Ocala resident Richard Pickett, 86, has attended every Florida home football game since 1949. (Photo: Dennis Black/GatorVision)
When Gators Are Home, Richard Pickett Comes Home to Section 49, Row 4, Seat 20
Saturday, October 26, 2019 | Football, Scott Carter
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By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- You ask him why he developed such a passion for the game and Richard Pickett pauses. His face scrunches as he contemplates an answer.
"Truthfully, I don't know,'' he said. "I just know I always liked football."
At 86, Pickett's memory remains sharp most days. That becomes clear through multiple conversations.
Ask him about his family, and he begins to recite the facts like an auditor reviewing a ledger. Three adult children, 12 grandkids and 20 great grandkids. He tells you he weighed 125 pounds when he graduated from Ocala High School more than 60 years ago, and that today, he tips the scales at 135.
"I haven't changed much over the years,'' he said.
Pickett prides himself on consistency and loyalty. That's the way he was raised and the way he has lived.
On a hot and humid Friday morning in July, Pickett and two longtime acquaintances, Albert Peek and Richard Williamson, made the trip from Ocala to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium to discuss his unusual attachment to the Gators. They have known Pickett since they were young men who worked together at the Ocala Lumber Company before becoming successful businessmen.
They are amazed by his commitment.
"He's like the Energizer bunny,'' said Peek, who attended UF and served as a manager for the swim team in the late 1960s and early '70s. "He just keeps on going."
Pickett never played the game. Says he was too small. He never attended UF or any college. He already had a job.
He started working at his father's service station as a boy and as he got older, he took over Pickett's Standard Station. Eventually, it became a Chevron station and 63 years after his father opened the place, Pickett sold it and retired in 1997.
When Pickett was 16 in the fall of 1949, he took advantage of a perk of working for his father. He took a Saturday off to attend a University of Florida football game. He wanted to see with his eyes what he had heard Gators radio play-by-play man Otis Boggs describe over the airwaves.
Pickett's passion for the Gators took flight and never landed.
Seventy years later, Pickett is still a regular at "The Swamp." To say he is a dedicated fan is like saying grass is green or water is wet.
Pickett's dedication is of Cal Ripken Jr. proportions. The man hasn't missed a Florida home game since he first showed up and sat in the end zone bleachers that day in 1949.
"Knowing his passion for the Gators has been almost beyond grasping compared to most people,'' Williamson said. "I've got a commitment for a lot of things, but my commitment won't get me to the same place for 70 years."
Longtime Gators fan Richard Pickett, left, got to meet his favorite Gator of all-time, Steve Spurrier, on Nov. 7 in Spurrier's office at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. (Photo: Alesha Busch/UAA Communications)
If records were kept for longest streak of consecutive home games attended, Pickett surely owns the distinction. He admits the details are fuzzy as to what happened that first Saturday he took off from the gas station to go to his inaugural game. He thinks the Gators played The Citadel. They did open that season with a 13-0 win over The Citadel and then didn't play at home again for a month, losing to Georgia Tech 43-14 on homecoming. The Gators hosted Furman and Alabama later that year in their final season under head coach Raymond Wolf.
Regardless, Pickett was hooked.
"I thought, 'I am going to go as long as I can.' And I'm doing it,'' he said. "I came in through the west gate and into end zone. I don't think I had been anywhere where there was 25,000 people. Back in 1949, that was a lot of people. I'm disappointed in the people who think it's more important to stay home and watch it on TV than go to the games. To me, there's nothing like going to the games.
"I just kept on going and going and going. Today, most of my friends are either gone or in a nursing home and not able to go."
When Pickett first started to come to games, he would just show up and buy a ticket and set wherever. He eventually found his home in Section 49, Row 4, Seat 20. Ask him why there, and he's quick to remind you that in 1982 they added chairback seats in the south end zone, which made attending games easier as he got older.
For many years, Pickett attended every game he could home and away. He has watched the Gators play every Southeastern Conference school on the road other than for Texas A&M and Missouri. Pickett said his last road game was in 2011 at Auburn. He drove there with a late friend and they had to pull off to the side of the road to find out how to defog the front window of his friend's new car. He always drove to away games other than for a flight to watch the Gators lose at Syracuse in 1991.
Pickett turns 87 in December and is excited about the team's future. However, this season has been one of the most challenging for Pickett during his amazing streak. His wife Dorothy is 92 and struggling with health issues. Pickett said that might keep him from attending next weekend's game in Jacksonville against Georgia, which has remained a regular stop for him even after he stopped going to road games.
Dorothy would go to games with him before they had kids. That was part of the deal, one that has worked since they have been married for 62 years.
"That's the first thing I told her,'' Pickett said. "When the football games come, I'm going to games. You can go or stay home. That was the understanding. As long as I go, I don't care who goes or doesn't go. I go to see the ball game. I don't try to talk too much to anybody. I get excited when we do something that is really outstanding. I'm usually pretty quiet. I have a one-track mind. I figure I've got to pay attention to what I see in order to remember it."
Ask Pickett his favorite Gators game, and that's easy. The victory over Florida State in the Sugar Bowl to win the 1996 national championship, the first in school history. Pickett was in the Superdome that night and reveres former Florida coach Steve Spurrier. The Head Ball Coach is King Gator in his mind now and forever.
"I didn't think I would live long enough to see the Gators do that,'' he said.
Another favorite moment was the 1960 win over Georgia Tech when first-year Gators coach Ray Graves elected to go for two in the final moments at Florida Field to upset the Yellow Jackets 18-17 and his mentor, Georgia Tech coach Bobby Dodd.
What about a bad memory? Surely, he has one. He does. The 42-13 loss to Missouri in 2014, the only time Pickett can recall leaving a game early out of disgust. He had seen enough that by early in the fourth quarter, he packed up and made the drive home.
Pickett was in his usual seat – he still drives to games by himself if no one else wants to tag along – for Florida's victory over Auburn three weeks ago.
Ask him what he thinks about the job Dan Mullen has done in his two seasons, and Pickett's voice spikes with enthusiasm.
"I'm the proudest I've been since Spurrier was there,'' he said. "The way he calls the games, you don't know for sure what he is going to do."
Those who have known Pickett the longest, his former customers at the gas station or friends around Ocala aware of his passion for the Gators, have a familiar question whenever they see him.
"You still going to Gators games?" they ask habitually.
"Yes, I hope I can go 10 more years," Pickett replies. "If that's the case, I will be 96. I'm going to go as long as I can because I love the Gators."
That leads to a final question from a new acquaintance. Why, after all these years, is showing up on Saturday still important?
There's no pause. Pickett has a quick answer that rings as true today as the first time he stepped foot inside the stadium decades ago.
"The social part doesn't mean very much to me, but being there with the Gator team, the coaches and the fans is really great,'' he said. "I've enjoyed nearly every game I've been to."
