Florida Gators Individual Moments to Remember -- Chris Harry's Top 10
Monday, July 6, 2015 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Going on 19 years ago, I was at the Georgia Dome the night Danny Wuerffel, a week after taking the beating of his life at Florida State, went up against Alabama and the nation's No. 1-ranked pass defense in the Southeastern Conference Championship Game.
He threw for 401 yards and six touchdowns.
Now, that was an amazing individual performance.
The year before that, in the middle of a national-championship and Heisman Trophy race, I saw Wuerffel, having led his team to an 7-0 start, quietly take a benching from Coach Steve Spurrier for a homecoming game against Northern Illinois so little-used-but-talented backup quarter Eric Kresser could start. Kresser threw for 452 yards and six touchdowns.
That too was an amazing individual performance.
By both.
Sometimes it's a simple, indelible memory -- not a packed stat sheet -- that becomes a keepsake image. With that in mind, here are 10 moments and/or performances from Gators during the 2014-15 athletic year that either stuck with me because I was there or warrant a place on the list for their sheer impact of excellence.
Their order, of course, is debatable.
Their relevance is not. 
1) ONE LAST TIME TOGETHER
The day after the press conference introducing Billy Donovan as the new coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder, my cell phone rang. It was early on a Saturday. It was Billy D. He wanted my help in figuring out the best time to have one last news conference in Gainesville; one last time to say “thank you” before saying goodbye. Everyone's schedule was influx. He had to be in OKC. Jeremy Foley (background, right) was leaving town for athletic directors meetings. The spring semester had ended.
Donovan, though, was adamant.
“After 19 years, I owe it to this place.”
Two days later, he stood before a crowd in the Gator Room that was more friends than media and bowed out with the warmth and class that defined him during nearly two decades at UF.
Donovan's accomplishments as a coach put him on a pedestal alongside some of the greatest ever to walk a sideline. But ask anyone who has known Donovan during his rise to the top of the profession. He never put himself on a pedestal when it came to dealing with people.
2) “THE BAMBINA”
Two words: “Babe” and “Ruth.”
I mean, seriously?
We knew Lauren Haeger was one of best softball players in the country, but who knew by the end of her career she would be placed alongside the greatest ever to play to walk a diamond?
Even before she mowed down the last hitter in the red-hot Michigan lineup to help the Gators claim their second straight Women's College World Series, Haeger's image had been flashed on ESPN alongside George Herman Ruth as the only players in a bat-and-ball sport to reach 70 pitching victories and 70 home runs in a career.
[Note: A few weeks earlier, Haeger became the only collegiate player to hit the 60/60 milestone, so that record figures to be around a while.]
Her exuberance on the field (not to mention that wicked rise ball) and timely power in the batter's box combined to give Haeger one of the all-time great seasons -- 32-2 in the circle; .348 with 19 homers and 71 RBI at the plate -- amassed by a Gator athlete.
In any sport.
3) DENDY IS DANDY
We don't get to see a lot of meets in Gainesville, but chances are we'll be seeing a lot of Marquis Dendy on the national track and field stage over the next year or so.
The people who got to see a lot of him this year (last year too) are the ones who draped the medals around his neck while Dendy posed on the winner's podium.
Dendy, the senior from Middletown, Del., swept the long and triple jump competitions at the SEC Indoor, NCAA Indoor, SEC Outdoor Championships and capped his career at NCAA Outdoors with marks of 58 feet, 1.25 inches in the triple and 27-8 in the long jump.
Oh, and then he went to the USA Outdoor Championships and won the long jump, too.
All told, Dendy left UF with seven national titles and as one of the most decorated athletes in the program's history.
Dendy figures to be a hot one in 2016 Olympics at Rio, but expect to hear loudly from him in Beijing in late-August.
4) BEST OF THE BEST
She's been a constant -- and superstar -- on three straight NCAA gymnastic championship teams. The one year during her four that Florida did not win the national title, she was named Honda Award winner as the most outstanding performer in her sport.
Kytra Hunter, the 2015 SEC Gymnast of the Year, bookended that Honda as a freshman by winning one as a senior -- along with the all-around competition at the NCAA Championships in Fort Worth -- and exited her UF career as a 25-time All-American, including a school-record 15 in NCAA competition.
At the NCAAs, the Gators led off the meet on the balance beam, the most challenging of four rotations, and the confidence and precision Hunter exuded spilled over to the rest of the squad. And after a teammate stumbled on the vault, Hunter went last for the Gators and nailed a 9.925, keeping the momentum going.
The day after team competition, Hunter became the first UF gymnast to win an individual championship on floor since 1984.
5) PAPER OR PLASTIC WITH THAT TOUCHDOWN?
If you think back to Florida's resounding 38-20 upset of Georgia last November -- the Gators' first defeat of the Bulldogs in four years -- the first thing likely to come to mind is the thorough manner in which UF trounced its rival in the running game.
Kelvin Taylor: 197 yards, 2 touchdowns.
Matt Jones: 192 yards, 2 touchdowns.
That's why the Gators won. 
But let's not shortchange Michael McNeely, the former walk-on and special teams specialist, who went unnoticed when he lined up as holder on a Frankie Velez field goal attempt, then took off with the snap and sped 28 yards for a touchdown. That, of course, was a Saturday. After the game, he was surrounded by reporters holding the only news conference of his UF career.
