Podcast: Miami baseball heads to regionals, Coker’s up for the HOF and recruiting begins
The summer is almost here and a long offseason for the Miami Hurricanes is on the horizon, but first it’s time for a surprisingly busy couple of weeks to finish the spring.
The baseball team is ready to start the NCAA tournament Friday in Gainesville. The football staff is hard at work recruiting after a 15-month dead period ended Tuesday. Estela Perez-Somarriba wrapped up one of the most storied careers in Miami history — regardless of sport — by reaching the women’s singles championship for the second season in a row on May 28. Some former Hurricanes are even in the news with Ken Dorsey, Bryant McKinnie and Larry Coker all up for the College Football Hall of Fame as part of a list of finalists announced Thursday.
It means it’s time for a pre-summer grab bag on a new episode of the Eye on the U podcast. David Wilson and Susan Miller Degnan, the Miami Herald’s Hurricanes beat writer, take you through all the news around the athletic department as another school year comes to a close.
We start things off with the Hall of Fame and its continuing consideration of players from the greatest college football team of all time. Dorsey, a two-time Heisman Trophy finalist, is no surprise. McKinnie, one of the best offensive linemen of the 2000s, isn’t, either. Instead, we make the case for Coker, whose brief career in Coral Gables had an unceremonious ending, but only after an incredible start to his coaching career.
Next up is baseball, which could be reaching the final days of an eternally frustrating season. Miami heads up to Florida Ballpark as the No. 2 seed in its region and any outcome is in play. A quick exit seems just as likely as a run to super regionals.
To close things out, we hit on a little bit of recruiting before wrapping up with an appreciation of Perez-Somarriba, who came back to South Florida for one final season with the Hurricanes after the COVID-19 pandemic cut short her senior year and came up just short in her national title defense. She will be a Miami Hall of Famer one day, without a doubt.
This story was originally published June 4, 2021 at 7:00 AM.
