Discussion: View Thread

  • 1.  Championship Memories

    Posted 11-04-2015 14:41

    What do you remember most about your time on campus? As a member of the class of 2009, one word comes to mind: championships.

    Our Men's Basketball team won the first one in the spring semester of my freshman year. The celebration afterwards shut down University Ave. I'd never seen anything like it.

    People climbed the lamp posts next to Tijuana Flats to dance on the roof and hung from the traffic light arms at Buckman Dr. It was bedlam, but I don't remember anyone being seriously injured.

    Of course, I wasn't the only one watching Gators hang from traffic lights and dance where they shouldn't.

    After cheering the Gators to victory in the 2006 NCAA Football championship, The Gator Nation once again descended on University Ave. The celebration was as raucous as before, but not as "elevated."

    I wondered why.

    Then I saw him: a fellow student walking through the crowd with a long, vertical stain on his clothes.

    Huh.

    Then I saw another one.

    Strange.

    Then I realized why. Someone had greased all of the light poles on University Ave.

    Well done.

    I remember our multi-sport championship runs and Tebow's Heisman campaign with pride. Hopefully we'll see something like it again.

    But I'm sure 2006 was the last time we'll see anyone hanging from a lamp post in the resulting celebration.

    Go Gators!

    ------------------------------
    Garrett Garner-Wells
    Interim Associate Director of Alumni Communications
    University of Florida
    Gainesville, FL
    ------------------------------