A Year to Remember for Gator Fans and the Guy Typing These Words
Tuesday, July 12, 2011 | Scott Carter
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The first year is in the books. And with all that happened, one could easily write a book.
If you are a regular visitor to this website – and I hope you are – then you are most likely one of two people: A) a Florida Gators fan, or B) someone who just happens to like a lot of orange and blue on your computer screen.
Whatever the reason you stop by, hopefully over the past 10 months you've noticed something new on GatorZone.com. I'll give you a hint … hmm, the guy typing these words.
The boss stopped by my office the other day and suggested writing about my first year covering UF sports in a way UF sports have never quite been covered. I said no problem, and then took a week off to recharge from one of my favorite assignments of the year: covering the Florida baseball team's trip to the College World Series.
The Gators came up short in Omaha, but they beat Texas, took two games from Vanderbilt, and then lost a heartbreaker in Game 1 of the championship series to South Carolina that essentially set up a flat performance in Game 2.
As soon as the final out was recorded in South Carolina's win in Game 2, the 2010-11 Gators sports calendar was complete.
As I look back on the year that was – and a change of direction in my career – the first thing that comes to mind on a personal level is the most common question my co-workers, my former colleagues, my peers and even a few UF coaches have asked: what has the change been like for you?
I'll answer that one quickly since I know you are more interested in reading about the Gators than a guy who writes about the Gators. Here's what I tell them: It's been great.
For a little background, I graduated from UF's College of Journalism in 1995 and embarked on a 15-year newspaper career, 12 of those spent at The Tampa Tribune covering just about everything you can cover on the Tampa Bay sports scene.
It was my dream job for a long time.
I've always loved newspapers – anyone who has seen my book collection at home might say I have a strange obsession with the industry's history – writing, sharing stories and producing the first draft of history as they say in the business.
Of course, the newspaper business and media landscape have changed drastically over the past five years, so when I heard the UAA was creating a position for someone to cover the Gators for its official website, I immediately tossed my name into the hat for various professional and personal reasons.
My final assignment at the Tribune was to cover USF's season-opening win over Stony Brook at Raymond James Stadium in Skip Holtz's debut on Sept. 4. About 36 hours later I reported to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium for my first day of work at the UAA.
And in what will definitely go down as one of the stranger days of my career, a few days later my first Gators game was the Sept. 11 tilt against USF. I knew way more about the Bulls than the Gators that day, but thankfully I made it through my stories without writing Gators quarterback B.J. Daniels or Bulls quarterback John Brantley.
Quite frankly, the transition has been much smoother than I could have expected, in large part because of the people I work with and the people I cover. And the best part is I get to write about one of the top athletic departments in the nation on a daily basis, often sharing stories with the kind of insider perspective that I rarely experienced during my newspaper career.
There are times when stories I would have chased during my previous life are non-stories on GatorZone.com. I try to address them with links on my blog if they could impact the playing field, and usually that's where they stay.
What I've tried to do more than anything else is to tell you about the student-athletes and coaches who are UF sports. They are the ones who show up and sweat every day at work, then try to go out and perform at the highest level of college athletics.
More often than not, they succeeded over the past year, highlighted by national championships in men's indoor track and field and women's tennis.
The ride was certainly a fun one to cover and reminded me of why I chose to become a sportswriter in the first place. The stories.
While the football team struggled at times during an 8-5 season, the highlight for me was the Outback Bowl win over Penn State in Tampa in Urban Meyer's final game. What I'll remember most is the relief on Meyer's face as he and his family waved to the crowd and basked in the spotlight once the game was over.
If there is one moment since I arrived that I knew my job was a little different than my previous one, it was when I was called into a meeting in early December and asked to shut the door. Geez, are they tired of me already I wondered. Instead, I was told that Meyer was stepping down as coach and to start working on a story and column to put his time at UF in perspective.
The news didn't break officially for a couple of more days, but once it did, you can imagine the interest in the biggest story of the year. Heck, the front page of GatorZone.com even made CNN, believed to be a first.
There were plenty more big stories.
The men's basketball team's surprise run to the Elite Eight was a blast, and watching the Gators snuff out Jimmer-mania in New Orleans is a memory worth keeping. The softball and baseball teams lived up to the hype, and I experienced my first taste of women's gymnastics on a national stage at the NCAA Championships in Cleveland.
I left convinced the athletic ability of a gymnast is every bit as impressive as that of a 320-pound defensive tackle that can move around like a cat.
Of course, as a writer, the people and their stories is what I tend to savor the most.
There was the morning spent with swimmer Teresa Crippen as she recalled the loss of her brother, Fran, in a tragic drowning and the impact his loss had on her family. Crippen didn't have to talk, but once the interview started, it was obvious she wanted people to know about her older brother and his influence on her life and the swimming community. I simply listened and let her tell the story.
The hiring of football coach Will Muschamp to replace Meyer certainly delivered ample storylines, none more interesting to me than the fact Muschamp grew up a few blocks from Ben Hill Griffin Stadium and used to walk to Gator games as a kid. When Muschamp hired Charlie Weis as his offensive coordinator, the story got richer.
I'll break down some of the best moments and best teams during the 2010-11 sports calendar the rest of the week on GatorZone.com.
But before I go, perhaps the best part of this new job has been a closer interaction with you, the fans. As a newspaper journalist covering a professional team or college program, you are often viewed as the enemy regardless if you provide fair coverage or not. That's just part of the gig. Often times, you get more comments and emails from fans of other teams questioning why you are writing about Team A when you could be writing about Team B – aka their favorite team.
In this role, the audience is clear. I'm writing for Gator Nation and the response has been above anything I expected, and for that, I say thank you. I've interacted with military personnel in Iraq, a fisherman in Alaska and a farmer in Idaho. It's true: Gator fans are everywhere.
They are also passionate, expect constant success and can be prickly at times – you should see my email box fill up after a football loss.
But they care as deeply as any fans I know and that is what makes this job so rewarding. During my last football season as a student in 1994 – I still can see that pass from Patrick Nix to Frankie Sanders that spoiled a perfectly good Saturday afternoon – I remember reading this article about the heart and mind of a Gator.
It has stuck with me all these years, some of its claims perhaps as true today as then, others clearly not due to the Gators' historic success over the past two decades.
However, if the next year is anything like the past one, Gator fans will have plenty to cheer about and I'll have plenty to write about.
