Florida Gators

"We knew going in we wanted to play North Carolina. We were kind of hoping for it. If you're going to be national champions, you have to beat the national champions." 
 – UF goalkeeper Meredith Flaherty / Dec. 7, 1998 
 
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Becky Burleigh knew what her team needed to do and what she had to say, but she was at the mercy of the game clock. 
 
Her Florida soccer team led juggernaut North Carolina, with its 15 national titles over the previous 17 years, by a slim 1-0 margin in the 1998 NCAA championship game at Greensboro, N.C. The Gators were playing a masterful defensive game, holding off Tar Heel attack after attack, but Burleigh had some tactical and motivational points for her players. She just had to get to the second-half TV timeout to deliver them.
 

By the time the ball finally went out of bounds and the two teams headed to the sidelines there were only 15 minutes remaining. 
 
"I was thinking to myself this was a pretty important speech I have to make," Burleigh recalled this week. "Everybody was so fired up, so there wasn't a lot for me to say. It didn't matter anyway, as it turned out." 
 
That's because a fiery freshman by the name of Abby Wambach stepped into the huddle and delivered an especially salty message about finishing that would have made Robert De Niro proud. 
 
Burleigh let Wambach go and gave what amounted to "Yeah, what she said!" and then sent her players back on the field. Minutes later, the Gators were dog-piling in celebration of one of the most miraculous national titles – in any sport – of Florida's tradition-rich championship history. UF soccer, just four years old, had taken down the equivalent of John Wooden's UCLA basketball dynasty.  Current Florida coach Samantha Bohon was at that match 25 years ago. Bohon finished her All-American caeer at Duke in 1997 and was a Blue Devil volunteer coach at the time and made the drive from Durham, N.C., to cheer against the Tar Heels, though her motivation was not (completely) rooted in schadenfreude. Bohon was born and raised in Florida, had played club and was close with a bunch of the '98 Gators and appreciated the improbable story that was unfolding. 
 
"I remember watching that game and thinking after Florida got on top it was like awakening the [UNC] beast," Bohon said this week. "There was an element of withstanding the pressure that I was anxious about for Florida, but they fought through it and demonstrated the exact trademarks we want to have in this program now. We want to be gritty and blue-collar. They had some really strong and mentally tough players on that '98 team and I just remember being blown away by their ascension from upstart to national champion."
 
On Friday, Bohon will put those gritty, blue-collar vibes in front of her Gators (4-1-2) when that incomparable 1998 team will be honored during the team's SEC opener against Missouri (4-1-2) at Dizney Stadium, part of the University Athletic Association "Championships Weekend" reunion. Florida teams celebrating championship (SEC and/or NCAA) anniversaries of 10, 25 or 50 years are invited back to take a bow during Saturday's nights football game against Tennessee at Spurrier/Florida Field.
 
CHARTING THE GATORS 
These teams will be celebrating anniversaries during UF's Championship Reunion Weekend.

Year	Anniversary	Sport	Championship
1973	50-year	Men's Golf	NCAA
1998	25-year	Volleyball	SEC
	25-year	Women's Outdoor Track & Field	SEC
	25-year	Softball	SEC
	25-year	Baseball	SEC
	25-year	Soccer	SEC & NCAA
	25-year	Women's Tennis	SEC & NCAA
2013	10-year	Women's Tennis	SEC
	10-year	Men's Swimming & Diving	SEC
	10-year	Softball	SEC
	10-year	Soccer	SEC
	10-year	Lacrosse	ALC
	10-year	Men's Basketball	SEC
	10-year	Men's Outdoor Track & Field	NCAA
	10-year	Gymnastics	SEC & NCAA

 Burleigh's ladies, a quarter-century later, will be well represented (25 years for that '98 squad, plus 10 years for her 2013 team) at both Friday's match and Saturday's football game. 
 
"When someone asks me what's my favorite part of coaching, I tell them alumni weekend," said Burleigh, who retired in 2021 after 27 seasons that included 431 wins, 13 SEC championships, 12 SEC Tournament titles and 22 NCAA appearances. "You have totally different relationships than when you were coaching them. You cherish that time together."
 
