We're going to backtrack slightly here and pick up a few pics from early this year that we didn't get a chance to put up when they happened.
I guess this was about late Feb. '07 when my studly nephew Harris came down to Florida for a very short three day visit. Besides a long Harley ride the high point of the trip was our drive to Gainesville to visit with the now twice won NCAA Champion Florida Gator basketball team vs. Tennessee.
Once inside the O'Connell Center, also known as the O-Dome, we found that everyone had a Gator Bsketball T-Shirt placed on their seat in either orange or blue depending on where their seats were in the arena.
The Rowdy Reptiles, or the exclusive student seating in the arena pictured above, all wore their trademark deep orange (vs. the Creamsicle orange of UT!). The student seats are given away to the students free for each game, however, there is definitely a pecking order involved in getting them!
As a freshman, Michael is very low on the pecking order. It goes something like this: Seniours who have achieved full fledged Rowdy Reptile status by having gone to at least 8 games the year before get first dibs to the tickets.......on down the line. As Michael is just getting his first round of games under his belt, by the time Freshman tickets came up there were no more free student tickets available.
The only way to get in was to pay a "bit" of a premium to get good seats.......and OY is such a great word to USE here!
We ultimately were able to scare up some very choice seats about 10-12 rows up from the floor in time for Harris' visit. When compared to our normal top of the stadium seats, we immediately became spoiled!The Gators playing Tennessee is a divisional game that always turns out great and contains lots of drama. Todays game would foreshadow an even BIGGER game two months later in the NCAA round of 64 where they would meet again, the winner moving on to the Final Four and the loser going home. (I guess you can figure out what happened.)
The Gators had won the 2006 NCAA Championship and in a show of determination and solidarity, all 5 starters elected to return to school and put off entry into the NBA. Here Joakim Noah takes one of his unorthodox foul shots with Al Horford on the line with him and Taureen Green in the backcourt.
With Billy Donovan and the Gator bench anxiously watching the action, the Gators withstood nearly every Tennessee Volunteer surge.
One of the exciting facets of attending any live sporting event is the action that takes place in the stands, with the fans, and specifically during television timeouts.
Not realizing the clamor building up around me during ONE of these TV moments, I turned to my right and was surprised to see none other than Gtor BBall mascot AL E. Gator giving out High-Fives to the fans. (I know what you're probably thinking but you can't make up a name like that folks......)
As a minoir aside, one of the OTHER aspects of live games is trying to understand what would posess a person, no less a student AT U of F, to attend a UF/Tennessee game, sit in the student section, and dress in a TENNESSEE UNIFORM!? Above you can see this very occurrence underneath Al's right arm............not sure what mental hospital he was let out of but he was soon readmitted after the game.
As the game drew to a close the Gators began their trademark secong half surge a nd won the game going away.......the score not even being material at this point.
With our perfunctory Post Game pic now taken, we went off to find Michael who was sitting in the student section. However, we still had one more surprise left for Harris.
One of the undercurrent stories to this Gator basketball team for us is the presence of Garrett Tyler, who is a backup forward AND a Palm Harbor University High School graduate. Garrett was a star forward at PHU and walked on at UF to win a place on an extremely talented Gator club that any player would just die to join. Michael was a freshman at PHU on the JV team when Garrett was a senior and we were always impressed with his tenacity............a trait that no doubt served him well in gaining acceptance of this Gator squad.
Garrett's parents, Gary and Janet Tyler, really helped Carolyn and I as new UF parents and helped us not only learn the ropes at UF but also helped direct us in how to get partial season seats to the Gator games in the first place........a feat which ain't easy but was most definitely worth it.
Here Garrett joined us for a post game pic, taken by his Mom, Janet. After each and every home game Garrett signs autographs for all the kids in the stands who want them......and there are PLENTY of them. But he's patient and gracious and taking the time to enjoy his place with the team. No doubt you can see that Garrett stands a full "head" above all of us..........and unseen in this pic was another of the backup squad, Marese Speights, who appeared to make Garret look like we did compared to him! These guys are simply huge! And we can't wait till next year!!
I'll leave you with a pic of Harris and Michael back at Michael's dorm room.
