The offseson forces writers into corners. Nothing doing, spring practice brewing, and program either imploding under the weight of boosters' expectations or cruising happily under the radar. Oh, or undergoing NCAA investigation, which would worry most programs if having the NCAA examine your program's practices wasn't akin to having MC Hammer audit your tax return.
One angle writers milk the hell out of in the offseason is the follow-up, since it takes little but a barn full of quotes and a few questions with the subject of the article to make a pretty little package of a story. Today's feature, though, goes a bit above and beyond the usual follow-up story, since the topic of Willie Williams never fails to attract attention-both from football fans and Miami area law-enforcement officials.
You may remember Willie from his infamous recruiting diary, published online at the Miami Herald. (We'd link to it, but sadly, they now charge $2.95 for the whole article, which would put us 12 bucks out for the whole thing. Would really cut into our online porn budget...)
The diary disclosed that, among other things:
-Recruits get a lot of steak and lobster thrown their way.
-Recruits get a lot of women thrown their way.
-Larry Coker greets prospective recruits in a white Cadillac Escalade.
-Larry Coker can do this with a straight face.
It really was superb work, high on the Bill Simmons' scale of Unintentional Comedy. Willie concluded the tour de force by actually getting arrested during the recruiting tour he was chronicling, not just on one but a slew of counts involving a bar fight, setting off fire extingushers, and hugging a woman against her will. This brought his total up to 11, all accomplished before he ever enrolled at a university and most involving petty theft.
Looks like Willie's been stealing something else this offseason: the hearts of Miami fans and teammates! (Cue groan.) Here's the follow-up on Willie and how's he's working hard to overcome his, uh..."stealing stuff and beating people up problem." Congrats to the AP beat writer who copped a free trip to Miami and per diem off this: it's your world, we're just living in it.