To review, Florida announced in June 1993 it was adding women's soccer as a sport and a year later hired Burleigh – just 27 at the time, but already with a pair of NAIA national titles on her resume – to ferry a program with no players from the ground floor to its 1995 debut season. 
 
The Gators went 14-4-4 and finished second in the SEC that inaugural '95 campaign and instantly caught the attention (and interest) of some of the best recruits in Florida, And beyond. 
 

"Becky wasn't much older than we were, which is pretty amazing when you think about it," said Heather Mitts Feeley, who made her leap of faith in '96 following a sterling prep and club career in Ohio. "She had our respect right away, I think, because she was so professional about everything and had this ability to connect with each of us on a different level."
 
The same fall Mitts showed up (alongside fellow freshmen and future standout Sarah Yohe Cohen), the Gators got an even bigger jolt from Southern Methodist transfer Danielle Fotopoulis, an Altamonte Springs product who wanted to come home to finish her career. Fotopoulous was one of the most lethal offensive players in NCAA women's soccer history and had a staggering 58 goals in 44 games to prove it. 
 
In the run-up to the start of that '96 season, Burleigh gathered her team for a goal-setting meeting. The Gators kicked around the notion of winning the SEC and what an achievement that would be for a program in just its second season. 
 
Fotopoulis had heard enough. 
 
"I was like, 'Win the SEC? What are you talking about?' I didn't come to win a conference," Fotopoulis recalled this week, with a laugh. "I came to Florida to win a national championship. I had been to the Final Four the year before at SMU, so I was like, 'We better be competing for the whole thing.' I mean, I came with that right off the bat and everybody was like, 'What?' I told them I was here for the big show."
 
Burleigh and assistant coach Vic Campbell were all in. So was the team. 
 
This is where the Florida soccer story took off. 
 
The '96 Gators went unbeaten in SEC play and won the SEC Tournament to claim the league title, then padded their conference dominance by winning the postseason tournament. UF reached the NCAA Tournament's quarterfinal round and promptly got squashed 9-0 by No. 1 UNC. Ouch.
 
In '97, Fotopoulis suffered a season-ending knee injury in the preseason. Sans their best player, the Gators had a decent run (repeating as SEC Tournament champs), only to come up against the vaunted Tar Heels in the NCAA Tournament again. This time, it was UNC 5-0 on the way to its 16th national crown over 17 seasons.
 
Then came '98. Florida won its first 11 matches, beating five ranked opponents, before playing host to North Carolina in a home regular-season contest. The Tar Heels won 2-1 in overtime. 
 
"I tell the story all the time when I speak to young people about the process and seeing progress," Mitts said. "What we did over those three years, going from 9-0 to 5-0 to 2-1 ... . Yes, things have to fall your way and you have to work really hard, but sometimes it's about belief in yourself." 


 
UF did not lose another match. The Gators won the SEC regular season and postseason tournament, then defeated James Madison, Northwestern and Penn State to reach the program's first College Cup. Waiting in Greensboro was second-ranked Santa Clara, with the Gators prevailing 1-0, while the top-ranked Tar Heels played a grueling 149-minute match before defeating No. 3 Portland 1-0 in their national semifinal. 
 
"Honestly, we wanted Carolina. We felt it was destiny," Burleigh said. "We'd come so close that first game and we had a good feeling about our chances. It had just been the arc of that team."
 
Of the whole program, actually.
 
Just over five minutes into the NCAA championship game, Fotopoulis scored on a free kick – the 118^th goal of her career – to put the Gators in front. After that, it was about out-lasting a ferocious Tar Heels offensive onslaught, with UF keeper Meredith Flaherty turning away 10 shots and Florida shocking the women's soccer world. 
 
"I was like, 'Wow!' We really did this.' That's what I remember thinking," Fotopoulos said about the outcome and perfect ending to her collegiate career. "It was what I came there for." This weekend, Fotopoulos and her teammates will relive that moment. Bohon and her team, meanwhile, can learn from it. 
 
Firsthand.
 
"I always want the alumni to feel like it's still their program, especially when you have someone like Becky who invests so much of herself in people," Bohon said. "We'll never replace what they had, but we want to add to it."