Former Miami Hurricane great and alum, as well as Miami Hurricane Sports Hall of Famer, Melvin Bratton, was versatile and a powerful runner on those great Miami Hurricane championship teams in the late 1980s.
His relentless energy, confidence, and swagger were instrumental to the Canes transitioning from the "weak ivy league program of the South," with little fanfare to becoming one of the most dominant college football programs of the 1980s and 1990s.
Bratton's confident bravado really set the tone regarding the mystique the Miami Hurricane teams of the 1980s and 1990s enjoyed during the Hurricanes reign as the " bad boys" of college football.
As a youth growing up during the time that Miami Hurricanes football reigned supreme, I can vividly recall how the Hurricanes during that era, typically, fed off of Melvin Bratton's " in your face" mentality.
Because of the great leadership Bratton displayed, the Miami Hurricanes were victorious in the 1987 National Championship game, a game that he started in, which marked the program's second national title in three years, under Pro Football Hall of Fame NFL and College coach, former Miami Hurricanes coaching legend, Jimmy Johnson.
Bratton is arguably one of the University of Miami's football program's most unsung heroes. Sadly, a devastating knee injury in the 1988 Orange Bowl dashed his hopes of succeeding at the NFL level. Initially picked by the hometown, Miami Dolphins in 1988, Bratton failed to remain on the squad. The talented and brash runner regrouped and reentered the 1989 draft and was selected by the Denver Broncos in the seventh round.
Although Melvin Bratton did not have an exceptional career at the next level, he will always be remembered as the trash talking, confident, energy-booster, the Miami Hurricanes football program needed to solidify the Hurricanes quest of receiving the national acclaim and recognition of the great Miami Hurricane football teams, in the Jimmy Johnson-led era.
Bratton's unyielding approach has been instrumental in the Miami Hurricanes program's swagger and status of becoming a nationally recognized college football program's reference by simply a conjunction and letter (The U).