- Jun 14, 2014
- 11
- 5
Founding Member
Haven't seen a lot of this place lately, but GOTTA post the yearly rant: Reasons to HATE Georgia...Thanks to Franz Beard!
NEVER FORGET the pious ass that was Vince Dooley; a man who pretended to be a fair minded arbiter, who rode that misconception into the positions of influence within the SEC and the NCAA from which he continually pounded the Florida program while shielding UGA from sanctions.
REASON NUMBER ONE: My dad was a 16-year-old freshman at the University of Florida in 1942, biding his time until he was 18 when he could sign up to join the Navy to fight the Germans and the Japanese. On most of the college campuses across the nation, the physically able athletes had already signed up to fight for their country in the weeks immediately after Pearl Harbor. Florida had gone 4-6 in 1941 but expectations were high that 1942 would be different thanks to season-closing wins over Miami and Georgia Tech and a close loss to UCLA. Those hopes and dreams went out the window with the unilateral declaration of war against Germany and Japan.
The most able bodied of Coach Thomas Lieb’s football team were already in the military when the 1942 season arrived. Most of Florida’s team was made up of young guys waiting their eighteenth birthdays or who couldn’t pass the physical.
That wasn’t the case at Georgia, which had one of the two or three best ROTC programs in the country. Georgia was already loaded when the war broke out. By the time the 1942 season began, Coach Wally Butts had a roster full of stars who were enrolled in the ROTC program, including All-Americans like Flatfoot Frankie Sinkwich (he won the Heisman that year), George Poschner and Charlie Trippi, who would go on to become one of the greatest college football players in history.
When Georgia and Florida squared off in Jacksonville on November 7, the game was over by the first quarter and by halftime, it was total carnage. Butts could have called it off any time he wanted, but he kept pouring it on. Late in the fourth quarter Sinkwich and Trippi were still in the game pouring it on.
The final score was 75-0. Georgia went on to win a national championship. Florida went 3-7 with wins over Randolph-Macon, Auburn and Villanova.
REASON NUMBER TWO: Florida had been picked to win the SEC and finish in the top five in the nation in 1968 but problems on and off the field torpedoed those dreams. Florida’s bubble burst in Chapel Hill on a rainy Saturday in October when the Gators lost seven fumbles and fell to the Tar Heels, 22-7. From there the season was a downward spiral and by the Georgia game on November 7, the Gators were 4-2-1.
The Gators were a team divided by a quarterback controversy as half the team supported Jackie Eckdahl and the other half Larry Rentz. Defensive players thought they were doing their part and they were angered by the Eckdahl-Rentz controversy.
The week before the game Florida offensive genius Fred Pancoast, was hospitalized for an appendectomy. In his absence, Ray Graves decided to shake up the team by swapping coordinators — Ed Kensler went to the defense and Gene Ellenson went to the defense. Graves figured things couldn’t get worse but they did.
On a cold, rainy, miserable day in Jacksonville (those of us who were there will NEVER forget how miserable that day was) ninth-ranked Georgia hammered the out of sorts Gators from the opening whistle. It was 42-0 and over by halftime but with seconds remaining in the fourth quarter Dooley called time out and let his center, who hadn’t kicked since high school, kick a field goal to make the final score, 51-0.
For those of you who never understood Steve Spurrier’s obsession with running it up on Georgia, now you know. Coach Ellenson, who was Spurrier’s close friend, called Spurrier in San Francisco (Spurrier was with the 49ers then) that night and told him what had happened. Those who know Spurrier know that he has a VERY long memory. He never forgot how Dooley called time out to run up the score. He never felt any reason to show a moment of sympathy.
REASON THREE: Florida went on NCAA probation in 1984 for such heinous crimes as assistant coach Dwight Adams giving Dale Dorminey an extra T-shirt during his campus visit and buying him a pack of gum and a Sprite at the Gainesville airport. I’m not making that up. It’s all in the NCAA transcripts.
Not all the crimes were petty. There were some dastardly deeds by Florida boosters who were out of control during those days and the Gators got caught for them and paid the price. However, Florida wasn’t the only school taking its chances outside the law of the NCAA. Florida State got caught for illegal recruiting inducements that same year (Bobby Bowden was the FSU coach … you could look it up) and Georgia got caught up in a major scandal that revolved around 1982 Heisman Trophy winner, Herschel Walker, who allegedly was sold to the highest bidder out of high school. An NCAA investigation hit a stone wall and eventually Georgia lost two scholarships with no bans on television or bowl games. Dooley was chairman of the NCAA’s powerful television committee and to this day, there are rumors that he lobbied long, hard and successfully to keep Georgia out of hot water.
For those who think Dooley is a man of integrity, think again. There is a pattern of run-ins with the NCAA while Dooley was coach and/or athletic director. Georgia got hit with major infractions for football three times (1978, 1982, 1965) while Dooley was the coach and again for football in 1997 while he was the athletic director. The Georgia basketball program got hit for major sanctions under Dooley-hired coaches Hugh Durham (1985) and Jim Harrick (2004).
