The playbook used by NCAA football champions Miami Hurricanes was stolen and
sections were posted on the Internet but rival coaches hoping for a quick
peek at the schemes were out of luck. The site was pulled down “to avoid
future prosecution by certain universities.”
According to a report in the Miami Herald, thieves stole the team’s
playbooks last month and returned most of the 150 pages in manila envelopes.
But, once the school ran a search on the Web, it found scanned pages of the
touted “Sandman’s 4-3 Defense On-Line” at the site.
The site has since been pulled down but a google’s cache of the
www.padirectory.com/43defense/ site shows the links to the stolen playbook
was “dedicated to the modern 4-3 defense.”
“The purpose of this site is to both gather and share information about the
widely used, modern 4-3 defense. If you have a 4-3 playbook that you would
be willing to donate, please e-mail me to exchange addresses,” the site’s
unidentified owner posted.
However, once the police got involved, the following note appeared at the
Public Trading section of the site : “To avoid future prosecution by certain
universities, the trading page has been OFFICIALLY CLOSED on 3/29/02. This
is very unfortunate because I have always felt that the coaching profession
has always been based on a sharing of schemes and instructional information,
for the benefit of the athletes and athletics. However, some of the
universities don’t feel the same way.”
Attempts to contact the owner by e-mail Thursday morning were unsuccessful.
The university declined comment to the Miami Herald and cops said they had
no suspects in the case.