This is a story I should've gotten to about a week ago, but its newsworthy nonetheless. Robert Marve you may remember, played Quarterback for Miami. In 2007 he red-shirted after a car accident broke his arm. In 2008, Marve got the chance to start. He started 11 ball games throwing 9 TD's and 13 INT's. The two games he didn't play were the season opener and the Emerald Bowl against Cal, both games he was suspended for. Throughout the season Marve split the quarterbacking duties with true freshman Jacory Harris. As the season went on it looked more and more evident that the QB for Miami in 2009 would be Harris, who had improved immensely after being in the program for just one season. Couple that with Marve's car accident and poor academics that forced him out of the Emerald Bowl, it looked like a no brainer to make Jacory the guy.
As word spread to the Miami coaching staff that Marve had been in contact with other schools about transferring, Miami Head Coach Randy Shannon didn't take to kindly to Marve. When Marve finally requested his release from Miami, Shannon was harsh.
Instead of placing the usual restrictions on Marve that he couldn't transfer inside of the ACC, Shannon did that and added that he couldn't transfer anywhere in the state of Florida or in the SEC. These type of restrictions were rather unprecedented so it was at this time Marve's father, Eugene, would bring his complaints to the public. Eugene Marve who is suffering from prostate cancer stressed to 790 The Ticket's Dan LeBetard that they needed their son to stay close to home because his illness. Eugene continued to stress that this in no way was a ploy for sympathy from the people of Miami or the University but, he just wanted to let the people know that facts of the situation.
After Miami began getting negative publicity for being so strict on where Marve could transfer, they decided to modify the restrictions they had placed. They said if he wanted to stay in state, he could transfer to South Florida or Central Florida. If he wanted to go to the SEC he could do that, but he couldn't attend LSU, Florida, or Tennessee because those were schools Miami believed he had talked to during the season.
Marve is a Tampa native so USF seemed like a logical decision. They play in the Big East, its close to home since USF is in Tampa, and it offered him the chance to start because they were losing their QB to graduation after this year. Marve has to sit this season out anyway due to NCAA transfer rules.
Marve however last week announced he will attend Purdue. Purdue, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, is not all that close to home. Purdue is a better school than USF and has a much better history of getting players to the NFL than USF (Drew Brees and Kyle Orton each played at Purdue). Now, if Marve's family decided it would be best for him to attend Purdue because it was his best choice is one thing. However, the entire song and dance about Marve needing to be close to home didn't hold very much weight at the end of the day with Marve's family. Miami has been left frustrated since they drew so much negative attention for being unfair to a player they felt wasn't fair to them.
In no way do I want to make Eugene Marve's illness sound not serious, because it is. But if him not being close to home wasn't that important, than why bring it up? In the end it was just a bunch negative publicity for both parties and something that could've been easily avoided.
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