'Demeaning' recording credited to Miami athletes

ChiTownBull · November 17, 2005

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=2226701

A 2-year-old profanity-laced recording that denigrates women and minorities surfaced on the Web on Tuesday, putting the University of Miami's athletic department on the defensive about its image.

Miami's carefully cultivated image as a school well-past the days that earned it the reputation as a program lacking institutional control may have taken a blow when the rap song, which sources told ESPN.com includes the voices of several football players, surfaced on the Internet.

A group calling itself the 7th Floor Crew -- the name reportedly comes from the seventh floor of the Mahoney Residential College, campus housing at Miami -- made a recording referencing multiple acts of group sex, derogatory terms for women and minorities and dozens of curse words that lasts approximately 9 minutes. School officials say the song was recorded two years ago, but that seems to offer little solace.

"The Athletic Department has been made aware of a private audio recording made two years ago by students in a residence hall, some of whom were student-athletes," athletic director Paul Dee said Wednesday night in a statement through the school's sports information department. "The content of the recording is unfortunate, inappropriate and demeaning. This speech is not appropriate and does not reflect the values of the University or the Athletic Department.

"While the recording was made privately, it was not intended for public distribution or use. To be clear, the University and the Athletic Department disapprove of the content and its references. To those who may hear this material, we apologize. Any students whose voices can be identified will be subject to appropriate discipline and/or counseling."

Kyle Munzenrieder, a Miami student and author of the blog Miamity.com that published a report on the song, identified at least one of the members of the 7th Floor Crew as a current football player.

"I live on the 6th floor, and have good friends on the 7th floor, and those two floors are where a lot of football players live," Munzenrieder wrote ESPN.com in an e-mail Wednesday night. "The song really isn't indicative of the attitude of the current football players, and the 7th floor isn't some sort of hedonistic fantasy dorm zone."