Brave men are leading Iowa and Georgia Tech teams in Miami

MIAMI -- If anyone on Fox's broadcast of next Tuesday's Orange Bowl tries to tell you someone did something courageous on the playing field, laugh at them.

If you want to see some bravery, check out the Miami-Dade Police Department officers who form rolling motorcycle barricades for the two teams whenever they bus to practices or Orange Bowl functions.

Eighteen officers on Harley-Davidson motorcycles clear the streets and freeways of Miami and Dade County, and often at high speeds, as they form barriers around the team buses. They call the group of buses "the package."

When these guys want to roll, they roll. They can temporarily shut down a freeway in no time and get those buses to their destinations pronto. I saw it (briefly) today after Iowa was done with practice at Barry University in Miami. The motormen, as they're called, got auto traffic out of their path, and the Hawkeyes' buses were soon taillights on the distant horizon.

As one motorman slows up to direct a civilian driver to slow down and get out of the way, another will whip around from the group of motormen behind the bus to join the pack of in front. We're talking high-speed, folks, up to 90 mph to get on top of what looms ahead.

It's fast, loud, and to many, exhilirating.

Members of Iowa's party, including defensive coordinator Norm Parker, have told me it's a wild and impressive thing.

"The players feel like they're the president," said Ron Stewart, the retired deputy sheriff who has been the Iowa football team's chief of security since early in the Hayden Fry era.

"This is one of the best outfits I've ever been around," Stewart said. "They do a very professional job."

A professional and dangerous job.

"One of the most-dangerous things we do is escort," said Miami-Dade Sgt. Ranfys Butka. "We do this

 like we have the president or vice president in town. Although, when the president is here we utilize all our motor (motorcycle) units."

Butka took a spill in the line of duty a little over a year ago.

"I had two herniated disks in my back and one in my neck," he said.

"About once or twice a year a motorman goes down. All but three of the 18 men here today have been (struck by vehicles) on the job."

Sgt. Derrick Roundtree has been the Hawkeyes' police liaison. He had a talk with Iowa's players early in their stay here, telling them what to expect and what to avoid in Miami Beach and Miami.

"It's a real fast city," Roundtree said. "We just tell them common-sense stuff. There are some mean streets here in Miami."

Roundtree is a motorman. He said the police have done this for the Orange Bowl teams "since way before I got here."

I've been told the Orange Bowl picks up the tab for the cost of the police services. I would certainly hope so. It's a lot of manpower putting their necks and the rest of their bodies on the line to shave time off a football team's time in transit.

The team bus went the 11 miles from Barry to the Fontainebleau Hotel a lot faster than the Gazette sportswriters and photojournalists who followed them. But when we were wandering around the hotel and escaping the rain that messed a little with the team's family beach day staged by the Orange Bowl, many Hawkeyes players sat around in a lobby pondering their next moves in their free time.

The rain eventually let up and some players tried Jet Skis and other beach fun on a windy, wet day on the Atlantic Coast. I just thought I'd throw that in there.