The Life of a Man Changed By a Game

My earliest memories are not of my first bicycle ride or of my family opening presents on Christmas Eve. I don’t remember my first day of school, and I do not remember the first time I lost a tooth. I do not remember which Saturday morning cartoons. Instead, I remember watching College Gameday and SportsCenter on Saturdays. When I find myself reflecting on my childhood, I realize that most of my memories are of one thing… Florida Football. 

My dad is an alumnus of the University of Florida and first bought his own set of season tickets in 1990. I hadn’t even turned two yet but that moment would shape my entire life from that point forward. From that point on my weekends for every fall were set in stone. I was either going to make the trek down to Gainesville, Florida or I would be watching the game on TV. In the still blistering hot September days of northern Florida, I would be there in row 73 of section 19. I would get there about an hour before the game and watch the Pride of the Sunshine take the field at The Swamp. I know that for the rest of my life I will hear the jaws theme come over the crowd and turn my head towards the South End zone, bracing myself for the roar of one of the loudest crowds in all of sports. 

My biggest heroes as a child were not the red power ranger or Leonardo the ninja turtle (although they certainly would be honorable mentions). Instead they were guys like Danny Wuerffel, Ike Hilliard, Jaquez Green, and Rex Grossman. I remember as a five year old watching from my grandmother’s living room in Jacksonville when #1 Florida lost to Auburn in 1994. I remember sitting in my grandparents’ house in Virginia just a little over a month later and watching the “Choke at Doak”. I remember going to Athens, Ga in 1995 to watch the Gators play the Bulldogs at Sanford Stadium; the only time those two teams have done so in my father’s lifetime. I remember my dad telling me that one of the last things his father said to him before passing away from Cancer the summer before the 1995 football season were, “I will see you in Athens.” That day in Athens was a beautiful day, and I remember understanding as I gazed up into the clouds that there was no doubt my Grandfather was up there somewhere, watching his Gators play. Those moments are much more a part of me than my first spelling bee, my first bus ride, or the first time I scored a goal. 

Florida Football was simply a major part of my life. However, once my older brother Jonathan started high school and had marching band competitions pretty much every weekend in October, it began to consume my life. Since that year, the 1999 football season, I have missed only two Florida-Georgia games. That same brother would be accepted to attend the University of Florida. I will never forget the smile on my dad’s face that day. And then the look of disgruntled frustration on my brother’s face when he realized that he could not turn the down the scholarship he had received from the University of South Carolina. It simply made too much sense for him to become a Gamecock instead… the thought of becoming a Bulldog was never truly entertained.  

I remember Jonathan’s freshman year when the Gators went to Columbia, South Carolina and not understanding how he so easily could cheer against the Gators. He experienced the same childhood I had, so how could he just abandon that so easily? I asked that question frequently and said I would never cheer against the Gators even if I did attend another school. He told me I just didn’t understand, and the truth is I didn’t…

And frankly even after I enrolled at Georgia State University I still didn’t understand. Georgia State didn’t have a football team and I was a commuter student. My time was filled with being a full time college student and being a high school drum instructor… and of course, going to Florida football games. My first two years at Georgia State I attended 20 out of Florida’s 27 football games, including road trips to Tennessee, Florida State, LSU, Ole Miss, South Carolina, and both Florida-Georgia games. During that same time period I attended just one Georgia State sporting event: a 15 point loss to VCU in basketball. 

I believe that what I had told my brother had been exactly right. I did not care about Georgia State nearly as much as I did about Florida. I owned maybe one or two Georgia State t-shirts and hoodies while I could have gone two weeks without wearing the same Florida shirt every day. Even when Georgia State announced they would be starting a football program during the Spring of my Freshman year, little had changed. Certainly I was excited about my school starting a football program, but they were going to be FCS, and while I would support them, they would never threaten my allegiance to Florida, even if they did one day ascend to the FBS level. 

I could not have prepared myself for what was going to happen to me. I simply could not have thought it possible. My perception of college football was about to drastically change, and I have already talked about how much college football impacted my life. However, like most people who refuse to accept change, I fought it until the very end...

I first started getting excited about Georgia State football when I began reading Ben Moore’s blog, Covering Panther Sports From Every Angle. He was the only one that I had seen thus far that wrote so frequently on Georgia State athletics. So I became a regular reader, but as anticipation grew for September 2, 2010 I still refused to accept what was about to happen to me. 

We had already announced at that point that we would be travelling to Tuscaloosa, Alabama to play the Crimson Tide. Alabama was the defending National Champions, a title which came after they embarrassed my own Florida Gators in the SEC Championship game. They were the odds on favorite to run the table once again and become the first team to repeat as unanimous national title winners since Nebraska in the mid-nineties, who also accomplished such a feat by defeating the Gators. 

One morning my brother and I were eating breakfast and he asked me about Georgia State football. As suckers for cheesy ending sports movies, we entertained the thought of the first year Georgia State football team defeating an undefeated, defending champion Alabama team. We agreed that it would be the greatest upset in the history of sports and something that would never be duplicated. I had also already decided I wanted to be at that game, so he asked me what it would mean to me to witness such a thing. My answer was obvious to me, but I watched as that answer made my brother’s jaw hit the table.

