Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The landing was a bit rigid, but the Gators' flight home from Mississippi State late Saturday night was a breeze compared to their equipment truck's trip back to Florida.

Once the Gators touched ground at home in the wee hours of Sunday morning and started to deplane, Gators assistant equipment manager Mike Knowles turned on his cellphone to an unusual message.

Hey, truck caught on fire.

Knowles then shared the message with equipment manager Jeff McGrew, whose first reaction was about what you would expect.

"Oh no, that's not good,'' he said this week.

Shortly after the news spread to other members of the equipment crew on the chartered flight, McGrew and his staff huddled on the tarmac with Mike Spiegler, senior associate athletics director for administration, to talk over the situation before they headed home following Florida's 13-6 win in Starkville.

According to the driver, a rear tire blew out on the trailer as the truck rolled through the Mississippi night. At some point, the trailer caught fire due to what is believed to be sparks ignited by the incident.

The driver had a fire extinguisher and was able to grab some cases off the truck loaded with cameras and other electronic equipment. However, the flames soon became too much until a fire engine responded and extinguished the blaze.

By that time the damage was done.

While the equipment staff packs the team's jerseys and pants on the plane so they can be washed as soon as the team returns home from road games, the rest of the Gators' gear travels via a customized Florida Football semitrailer.
 

The destroyed and damaged equipment includes helmets, shoulder pads, protective braces, the training staff's medical gear, coolers, cleats, staff bags, travel clothes and various other items required when the team is on the road.

The University Athletic Association and All My Sons, the moving company that transports the equipment, continue to work out details regarding insurance coverage. The estimated damages are expected to be well into six-figures.

Meanwhile, the equipment needed to cool before being loaded into another truck on Sunday evening for the trip to campus. The truck arrived early Monday morning and McGrew and his staff spent several hours sorting through the gear to see what they could salvage.

"Just about everything got affected in one way or the other,'' McGrew said. "Heat affects the plastic in the shell and those types of things."

The team travels 70 players to Southeastern Conference road games and McGrew said all the helmets and shoulder pads of those players must be replaced. He spent Monday speaking with representatives from equipment manufacturers such as Riddell, Schutt and other vendors to expedite orders. The team had enough equipment in inventory to practice as usual heading into Saturday's game against No. 5 LSU.

"Monday was a long day," McGrew said. "My staff has been amazing. We worked like crazy. Everyone did a really good job of getting that done quickly and early so we could get some orders placed with the vendors."

McGrew said about 30 helmets were burned to a crisp and all of them suffered damage to some degree, whether from smoke or the process of putting out the fire. A significant number of shoulder pads, knee braces, cleats and other items were also burned badly.

In a fortunate stroke of timing, the Gators already had plans to unveil a new Jordan Brand cleat for the LSU game. However, now most of Florida's players will be breaking in new helmets and shoulder pads, too.

"We'll never put anybody in shoulder pads or a helmet that is not up to code,'' Spiegler said. "We're extremely confident in both the equipment staff and training-room staff to do what they need to do to get Florida Football ready to play this Saturday, with the safety of our student-athletes at the utmost importance. All our vendors do an amazing job of helping do that."

As soon as McGrew walked off the field at Mississippi State on Saturday, he knew the week ahead was a busy one with LSU coming to town, several recruits scheduled to attend the game, the return of the 2008 national championship team and former Gators quarterback Tim Tebow being inducted into the Ring of Honor.

Once he turned his phone on after landing, a different kind of hectic awaited. Once Monday was over, McGrew could rest easier knowing the equipment staff had a secure handle on an unfamiliar situation. The only similar incident anyone connected to the program could remember was a truck fire in 1971 that damaged equipment.

"We knew it was going to be a big week already,'' McGrew said. "And then this happens, but fortunately, being able to have the resources that we have here, we're able to flip it around and get ready for the next game without too much of a headache. We're going through something like this and we're not going to miss a beat."