James Bates, Louis Oliver Headed to Florida-Georgia Hall of Fame
Thursday, September 25, 2014 | Football, Chris Harry
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Each year, the Florida-Georgia Hall of Fame inducts two players from both teams as part of the storied rivalry's weekend in Jacksonville. This fall, James Bates and Louis Oliver, a pair of defensive standouts from two different decades, will represent the Gators.
Bates, though, won't be there with his other 2014 classmates -- Oliver, along with UGA reps Pat Dye and Ben Zambiasi -- for their on-field introductions EverBank Field and participation in the Nov. 1 pre-game coin toss. He'll be in some Atlantic Coast Conference Conference press box calling a football game for Fox Sports South.
In his place, Bates intends to trot out his 11-year-old daughter for the ceremony.
And get this: Her name is Georgia.
“When I played at Florida, we never had a problem with Georgia. My wife was a swimmer at Florida and she never had a problem with Georgia,” Bates said. “And the two of us never had a problem with baby Georgia, either, so I think it'll be perfect.”
It'll certainly will be vintage Bates, which is fitting because the Florida-Georgia Hall of Fame is nothing if not about vintage.
As players go, both of UF's inductees qualify.
“It's great to be recognized for all the work you put in at the University of Florida, on and off the football field,” said Oliver, a two-time All-American and first-round draft pick who went on to play eight seasons in the NFL. “For people to put you in a class of elite players, that's very gratifying.”
Oliver is one of the all-time success stories in UF lore. He was a standout player at Belle Glade (Fla.) Glades Central High, yet his Division-I offers were few. Meanwhile, a couple of his teammates -- Ray McDonald and Rhondy Weston -- signed with the Gators. Oliver believed he was every bit the prospect those two were.
Along with everybody else on the Gators roster, actually.
True story. At a team orientation in 1984, each freshman was asked to stand, give his name and position, then say a little something about himself. When Oliver's turn came he did not mince words.
“I'm Louis Oliver, I'm a safety from Belle Glade, Florida, and most of you other safeties won't play as long as I'm here.”
Oliver was red-shirted that season, but the following spring he was running with the second-team defense. The way Oliver recalls it, he went to Coach Galen Hall and the defensive staff with an ultimatum.
“I told them to either put me on scholarship or I was transferring to Florida State,” Oliver said.
And?
“I had a scholarship about 15 minutes later.”
Oliver became the first Gators defensive back to be named first-team All-America twice, but along the way he only tasted victory in the Georgia series once. That was in 1986, when UF won 31-19. All but the last of Oliver's four seasons was spent on NCAA probation.
“We weren't eligible for championships and a couple of those years we couldn't be on TV, but we still had to play the games,” said Oliver, now 48, married with a young daughter, and making a living as a real estate investor in Sunrise, Fla. 'We still had to play Miami and Auburn and LSU and Georgia and Florida State. Just the challenge of playing so many teams with so much talent, that's what I was after.”
He definitely made the best of it. The Miami Dolphins made Oliver the 25th pick in the first round in 1988. In 1992, he returned an interception 103 yards for a touchdown against the Cincinnati Bengals, still the third-longest runback in league history.
Bates, meanwhile, never played in the NFL.
He also never lost to Georgia.
Bates was part of Steve's Spurrier's third -- and positively loaded -- recruiting class that arrived in 1992. By then, the Gators already had taken control of the rivalry with a pair of lopsided victories (38-7 in 1990 and 45-13 in '91). Before Spurrier got there, Georgia had gone 16-5-1 against Florida the previous 22 years. Spurrier went 11-1 against the Dawgs in his 12 seasons, with Bates in the middle of it all.
That '90 victory came with Bates' father, Jim, on the sidelines as UF's defensive coordinator. James still remembers sitting at home in Tennessee, watching the game, seeing the stadium split in half, the energy of it all, and thinking to himself, “I want a piece of that.”
How's this for a piece?
* 1993 -- In his first UF-UGA game, Bates beat the Bulldogs 33-26 in a rainy, sloppy mudfest at the old Gator Bowl.
* 1994 -- With the Gator Bowl undergoing renovations to accommodate the NFL expansion Jaguars, the two schools agreed to play a home-and-home for the first time since 1931-32. The Bulldogs came to Gainesville and were on the wrong end of a 52-14 score, as Bates intercepted a pair of passes and ran one back for a touchdown, one of three defensive TDs in the game.
* 1995 -- UF went to Athens and handed Georgia its worst lost ever “Between the Hedges,” a 52-17 win most of the fans left in Sanford Stadium at the end were cheering, celebrating Gator fans.
* 1996 -- Back to Jacksonville and the sparkling new All-Tel Stadium. Again, no contest, as the Gators defeated the Dawgs 47-7 for the most lopsided margin all-time in the series, en route to the program's first national championship. Bates was a senior captain of that team.
Four venues, four victories.
For Bates, the '94 game sticks out.
“Not only do we get the Dawgs in the 'Swamp,' but we get 'em at night and then we do it to 'em with defense,” Bates said. “Back then, the Fun-N-Gun was in full throttle and everybody was talking about Spurrier winging it all over the place, but that was such a fun night for the Gators on both sides of the ball. It would have been a fun had it been Arkansas State -- but these were the Georgia Bulldogs.”
Clearly, the moment had a profound impact. “Georgia On His Mind,” you might say.
Come about six weeks, little Georgia Bates will be on his mind.
And on the field.
