the guys were very well prepared, both physically and mentally.”The team is coming off several successful seasons. They have made the NCAA Tournament for seven straight years and return four players from last season’s 13-8 team.

Although the team is ranked highly to start the season, there is a noticeable difference from last year’s roster.

“There is a huge void because we lost Todd [Widom], but instead of looking at it as a negative, the guys have looked at it as a challenge,” Getz said. “Someone’s going to have to step up.”

The Hurricanes would love to be able to hold on to the title of “Big East Champion” for another year, and Getz believes they have what it takes.

“Our goal is to win the Big East title,” Getz said. “Anything less than that would be disappointing for us because we feel we have the talent to do it.”

Miami has a relatively young squad as they return four sophomores this season, in addition to freshman Josh Cohen, who has risen to No. 1 singles in his first season as a ‘Cane.

The sophomores include Eric Hechtman, John Hoyes, Colin Purcell, Tim Krebs, Jeremiah Fuller, and P.J. Passalacqua.

The tennis season is long and grueling, and it may come as a shock to a freshman like Cohen.

“I try to prepare him as much as I can; physically, I’m getting him ready,” Getz said. “But with tennis being as individual as it is, you need to take care of your own out there mentally, as our four freshmen did last year.”

One of the pitfalls of last season was that the team couldn’t stay healthy. There was always someone injured, but this season already has a different feel, as the team is healthy and ready to go.

Opening against a ranked Southern Methodist squad gave Miami a taste of how competitive this season will be. There are many matches that stick out on the schedule that the players and coaches might get up for more so than others. The ‘Canes will play the current No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the country this year.

“Anytime we play Florida State it’s a big match, for obvious reasons,” Getz said. “We play No. 1 Illinois and No. 2 Florida, but in addition we would love to leave a bad taste in Notre Dame’s mouth as we leave the Big East.”

The ‘Canes will also get a glimpse of their future, as they will face off against four ACC foes. Getz hopes that they can set a tone as they move from the Big East to the ACC after this season.

“We end our season with four of the last five matches against ACC schools, and those are huge for us not just for this year, but to set the tone for next year and the years to come,” Getz said.

The Hurricanes return to action on Friday, Jan. 30, as they host FAU at 6 p.m. at the Neil Schiff Tennis Center.

Doug Kroll can be contacted at d.kroll@umiami.edu.