“That would be incredible,” I said. “But it wouldn’t mean as much to me as seeing Florida win a National Championship in person.” 

I could tell right away he was upset with me. I don’t remember the first words that came out of his mouth, but I am sure they expressed incredible disbelief while most likely including a few expletives. How could I possibly think that?! THE GREATEST UPSET IN THE HISTORY OF SPORTS?! How would that not mean as much as seeing Florida, a team that had already won three national championships, win another one?  

My answer came to me quickly and made absolute perfect sense to me at the time. Upsets are the novelty of sports. They are what keep the casual fans interested in 18-22 year olds playing a game. Real fans don’t care about their teams pulling off upsets; they care about their teams winning championships. There is no greater feeling than saying my team is the best team in the world. Furthermore, I had never been there in person to see my team accomplish that goal. I certainly savored every moment of the 1996 Sugar Bowl, the 2006 BCS Championship in Glendale, Arizona, and the 2008 BCS Championship in Miami, Florida. But I savored all of those victories from my own living room. Being there in person to witness that would be the single greatest moment I could experience as a sports fan. Jonathan was flabbergasted and once again told me that I just didn’t understand… 

I don’t think there was a single precise moment when I realized he was right. There wasn’t an “Ah HA!” moment when I knew my life had changed. But I can tell you the day it all started... That day was September 2, 2010. The place was the Georgia Dome, where I had run around carrying my “Welcome to the Wuerfell House” sign with “Wuerfell House” imitating the Waffle House lettering. I had been there in that same building to see the Gators win five SEC Championships and lovingly referred to it as “Ben Hill Griffin- North”. 

But this day was different. This day I wasn’t watching the Gators… I was watching MY team. I will never forget the first time MY team ran out onto the field… I will never forget seeing over 30,000 people watch MY team play their first game… I will never forget MY team scoring their first touchdown… And I will never forget how I felt when I walked out of the Georgia Dome that night after I had watched MY team win a game. 

I knew immediately that I certainly did care about Georgia State football much more than I had thought I would. But it didn’t just change my perception of Georgia State football; it changed my entire perception of MY school. Suddenly I cared about Georgia State sports. That winter I went to Georgia State basketball games, and the ones I didn’t go to I listened to on the radio. I started going to Georgia State baseball games. I bought more Georgia State Football shirts than I had Georgia State shirts of any kind whatsoever before that year. I learned the names of people like Dave Cohen, Carl Patton, Greg Frady, Bob Heck, Cheryl Levick, Shernard Long, Kevin Morris and Thomas Terrell and what those people meant to Georgia State University Athletics. I will be able to tell my kids about the time Georgia State beat South Alabama in overtime and I sprinted through the halls of the Georgia Dome in order to celebrate with my friend Logan. I didn’t care in that moment how stupid I looked… because MY team had won!

Ultimately I can tell you that my older brother Jonathan had been right all along. I didn’t understand how I could possibly care about a school’s athletics more than I did Florida’s… until September 2, 2010. That day changed my perception of college athletics and therefore my life. Now, to be fair, does this changed perception mean I am telling my father to sell his tickets in row 73 of section 19 at Ben Hill Griffen Stadium? Absolutely not. Does this change where I will be the last Saturday in October from now until probably the end of my life? Not likely. 

However, the fact that I am writing this story is something. Georgia State faces many struggles ahead in trying to build a successful football program. One of which is convincing the alumni base and student body, who did not grow up with memories of Georgia State like the ones I had of Florida, to change their perception of their school. I am an example of a student who wanted nothing to do with his own school. I wasn’t ashamed of it and it wasn’t that I disliked my school… I was simply indifferent. I had my team and there was nothing that was going to happen to change that. Oh man was I wrong. 

But when something has impacted your life so much, it is impossible to let it go so easily. I will never stop making that trip down I-75 to Gainesville, Florida. But there will be a day when I won’t be able to claim both any longer… I know that one day, when the two things that I care so much about will meet on the playing field. And I am proud to say that I will have learned yet another lesson from my brother and there will be no orange in my attire that day. I will be dressed in my blue and white and will cheer as loud as I can in hopes of a glorious Panther victory. 

It’s funny that something as silly as watching 18-22 year olds play a game can have such an impact on a man’s entire life. I can’t explain it the passion that I feel for both the Florida Gators and the Georgia State Panthers. I would like to think of it though as something romantic that I could care so much about something regardless of what I get in return. There have been many days that I spent the entire night sulking after a Florida loss. I have now endured my first losing season as college football fan in the form of Georgia State’s 3-8 season. But I have also experienced the joy that loving something so much can bring. I love the Florida Gators… but I know that nothing will ever top the experience of what happened to me on September 2, 2010. I challenge all Panther alumni and students, regardless of where your allegiance lies, to embrace that day and what it has meant to your school. Lives were changed that day… and even if yours wasn’t, that is something that anyone who calls themselves a Panther can take pride in.