Former Miami Hurricane great, Alonzo Highsmith, has seen enough empty seats at Sun Life Stadium during Canes football games that he has taken the charge to begin a ground swell of support to bring a stadium home for UM. Highsmith while attending pre-game festivities in Chicago prior to the Canes match-up against Notre Dame this past weekend was quite vocal in his opinion when socializing with the crowd at the Miami party at Roots. Word is he told several attendees that he would love to see the University of Miami build a stadium either on campus or at nearby Tropical Park. He later took to Twitter to spread his message.

Talking to Hurricane nation and feeling the support !' The time is now like never before and we will get a stadium! It will take the people. I have a dream now!!! I will not stop until somebody at the top tells us no but we won't take no for am answer!! We need to rally about 2,000 people to the door step of the president of the school and demand a stadium of our own!!! History proves that the up-rise of the people will make changes!!! Maybe it will take us to boycott Sun Life Stadium ?? Would never want to hurt the players but they deserve the best!!! If we get enough people behind this effort the city and the school will have to take notice!! BUILDMYSTADIUM We will raise the money without the school if need be!! Miami Hurricanes represent a lot to the city of Miami !!! Can't put college football & pro basketball in same sentence Tropical park orange bowl ? Home of the Miami Hurricanes!!! Going to put a replica seating section of the orange bowl ? I can't do it by myself and it will take the Miami family!!! Lets get a Miami Hurricane to design the stadium? Keep it in the family! The ball was dropped when the orange bowl was demolished!! This team now is like a lost soul looking for a home!! Some people might say its a pipe dream but why not go for it? Detractors will give u every reason why it won't work! Miami family I believe we can get this done! It will be tough , people will scoff, people will laugh, close doors but there will come a time @unclelukereal1 you will be at the press conference when this kicks off ? Two politicians just direct messaged me and are on board!!! Bout time

Just under a year ago I too started my own campaign to create support for a #Stadium4Canes on both Twitter and an online petition. Today, nearly 3000 people have signed the petition and there has been more public debate on this subject than in many years past. I have heard from many alumni and fans pledging their support and some have even shown me blueprints they had commissioned to show where an on campus stadium might fit next too the Bank United Center displacing some of the student apartments.

Then about two years ago two UMiami Architecture students, Taylor Shumate and Bryam Wadia, submitted their stunning design for an on campus stadium which won honorable mention in The American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) and Kawneer national student design competition. It is this type of project that many believe is necessary for the Canes to remain competitive in the ever changing landscape of college football. Making students and fans drive to the border of Dade and Broward county to play in a rented NFL stadium is in my opinion not ideal for generating long term fan support.

Should the on campus option prove too difficult to execute then Tropical Park becomes the next most logical location. It is located just 3 miles directly down Miller Drive from campus; there is already a 7,000 seat stadium on site where many high school games are played, providing the perfect footprint for a larger venue; traffic would be less of a concern as two major highways intersect next to the park; there is ample land for parking both on site and across Bird Road.

The stadium could be built with expansion in mind similar to how the one the FAU Owls play in was designed. Start off with 40-45k seats and take it from there. UM consistently has averaged around 40k seats per game over the years and the only game where more seats might be needed would be the FSU rivalry event ever two years. However, since FSU fans buy 20-30k seats for the UM/FSU game those fans would no longer get to invade those "home" games in large numbers (UM fans are always limited to small numbers when the Canes play at Doak Stadium in Tallahassee).

The radio waves have been buzzing with Alonzo's pitch and all Canes fans can hope that one day soon the University of Miami will be breaking ground on their football team's new home!