Podcast they didn't play at nobody, your college football marriage of numbers and words.

Special Edition. This is Bill Connolly and I am flying solo today because I have another special episode of

the great sports city concept that I piloted last fall that I'm going to share with you here.

This time we are talking about Miami. I have a feature coming out next week about the

University of Miami and how will we know when the U is the U again and whatnot and while I was there I decided to get to know the city itself.

So consider this officially after Oklahoma City's episode last fall.

Consider this the second episode of Great Sports City.

A hundred or so years ago, Miami was a city of less than 30,000 people,

almost half of which were Bahamian immigrants or African-American laborers.

It was basically a smaller Palm Springs, albeit one very much defined by the Jim Crow South.

Like Los Angeles and a lot of other cities have exploded in population in the 1920s and by 1950 it was home to about 250,000 people

following a building boom and wartime investment and that was even before the Cuban expats began to show up.

Mine is a resort city that accidentally turned into a real city in other words and

eventually sport made its way into the landscape as well it always does. The Dolphins came into existence in

1965 played mostly like a laughing stock for a few years and then hired Don Shula

away from Baltimore and became the most consistent franchise in the NFL.

But after making the playoffs 21 times in 32 years, winning two Super Bowls, losing three others,

they've been to the playoffs just twice since, losing in the wild-car ground both times.

After nearly cancelling football, the University of Miami's football program began to mold itself

into the U, capital T, capital U, under the irrepressively gruff, Howard Schnellberger in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The Keynes won four national titles in nine seasons, briefly got wrecked by NCAA sanctions,

and then ripped off four more top five finishes in a row at the

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