Tracking proCanes - John Routh - Part IV



Part IV: John’s talks about the Ibis’ pipe, being hit by a bullet in New Orleans, Randy Shannon and the current state of the program and much more! Click here to read Parts I, II and III.

pC: You were there when the Ibis had the pipe, what is you’re feeling on that change?
JR: I got blamed for it and I didn’t do it! It was late the ‘80s or early ‘90s with all the political crap and stuff going on and I was approached, because the costume didn’t have that. The one before me did, the ones in the 70’s with the papier-mâché head. So someone from the bookstore came to me and said we’ve been approached by the cancer society or somebody and would there be a way to get rid of the pipe and I said well I don’t carry a pipe on the field so whatever ya’ll want to do. So it wasn’t my decision but once they made a decision the New Times wrote an article and interviewed someone at the bookstore that said well John Routh said…and I didn’t do it! I just said do whatever y’all want to do. And I just got blamed for it. I still have a friend that blames me saying you got rid of my pipe and my bandage.

Well I put the bandage back on it in my last game at the Sugar Bowl against Alabama because I got shot the night before in New Orleans.

pC: You got shot?
JR: Oh yeah, walking around on Bourbon Street. It was out of costume. We had done the Hurricane Club New Years Eve party so I was walking with some cheerleaders and Sunsations and we were going to go to Jackson Square because they do the fireworks at midnight. So walking down the first block of Bourbon Street, BAM! I felt this sting and what they realized was about a mile from the Quarter in the Ninth Ward that everybody learned about after Katrina, at some housing projects, somebody had gotten up on the roof and shot some AK 47s’ towards the Quarter. And we were walking in the street doing the fight song and I had one of those little New Year’s Eve things and I was at the back of the group. I had my head to the side and it came in right here (pointing to the side of his head above his eye) and exited here (pointing to side of his head a little lower) and grazed my shirt and I had a red stripe.! I never went down. One of the Sunsations turned around and started screaming so a couple of others
stopped and there were some police there on the first block of Bourbon Street where there was a Woolworth’s and they had a mirror. So the cop goes ‘sit over on the car’ and he has a towel and he says ‘well we got our first one’ and I’m like first what? It’s twenty minutes to 12, and he’s like ‘we’ve got our first gun shot victim’ and says look insert wound, exit wound and that’s when I noticed I had the mark and found the ak47 slug. By the time I got to the hospital there were two or three other Miami fans that had gotten shot. One was sitting at a table and it went through the table and another one apparently it hit off of her chair and went into her spleen and she was in pretty bad condition. I never heard of the tradition of shooting bullets at New Year ’s Eve and I come back to Miami and find that I have a bullet in my pool from South Miami. The next night was the Championship Game and I put a bandage on the outside of the costume. Before the game I’m walking around on the field with a bandage on my face and Bob Graham, the AP reporter says you’re not working the game tonight are you? And I got the quote of the week in Sports Illustrated, I said: “it’s gonna take a hell of a lot more than a bullet hole in the head to keep me out of this game!” And unfortunately we lost the game, but Sports Illustrated made a comment about how I got shot the night before. That was my last game, we had a 29 game winning streak going into it.

pC: What do you think about the move to Land Shark Stadium?
JR: Certainly I would have loved for us to stay in the Orange Bowl but not in the condition that it was in. That’s one thing that I think that the city and the county really screwed up because it was such a great place but on the other hand in this day in age where comfort seems to be a key I now don’t have to worry about my car getting blocked, although sometimes it can take between 30 to 45 minutes to get out of there but I like Land Shark Stadium. Having worked there for 10 years, I know it well. It’s kind of like being on a cruise ship at the club level. I hope over the years that we will draw fans from up north and I hope it becomes as dominating a place as the Orange Bowl. I used to sit at the end zone particularly when the other team was coming down in the west end zone and when they were coming in I could literally feel the ground shaking as fans stomped there feet. There is no other place like the Orange Bowl, but unfortunately as years went on and because the city and county didn’t put the money in it to fix it up they had to move. We could talk about this issue for hours, but I hope Land Shark Stadium will prove to be a good home. The key is getting the talent and Randy [Shannon] is doing a great job.

pC: What do you think about the current state of the team?
JR: I think things are really looking up. He’s got a ton of talent coming in and we have a ton of talent there. Even the year before last when we went 5 and 7, 5 of the games we lost by a touchdown or less. The game against Virginia was an aberration. I think we’re close and certainly next year’s schedule will be a tough start if we could start 2 and 2 or 3 and 1, then you never know.

pC: What do you think about the job Randy is doing?
JR: I think he’s doing a great job recruiting wise and the one thing that others say is that the image is cleaned up. And I always thought the image thing was a joke. It never has been as bad as people make it out to be. But Randy has done a good job of getting good quality kids in the program as well as good talent. I think we could be one season away from the title. If we start 3 and 1 we could be back in hunt.

