Disclaimer: I am not a sports writer. But I worked in the same building as Pat and Robbie.
Oddly, I never attended a Gator game when I was a student at the University of Florida.
Maybe it’s because before I ever heard of UF, I was a diehard Dolphins fan. And my first love team was finally on a roll, with two consecutive national championships.
(Hey, whatever happened to the Fins anyway? I lost track of ‘em after Jacksonville landed the Jags and we could no longer get Miami games on GNV TV.
Which may be how I finally ended up a Gator fan.
But I digress.
The point is that I attended my first Gator game in 1977, when I was higher education reporter at The Sun. A bunch of us newsroom types went to see Florida’s first game ever against Utah.
I remember all of us Sun types chanting “U..G..L..Y…you ain’t got no alibi! You’re ugly, Utah, you’re ugly!”
Oh, and we beat the ugly Utes 38-29.
I also took my father (a blue collar Oakland Raiders fan) to two UF-Auburn games. And we lost both of ‘em because….well, because Auburn wasn’t Utah.
The point being that since I attended that Utes game (and came to terms with the fact that Auburn was no Utah) I have been a Gator.
On the other hand, that was only 48 years ago. And by some standards that still makes me a Johnny Come Lately. Many Gator faithful have labored in the trenches far longer than I.
So I am used to disappointment. Interspaced with the occasional exhilarating rocket propelled ride to Gator heaven.
Hell, I was at the Choke at Doke.
I once covered a Gov. Bob Graham speech that he began with the doleful words “today the Gators lost a game they should have won.”
I feel your pain, Bob. Been there, done that.
And don’t even get me started on 0-10-1.
Having established my Gator bone fides, I’ll admit that I too was disgusted by UF’s lopsided loss to Kentucky on Saturday.
But not for the reason you might think.
I’m disgusted that UF has turned into such a big money-fueled football factory.
And that the Gridiron Powers That Be have to keep firing overpaid-but underperforming coaches every few years or so.
Sending them off with grossly inflated buyouts.
Because they didn’t turn out to be Spurrier or Meyer reincarnated.
Only to hire another grossly overpaid coach.
Who will, in turn be given a few seasons to complete his reincarnation.
Before it’s buyout-and-reload time again.
I know, I know. It’s not my money.
But surly, this cannot be a sustainable business model by any stretch of the imagination.
Not even in a business larded over with millionaire NIL players who are one transfer portal away from being here and gone.
And multi-million dollar coaches who keep wondering when their time is gonna run out.
Looking back I wonder how Charlie Pell managed to last five seasons. By post-Spurrier expectations he would have been lucky to last three.
Personally, I never thought Galen Hall or Ron Zook…or Dan Mullen for that matter…had enough time to show what they could do here.
And it seemed to me that Billy Napier at least had the loyalty of his players and knew how to get the best out of them.
(BTW: Is it time to fire Billy Gonzales yet? Hold on and let me check that out with social media….Nope, not quite yet. Check back here next week.)
One more thing. I really don’t believe that this here-today-gone-tomorrow coaching merry-go-round that UF and so many other schools are caught up in is fan driven.
I say that because it seems to me that, year in and year out, through good seasons and bad seasons, the Gator faithful keep coming back on game day.
We may cry about it. But we hang in there.
And then we say “Wait ‘till next year.”
All of which reminds me of a joke that Bill Cosby used to tell back in his stand-up comedy days.
He blamed the Polaroid company for ruining life as we know it.
Why? Because self-developing photos gave us all an inflated expectation of instant gratification.
Polaroid is long gone…having in its turn failed to fulfill our instant gratification demands.
But these days I feel like the Polaroid Syndrome – in politics, in sports, in everyday life – is killing us.
And slowly bleeding the joy out of our lives.
I much preferred being a Gator fan back in the good old days. When we had good years and bad years and in-between years.
And when we never gave up the faith no matter what.
And I suspect I’m not alone in that regard.
Oh, one more thing: Go Vandy!
FreeGNV 