On Sunday, he was bagging groceries at the Publix on 34th Street.
McNeely, a senior from Clearwater, was surprised with a scholarship by then-Coach Will Muschamp two months earlier and was a mainstay on several coverage teams during the season, all the while maintaining his part-time job at the store.
He'd never held for a kick. Georgia didn't notice the first time he did.
Great call, great execution and a greater story.
6) HOLSTON BLOSSOMS INTO SUPER SOPHOMORE
On Sept. 6, the UF volleyball team welcomed third-ranked Texas to the O'Dome, only to fall in the match 3-1. Nearly three months later, after wrapping up the SEC title, the Gators went to Austin for a rematch with the mighty Longhorns. Coach Mary Wise scheduled the non-conference showdown as a top-flight tune-up for the postseason.
Florida was very much in tune.
Fifth-ranked UF upended third-ranked UT in a five-set thriller behind SEC Player of the Year and first-team All-American Alex Holston's 29 kills. The big win propelled Florida off on a NCAA Tournament run that ended with a loss to top-seeded Stanford in the regional final at Ames, Iowa.
On that Texas trip, Holston tied for the third-most points (32) in a match in school history, doing so against one of the premier program's in the country. But really, Holston was that great all year. She was the centerpiece of Florida's unbeaten run back to the top of the league. Her team-high 437 kills were 136 more than next-best Rhamat Alhassan, the freshman who led the nation in hitting percentage.
And Wise gets Holston for two more years.
7) SMOKE ON THE WATER
They've been swimming a long time at Florida and sent a bunch of guys to the Olympics along the way, but Caleb Dressel was the first Gator ever to win an NCAA title in the 50-meter freestyle.
Oh, and he was a freshman.
Dressel, the sprinter out of nearby Green Cove Springs, became the first UF rookie to claim a title in the NCAA Championships since Darian Thompson did so as a member of the 800 freestyle relay in 2005; the first freshman to win an individual crown since Adam Sioui took the 200 free in 2002.
He did it on Day 1 of the three-day meet, then went on to add six more All-America honors in the 100 free, 100 butterfly and on four of UF's relay teams. The Florida men finished the meet in fifth place.
8) RUST NEVER SLEEPS 
When Florida reached the WCWS best-of-three championship series against Michigan, Haeger had pitched 52 consecutive innings and won seven straight games, dating to the second outing of the NCAA Tournament.
It was time to sit one out.
Freshman Aleshia Ocasio (left) had gone 17 days with seeing the field, but Coach Tim Walton showed his trust and confidence by giving her the ball in a game the team had to have. Ocasio rewarded her coach with five shutout innings against the No. 3-ranked Wolverines, winners of 27 straight, until allowing a pair of runs in the sixth, that shaved UF's lead to 3-2.
Needing three outs in the seventh, Walton sent sophomore Delanie Gourley to the mound. Gourley hadn't pitched in 24 days and, initially, it showed. Ten pitches in, she'd walked a batter, watched the catcher give up a passed ball, and allowed a single. The Wolverines, down just one run, had first and third and no outs.
Gourley mowed the next three batters down in order, giving the Gators a huge 1-0 edge a series they won in Game 3.
The Ocasio-Gourley tandem summoned a kind of fortitude that we've come to expect from Walton's teams, but -- candidly -- was something of a surprise at that moment.
What a night for those two and their teammates.
9) NOT EVEN HAEGER EVER DID THAT
Ping! Ping! Ping! And Ping!
Freshman catcher JJ Schwarz smashed four home runs in UF's 22-2 annihilation of Stetson on April 7, becoming the first player in the program's history to jack four homers in a game; only the second time it had been done in SEC history.
Schwarz, out of Palm Beach Gardens, finished 5-for-6 in the game, adding a double, to finish with 18 total bases and 10 RBI.
Worth noting: Schwarz also left two runners on base, so I wonder if his teammates let him have it about that in the post-game locker room.
Kentucky's Billy Sandry is the league's only other player to hit four homers in a game. Sandry did it back in 1982.
10) GRACE AMID ABJECT FRUSTRATION
Down five points with 43 seconds left at Florida State, the Gators rallied to tie the game on a layup by Dorian Finney-Smith with eight seconds to go. After a timeout, Seminoles guard Devon Bookert launched a 3-point prayer from the corner that had no chance -- zero -- of going in the basket. 
Walk-on forward Jake Kurtz was perfect defensive position, boxing out an FSU defender beneath the basket, and jumped to catch the short shot. The ball barely grazed off the side of the rim, though, then caromed off Kurtz's hand, back toward the rim and then through the hoop with one second left to hand the Gators an aggravating 65-63 defeat.
Yeah, it was the that kind of season.
In the aftermath of that gut punch, Kurtz showed nothing but class. He even agreed to do an interview with his hometown paper -- The Orlando Sentinel -- about the play, but with the understanding he did not want the story to be of a sympathetic tone.
For four years, Kurtz was the consummate glue guy who would do anything for his coaches and teammates. I hated to see that play happen to him, but truth be told, he was probably the one guy on the roster best equipped with the mental toughness to handle it.