And then there was Jan Kemp, who blew the whistle on the fraudulent academic support program at Georgia under Dooley in the 1980s. She refused to give athletes passing grades at the insistence of the higher ups in the athletic department and when she complained, she was fired. She sued and was awarded $1.08 million by the jury.
What happened at Georgia is important because in 1984, Florida, got hit with some of the most serious sanctions in NCAA history that included two years without television and severe scholarship reductions. The probation cost Coach Charley Pell his job and cost the Gators the SEC championship. The Gators won the SEC on the field but the Gators were stripped of the championship in a vote of the SEC athletic directors and presidents. Among the leaders of the vote against Florida was Vince Dooley.
In an interview I did with Gator great Wilber Marshall three years ago, Wilber said, “I went to Florida because it was close to home and I’m a mama’s boy. I didn’t go there because they paid me to go but other schools made offers … some big offers … some of the same teams that voted to strip the SEC championship from us in 1984. You would go on recruiting trips and some fat cat booster would let you know what you could expect … that was pretty common then.â€
REASON FOUR: Galen Hall was informed that he would be fired as Florida’s football coach just prior to the LSU game in Baton Rouge on October 7, 1989 (Florida won the game, 16-13). Hall’s crime was allegedly paying one month of child support for Jarvis Williams until Williams’ mom could reimburse him. Hall denied that he ever gave money to Williams and the NCAA has yet to prove conclusively that he did. Yet, Florida got a year of probation (served in 1990) with no bowl game.
It’s bad enough that Florida’s probation was dubious, at best, but the alleged incident happened before any of the players who were on that 1990 team arrived on the UF campus. Still, the SEC athletic directors and presidents, in their infinite wisdom, made the Gators ineligible for the SEC championship in 1990 and denied the Gators a chance to go to a bowl game.
Among the leaders of the vote against Florida was Vince Dooley.
That 1990 season was Steve Spurrier’s first year at Florida. Florida had the best record in the SEC and the Gators should have been the SEC champs. There was no bowl game for a team that deserved to be in the Sugar Bowl. Now, take 1968 and add to it 1990.
Do you understand why Spurrier was obsessed with humiliating Georgia any and every chance he got?
I wasn’t around in 1942 but my dad was and until he died in 1986, he took delight in every loss by every Georgia team in any sport all because of that 75-0 game. I was there at the 1968 game and I’ll never forget what Dooley did. I will also never forgive Dooley for twice voting to pour on the sanctions against the Gators. I can’t think of Dooley without the words self-righteous hypocrite coming to mind. Because of Vince Dooley, I will despise Georgia until the day I die. you should, too.
NEVER FORGET the pious ass that was Vince Dooley; a man who pretended to be a fair minded arbiter, who rode that misconception into the positions of influence within the SEC and the NCAA from which he continually pounded the Florida program while shielding UGA from sanctions.
REASON NUMBER ONE: My dad was a 16-year-old freshman at the University of Florida in 1942, biding his time until he was 18 when he could sign up to join the Navy to fight the Germans and the Japanese. On most of the college campuses across the nation, the physically able athletes had already signed up to fight for their country in the weeks immediately after Pearl Harbor. Florida had gone 4-6 in 1941 but expectations were high that 1942 would be different thanks to season-closing wins over Miami and Georgia Tech and a close loss to UCLA. Those hopes and dreams went out the window with the unilateral declaration of war against Germany and Japan.
The most able bodied of Coach Thomas Lieb’s football team were already in the military when the 1942 season arrived. Most of Florida’s team was made up of young guys waiting their eighteenth birthdays or who couldn’t pass the physical.
That wasn’t the case at Georgia, which had one of the two or three best ROTC programs in the country. Georgia was already loaded when the war broke out. By the time the 1942 season began, Coach Wally Butts had a roster full of stars who were enrolled in the ROTC program, including All-Americans like Flatfoot Frankie Sinkwich (he won the Heisman that year), George Poschner and Charlie Trippi, who would go on to become one of the greatest college football players in history.
When Georgia and Florida squared off in Jacksonville on November 7, the game was over by the first quarter and by halftime, it was total carnage. Butts could have called it off any time he wanted, but he kept pouring it on. Late in the fourth quarter Sinkwich and Trippi were still in the game pouring it on.
The final score was 75-0. Georgia went on to win a national championship. Florida went 3-7 with wins over Randolph-Macon, Auburn and Villanova.
REASON NUMBER TWO: Florida had been picked to win the SEC and finish in the top five in the nation in 1968 but problems on and off the field torpedoed those dreams. Florida’s bubble burst in Chapel Hill on a rainy Saturday in October when the Gators lost seven fumbles and fell to the Tar Heels, 22-7. From there the season was a downward spiral and by the Georgia game on November 7, the Gators were 4-2-1.
The Gators were a team divided by a quarterback controversy as half the team supported Jackie Eckdahl and the other half Larry Rentz. Defensive players thought they were doing their part and they were angered by the Eckdahl-Rentz controversy.