We’re close. Miami fans are used to competing for the championship every year. We’re spoiled. From ‘83 to ‘95, Dennis’ last game we played for the National Championship against Nebraska. We won 4 titles but we had a chance to win 5 or 6 others and that’s just unheard of. Even Notre Dame in its greatest years, Army in its greatest years, Oklahoma in their greatest years, never did what we did over a twelve year span plus winning 58 home games [in a row]. All the numbers were there. And we really did get spoiled, particularly when you think about it coming a heartbeat away from having the program disbanded in the 70’s. In looking at the facilities, I came from South Carolina which was a state school that has tons of money. Even back in the 80’s their facilities are comparable to what Miami has now. And that’s the miracle of Miami, how we did it with so little to back up with what happened on the field.

pC: Leon Searcy described the weight room back then being smaller than an Applebee’s.
JR: We had the baseball players come in at 6 and track at 7. It was so small. And even though we were spoiled because of the 80’s you’ve got to realize what a miracle it was. If we had had state dollars like Florida or Florida State, imagine what we could have done!

pC: Word Associations, Give me the first thing that pops in your head when you read the following: 
Randy Shannon: Class.
Larry Coker: Very nice guy
Orang Bowl: Greatest stadium ever.
Land Shark Stadium: Getting there.
Dennis Erickson: Good friend.
Coral Gables: Great city.
Fiesta Bowl: Uh, do I have to go there?
Ohio State: Hate them.
Jimmy Johnson: Silence…… I’m trying to think of a word…. I want to say class…but
Sebastian the Ibis: A lot of fun times.
Maniac: A lot more fun times.
Ron Fraser: Greatest guy in the world.
Tad Foote: Nice man
Shalala: A go getter.
Bobby Bowden: Good ole Boy.

I want to go back to Jimmy Johnson. He was innovative, because of some of the things he did. He changed college football by taking an offensive back and beefing him up and making him a linebacker. Jimmy changed college football by doing that. That’s why we beat Nebraska all the time because they had those big fat guys on the line and we had guys like Greg Mark and Russell Maryland and Cortez Kennedy who was fast for a 290 pounder.

pC: What was the worst away stadium experience? Toughest place to be the Ibis? FSU?
JR: Actually no, FSU wasn’t bad at all because we beat them all the time and they knew we were gonna beat them. Florida Field was tough only because they were just obnoxious as hell. I only went to it once and it was in ‘86 and they threw ice and the fans were just obnoxious as hell. That’s the thing. We went to so many places and just kicked so much butt back then! That was one of the things, talking about how the locker room was quiet, we went in knowing we were going to win. Like LSU, we went there I think we were 1 or 2 and they were 3 or 4, everyone was talking about Death Valley and how tough that was and we got off the bus and some 80 year old woman yelling ‘we’re gonna kick your f****** ass!’ And I was like oh boy, and we just went out and kicked their ass. And we knew we were going to win, we just had this attitude that we were going to win. Even when we went to tough places it didn’t seem that tough.

pC: Nortre Dame?
JR: No because my first year doing football in ‘84, we went up there and beat them 35 to 13, I think it was. Alonso Highsmith ran I think for 4 touchdowns and maybe it was a tad of arrogance but we just knew we were so good that we could just go anywhere.

We played at Michigan in ‘87, which was the game with the crazy comeback. Funny story about that. I was changing in the room where Jimmy was going to be interviewed after the game and Rich our SID (Sports Information Director) came out with about 8 to 10 min left and I had my little radio there and was listening to the local broadcast and they had just punted to us with 7 min and 9 seconds left and Rich goes ‘John you might as well pack your stuff up because we’re gonna use this room for Jimmy’s interview.’ I said, “Rich this game ain’t over” and he says, ‘John come on’ and I said, “Nah it ain’t over.” As I’m walking down the tunnel, Father Leo is standing at the end of the tunnel and he goes ‘John why don’t you just call it a day, this one is over.’ And I said “Leo you’re the first person I’m gonna hug when we win the game.” I just had that attitude. Even though there were seven minutes to go and we were down 16 points, when Carlos Huerta kicked the field goal, I was under the goal post to signal it and I went charging across the field and Leo came out and he gave me a hug at the edge of the field. We just had that attitude that we couldn’t get beat so I really don’t remember fearing going in anywhere.

pC: Who did you feel then was our biggest rival?
JR: FSU, because, even though, like Bobby Bowden says there gonna put on my tombstone, “but at least he played Miami” those were the games. I was under the goal post for Wide Right I and a lot of friends of mine that were at Hooligans couldn’t tell but as soon as they saw me waving my arms, they knew. I was standing there, the ref always stands right under the goal post and the look on his face as he looks at the other guy like I can’t believe he missed it. He had this look of how did he miss that chip shot? So, I went charging out to the front.

pC: So FSU?
JR: Yeah because of the high intensity, because if you won that game you had a chance at the National Championship. That’s why I made a “State Champs” sign and as everybody said you’ve got to win the State of Florida to win the National Championship. That’s really the way it turned out. And the Gators really weren’t in the picture then. It was Miami and FSU.

Click here to read Parts I, II and III.

We at proCanes.com would like to thank John Routh for being so gracious with his time to do this very insightful interview for our new feature "Tracking proCanes." We would also like to thank JC Ridley for his help in tracking down photos of John as the Ibis. You can see more of JC’s photos at www.caneshooter.com and follow his blog at jcridley.blogspot.com.

Click here to check out our past interviews with Leon Searcy, Steve Walsh, Frank Costa and more!


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