Carter's Corner: A Retired Teacher's Quest to Set Record Straight for Gators
Saturday, September 3, 2016 | Football, Scott Carter
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- We live in the information age.
And much of that information is factually incorrect. If you trust Wikipedia or your grandfather's Facebook page as your primary source of historical research, good luck with that.
University of Florida graduate, Gainesville resident and retired teacher Fred Awbrey has a curious mind and if needed, is willing to get in his car and drive across the Southeast in search of answers to discrepancies he comes across.
As a Gators fan, Awbrey has plans on Saturday.
"I'll be in the stands,'' he said.
However, his interest in Florida football goes well beyond being a spectator at tonight's game against UMass. Awbrey is something of a local football historian. Besides his research on the Gators, he has written a history of the Gainesville High School football team.
Awbrey's passionate hobby began by coincidence. He has served as a volunteer over the years at the Matheson History Museum, a great resource for someone interested in the past.
"There's always more questions to find out about,'' Awbrey said. "As soon as you answer one, there's always another one to be answered. I wasn't trying to cause problems. I just want the story to be told correctly so bad information is not spread forever and forever."
By now, you're probably wondering what Awbrey discovered about the Gators.
A lot, actually, but one discovery ranks above the others in the present day. You may remember last season when the Gators won 24-14 at South Carolina. Freshman running back Jordan Cronkrite was Florida's star that day, catching a touchdown pass and running for a score.
The game also had historical implications. It was the 700th win in the history of UF's football program. The media guide said so. In their first season under the direction of head coach Jim McElwain, the Gators entered the 2015 season with 691 all-time wins.
Florida improved to 9-1 with the victory at South Carolina, thus, No. 700 was in the books.
And then in late November, Awbrey sent a letter to Dan Apple, the managing editor of Florida's football media guide, detailing his research on the subject. In the early days of professional and college sports in America, record-keeping was nothing like it is today when 10-year-olds scan their iPads for information to use in fantasy drafts.
No different for the Gators, whose first official season of football is 1906. Much of the early history of Florida football was acquired through various resources over the decades such as old newspaper articles, books and word of mouth that eventually became accepted as fact.
Awbrey provided his thorough research to Apple using a number of sources available on microfilm in different libraries on campus, out-of-state and at the Matheson History Museum. He has driven to Savannah three times for clarifications on discrepancies he discovered through countless hours of research.
Awbrey discovered wrong dates and wrong scores, especially in the early years of the Gators – before they were even called the Gators.
"The first year was chaos,'' Awbrey said. "They don't really have anything like a sports page [in those days]. The football articles could literally appear in any section of the paper, including the gossip column. They didn't give stats."
Awbrey's most significant discovery is related to that 1906 season, when head coach James "Pee Wee" Forsythe led the Gators to a 5-3 record. Or so everyone thought.
"What really turned me on was a book that basically had a caption in it that said all the early football games were played on campus,'' Awbrey said. "That's just not true."
Awbrey wrote about the subject in September 2015 in an article published by the Gainesville Sun.
And later that fall when he read about Florida's 700th all-time win, Awbrey alerted Apple of the discrepancy via an article that appeared on Jan. 5, 1907, in The University News, which is now considered part of the history of the Independent Florida Alligator newspaper.
Written by Roy Corbett, a member of the Florida football team from 1906-08, the article makes clear the Gators finished their inaugural season 3-3, not 5-3 as the UF media guide reflected.
Corbett writes about all six games, and mentions other contests that at some point, a chronicler of history mistakenly referred to as Florida games.
"It was just propagated over and over again,'' Awbrey said.
Awbrey included cross-checking articles in his analysis from a variety of resources including The Gainesville Daily Sun, The University News, The Weekly True Democrat, The Florida Times-Union and The Atlanta Georgian and The Sanborn Fire Maps.
For those more interested in the subject, here is a PDF document featuring Awbrey's research and cross-checking.
The two key games in the first season that should be deleted from the record are wins against Athens AC on Nov. 18, 1906, and Riverside AC on Nov. 30, 1906. The UF football team did not play in either game.
The errors are now corrected in the 2016 UF media guide, page 114. Here is the 2015 media guide record of the 1906 season for comparison, Page 107.
So as the Gators kick off the 2016 season tonight, Awbrey's research on a season 110 years ago revealed Florida enters McElwain's second season with 699 all-time victories, not 701.
UMass is next. If the Gators win, Awbrey won't have to read about No. 700. He'll see it happen.
"I'm not looking to get a statue out there next to Tim Tebow or anything,'' he said. "I just want the record to be correct."
