GatorCountry!!!

Hey Hey Hey!  Welcome back to the UnderDogs y’all!

So on The Great UnderDog Road Trip of 2010, up the state of Florida from Miami, The Lady-Underdog Kisha, and I made stops in Ft Meyers (to chill with our rockin’ friends, Todd and Flopy and their brilliant kids, Lucas and Sebastian - pictured above... incase that was unclear :), St Petersburg (to visit with Kisha’s, Marine-Biology-Major and Way-cool, Cousin Ben at Eckard College) But our final stop on the way up to the panhandle-Gulf Coast was an UnderD MUST stop.  Back in the heart of swampland; Gainesville, Florida… Home of the Gators. 

Since I graduated from the, oh so esteemed :), University of Florida, back in… um… well at some point back there on the timeline…  I have only returned to the thick of GatorCountry twice, and the last time I had been there was 2003… which was a number of years ago.  And a number of years beFORE Gator sports teams became something of ULTIMATE favorites (um… which is technically the opposite of an underdogs … shhhhh :)  it's been GooooD to be a Gator.

So on our little tour of campus I showed the Lady-UnderD my old digs; Century Tower, Plaza of the Americas, the French Fries, the Reitz Union, and of course the Swamp... Ben Hill Griffin Stadium - Home of the ‘06 and ‘08 National Champion Football squads. And Naturally Right across the street from there lies the Stephen C. O'Connell Center (or the O’Dome if you’re hip :) where the UF Men’s Basketball team dominated the NCAA for Two National Championships of their own in ‘06 and ‘07! For the whole year in 2007 the Gators held both the National Titles in Football AND in Basketball. (Never in history has that happened before... And really, nobody's ever even been close!)  That’s how good it’s been to be a Gator fan this past decade.  We’ve been sooooo SPOILED!!  :)  It's Championship or BUST these days. 

As we passed the O’Dome entrance I noticed two peculiarly lonely ticket takers standing by the main door… and directly to their left an even lonelier ticket window. I asked the nice lady in the window what was going on. She said, “Girls Basketball game against Auburn.”  I said, “Oh cool, when?”  She said, “ It just started.” I said, “Oh cool, how much are tickets?” and She said, “Four dollars.”  FOUR dollars??   So then I said, “Oh cool, I’ll take two.”

The instantly obvious difference between a men’s and women’s basketball game at the O’Dome on the UF Campus is the significant difference in the amount of fans in attendance. I mean, I know that Men’s basketball is much more popular than their female counterparts, but c’mon people!  Let's say the men’s team enjoys about a 90-95 percent crowd turnout (certainly 100% during the Championship years) the women’s team on this night, against conference rival Auburn, had about 10 percent of the arena filled... And maybe it was less than that. There was NOBODY THERE!  I hope that most of the fan base hadn't returned to classes yet (the game was on January 7th) but Still!  It’s like friends-and-family night or something.... C'mon Gainesville! These girls are workin’ it out here! Come support!

I know there is an ongoing debate about whether or not female basketball is financially viable (because it is much less popular than guys bball) but that’s really an argument for or against the WNBA.  These are student athletes, who play technically- sound, team oriented ball.  No Posterizing Alley-Oops or Powerful Blocks into the tenth row, or showy chest-thumping, just solid basketball… Fun for me to watch, at least :)  Oh and Miss LadyUnderD got me a new camera for Christmas! A Nikon Coolpix P90 with 24x Zoom.  By far the best camera I’ve EVER had!  And since there was nobody there and we had such great seats, I decided to try my hand at sports photography… Man, it’s a tough thing!  Here are some of the ones that turned out.  Thank God for Digital right?    

The result of the game was a dramatic DOUBLE-overtime victory for the Lady Gators, over the Lady Tigers (or is that Tigresses and Gatoresses) 71-68.  The fans that were left at the end must have been extremely excited about the thrilling finish.   Well, except for those Auburn backers who sadly sulked away into the darkness (‘Sup Mike Masters :)  It takes a big man to admit that we, the UnderDogs, were not there to support the Gatoresses at the end of the game (because we had to get back on the road)…  I am NOT a big man!  Underdogs don't leave Early... that's for FairWeathers!!!  Shhhhhhh... 

Thanks for reading

Birmingham and Nashville are next!

Peace out Y’all!