The week before the game Florida offensive genius Fred Pancoast, was hospitalized for an appendectomy. In his absence, Ray Graves decided to shake up the team by swapping coordinators — Ed Kensler went to the defense and Gene Ellenson went to the defense. Graves figured things couldn’t get worse but they did.
On a cold, rainy, miserable day in Jacksonville (those of us who were there will NEVER forget how miserable that day was) ninth-ranked Georgia hammered the out of sorts Gators from the opening whistle. It was 42-0 and over by halftime but with seconds remaining in the fourth quarter Dooley called time out and let his center, who hadn’t kicked since high school, kick a field goal to make the final score, 51-0.
For those of you who never understood Steve Spurrier’s obsession with running it up on Georgia, now you know. Coach Ellenson, who was Spurrier’s close friend, called Spurrier in San Francisco (Spurrier was with the 49ers then) that night and told him what had happened. Those who know Spurrier know that he has a VERY long memory. He never forgot how Dooley called time out to run up the score. He never felt any reason to show a moment of sympathy.
REASON THREE: Florida went on NCAA probation in 1984 for such heinous crimes as assistant coach Dwight Adams giving Dale Dorminey an extra T-shirt during his campus visit and buying him a pack of gum and a Sprite at the Gainesville airport. I’m not making that up. It’s all in the NCAA transcripts.
Not all the crimes were petty. There were some dastardly deeds by Florida boosters who were out of control during those days and the Gators got caught for them and paid the price. However, Florida wasn’t the only school taking its chances outside the law of the NCAA. Florida State got caught for illegal recruiting inducements that same year (Bobby Bowden was the FSU coach … you could look it up) and Georgia got caught up in a major scandal that revolved around 1982 Heisman Trophy winner, Herschel Walker, who allegedly was sold to the highest bidder out of high school. An NCAA investigation hit a stone wall and eventually Georgia lost two scholarships with no bans on television or bowl games. Dooley was chairman of the NCAA’s powerful television committee and to this day, there are rumors that he lobbied long, hard and successfully to keep Georgia out of hot water.
For those who think Dooley is a man of integrity, think again. There is a pattern of run-ins with the NCAA while Dooley was coach and/or athletic director. Georgia got hit with major infractions for football three times (1978, 1982, 1965) while Dooley was the coach and again for football in 1997 while he was the athletic director. The Georgia basketball program got hit for major sanctions under Dooley-hired coaches Hugh Durham (1985) and Jim Harrick (2004).
And then there was Jan Kemp, who blew the whistle on the fraudulent academic support program at Georgia under Dooley in the 1980s. She refused to give athletes passing grades at the insistence of the higher ups in the athletic department and when she complained, she was fired. She sued and was awarded $1.08 million by the jury.
What happened at Georgia is important because in 1984, Florida, got hit with some of the most serious sanctions in NCAA history that included two years without television and severe scholarship reductions. The probation cost Coach Charley Pell his job and cost the Gators the SEC championship. The Gators won the SEC on the field but the Gators were stripped of the championship in a vote of the SEC athletic directors and presidents. Among the leaders of the vote against Florida was Vince Dooley.
In an interview I did with Gator great Wilber Marshall three years ago, Wilber said, “I went to Florida because it was close to home and I’m a mama’s boy. I didn’t go there because they paid me to go but other schools made offers … some big offers … some of the same teams that voted to strip the SEC championship from us in 1984. You would go on recruiting trips and some fat cat booster would let you know what you could expect … that was pretty common then.â€
REASON FOUR: Galen Hall was informed that he would be fired as Florida’s football coach just prior to the LSU game in Baton Rouge on October 7, 1989 (Florida won the game, 16-13). Hall’s crime was allegedly paying one month of child support for Jarvis Williams until Williams’ mom could reimburse him. Hall denied that he ever gave money to Williams and the NCAA has yet to prove conclusively that he did. Yet, Florida got a year of probation (served in 1990) with no bowl game.
It’s bad enough that Florida’s probation was dubious, at best, but the alleged incident happened before any of the players who were on that 1990 team arrived on the UF campus. Still, the SEC athletic directors and presidents, in their infinite wisdom, made the Gators ineligible for the SEC championship in 1990 and denied the Gators a chance to go to a bowl game.
Among the leaders of the vote against Florida was Vince Dooley.
That 1990 season was Steve Spurrier’s first year at Florida. Florida had the best record in the SEC and the Gators should have been the SEC champs. There was no bowl game for a team that deserved to be in the Sugar Bowl. Now, take 1968 and add to it 1990.
Do you understand why Spurrier was obsessed with humiliating Georgia any and every chance he got?
I wasn’t around in 1942 but my dad was and until he died in 1986, he took delight in every loss by every Georgia team in any sport all because of that 75-0 game. I was there at the 1968 game and I’ll never forget what Dooley did. I will also never forgive Dooley for twice voting to pour on the sanctions against the Gators. I can’t think of Dooley without the words self-righteous hypocrite coming to mind. Because of Vince Dooley, I will despise Georgia until the day I die. you should, too.
