Gators as Champions

In case you've been following college football and basketball for the last couple of years, you're probably aware that the University of Florida Gators have been extraordinarily successful, capturing national championships for football in 2006 and for men's basketball in 2005-06 and 2006-07. When your school wins a championship, there is an up-side and a down-side to it. It's easy to see how this can be a good thing, but there is a danger with a championship as well. It can unreasonably elevate the expectations for future UF football and basketball teams to the point that a string of moderately successful seasons becomes grounds for a coach's dismissal. And it takes away the excitement of going into a game as an underdog with a chance for an upset when you're always considered to be top dog. But winning it all every now and then is great!

Before the last two seasons the Gator men cagers never won the NCAA championship and the football team's only other national championship season was 1996. In 2006, UF held celebrations honoring that season along with the coaches and players who were a part of it. Notable among them were Heisman Trophy winner Danny Wuerffel and former head coach Steve Spurrier, who left the Gators after the 2001 season to coach for the Washington Redskins and then for the South Carolina Gamecocks the last two seasons. For the ten-year anniversary celebration, though, Steve was once again a Gator! And I guess, in his heart he still is, because after the recent 84-75 triumph of Billy Donovan's team over Ohio State in the basketball tournament final, Spurrier said that "we" (speaking for UF but apparently including himself) were turning Ohio State into "Runner-Up U." It's become well-known how Steve Spurrier would often make provocative statements taunting opposing teams and their colleges while he was UF's coach, but he left at the end of 2001 and is still provoking antagonism on behalf of the Gators! Still, although he's now a rival coach in the same division of the SEC as the Gators, I appreciate what he's done for us and wish him the best in the future (except in games against UF). I truly believe he feels the same about the Gators.