Your first time on campus?

[gardnerwebbgator]

November 23, 1979, the Friday after Thanksgiving. 9 years old. JIm Finch with heerrreee come the Gators, the passion exuded after a bull**** call against UF on an onside kick late in the game. I was hooked.

Pause the video below at the 42 second mark for something you won't ever see at Florida Field again.

 

[G. Gordon Gator]

Summer of '85. Fly down from Detroit a week before I started boot camp/OSUT and wanted to bang the wife to be one more time before nothing for 16 weeks (she started at UF Summer C of '85). Had a great time. I remember watching a drunk girl stumble around in the original Balls and thinking "Jesus Christ, THAT is not going to end well." Next time back was 17 weeks later. We eloped in Gainesville on the day the Gators beat VaTech at home. Then off to Germany for 4 years and back to UF from 89-93 to get our degrees.

Weird timeline. No wonder I don't find your posts relatable.

My first visit to campus was in the summer of '85, helping HS friends move into dorms. I was already signed up for the Delayed Entry Program to go in the Army after HS, but that trip was all I needed to decide that's where my GI Bill and Army College Fund money would end up going. Later went to Germany where I spent my whole enlistment, then back to UF to get my BS degree.

But I graduated in 1994, not 93. So we have nothing in common.

 

[stephenPE]

November 23, 1979, the Friday after Thanksgiving. 9 years old. JIm Finch with heerrreee come the Gators, the passion exuded after a bull**** call against UF on an onside kick late in the game. I was hooked.

Pause the video below at the 42 second mark for something you won't ever see at Florida Field again.

I wish we had sound video of the band in the sixties. Marched out on the field each game PLAYING Dixie with both flags held at the same angle. I have to say as a 12 yr old it was wild. It was like "fck you Yankees"

 

[gatorev12]

1994--Florida vs Georgia in the Swamp.

My Dad's boss at the time was a georgia alum and had tickets for the game...in the away section. He knew I was a big Gator fan and gave my Dad two tickets instead of one. Most georgia fans left by halftime after we raced out to a huge lead; and our gracious hosts left midway through the 3rd quarter as Spurrier continued to run up the score. It felt pretty good to look around and see practically the entire section empty.

I was still pretty young--but if I'd been a "fan" beforehand, I emerged a fanatic afterwards. The atmosphere was incredible and walking into the stadium for the first time was akin to Disney World.

 

[Gator by the Sea]

September, 1990. Visiting from out of state to check out potential colleges. Loved UF right from the moment I got on the campus. It was beautiful. It was big, but not overwhelming. In fact, I felt at home immediately. I loved the fervor of football season (and hot coeds in shorts were definitely a selling point for this yankee boy). I didn’t need to look at any more colleges after that day.

 

[Detroitgator]

Pretty sure you win this round. That’s a great story.

Thanks... and let me be PERFECTLY clear on my interpretation of "you first time on campus"...

"Wife-to-Be" was originally assigned to a double in I think East Hall. They tried making it a triple and her parents raised hell and Housing moved her into a little broom closet calling it a "single" (but it was perfect for one person, especially in the "Age Before Technology" when you didn't need schit in your room). So when I went to visit, we "first timed on campus" a LOT in that room. The girls on her floor were really cool and I just stayed in her room and they let me use the showers too. This is when it was the old style "4 square with not super private shower curtains in between"... we "first timed on campus" in those showers too.

Now, back to recollections of wooden benches and other such stories!

 

[Double Gator Dad]

I wish we had sound video of the band in the sixties. Marched out on the field each game PLAYING Dixie with both flags held at the same angle. I have to say as a 12 yr old it was wild. It was like "fck you Yankees"

Given the woke status of UF today, if that audio existed they would edit it out anyway.

 

[Joegator96]

I was 14 and my best friend's dad was an SEC official. Graves invited him and the rest of his crew to come up and officiate the Spring game heading into SOS's senior year of 1966. Mr Hardy assigned Jack and me the job of ball boys for the Game. We had to keep the game balls wiped down and toss in a new one when the line judge motioned us too. We alternated running onto the field to retrieve the tee after KO's and drank Gatorade (the original) from the coolers before it was commercialized by Stokley's. I really don't remember the game itself but do remember SOS coming up to me and asking to hold the ball I had ready to throw into the game. He wiped it and gripped it and tossed it back to me and smiled and said "keep it dry kid"

Been a Gator since that fateful day on the sidelines.

 

[gator1946]

How the hell do I top that, Joe. Fact is I can't top any of these. I was unceremoniously dumped at my new digs, unairconditioned Murphree hall, then affectionately known as the roach motel. I then found my roomy who was beyond weird, and fricking crazy. He was so weird that he made me who had no social skills look like James Bond. Fortunately he, thank God, lasted only two weeks and I had the place to myself.

I slowly dug myself out from total geekdom to the point that when I made the move out of that hell hole, some people actually thought I was "cool". When I first heard that, I looked behind me to see who the hell they were talking about.

Warning, first guy that says I still have no social skills at all...I'm coming after you with my cane.

 

[sminings]

January 1984. Transferred in after 2 years attending the University of Maryland in Munich, Germany.

Talk about a culture shock. I was a military brat so I could attend any public university as an in state student so I picked UF.

I arrived with no family or friends. My luggage got lost on arrival, no assigned dorm room and no registered classes. As you can imagine the first semester was a total disaster.

I almost didn't return after Summer break but the chick I was hooking up with kept writing me letters asking me to return.

I came in as an honor student and left barely having graduated. To this day people I knew over 35 years ago share stories that make me cringe. My time at UF can be best summarized as an extended spring break.

 

[LagoonGator68]

I could be wrong but I believe that in 1969 you would have been born in J.Hillis Miller Medical Center. I don’t believe Shands had been named yet.

“The J. Hillis Miller Health Science Center — is named for the former University of Florida president—has expanded since 1956 into the most comprehensive academic health center in the Southeast. The "center" now encompasses six colleges, a statewide network of affiliated hospitals and clinics including Shands Hospital at UF as the flagship teaching hospital and the neighboring Veterans Affairs Medical Center of Gainesville.”
The University of Florida Colleges of Medicine and Nursing opened in 1956. Two years later, the UF Teaching Hospital was started, on October 20, 1958. In 1965, it was renamed W. A. Shands Teaching Hospital and Clinics in honor of the man who did so much to make the facility a reality.”
Shands is but a small part of The J. Hillis Miller Health Science Center which includes the med school, college of pharmacy, college of nursing, health and related professions, dentistry and veterinary medicine.

 

[abefroman]

Spring of 1998; applied and was accepted to UF after. Free Shoes never stood a chance. Thanks Danny and Ike

 

[rogdochar]

Actually, my first time on campus was in my sophomore high school year '61, when we (Ribault) won the Cross Country State Championship. We set a historic record for the lowest total score. We placed 6 runners in the top 10. Only 5 runners count, so you can guess who came in 6 on our team - but I was just a sophomore.

Anyway, for the Start, the contestant crowd was called up by school name. Our captain decided he was gonna run barefoot so we all shed our hodgepodge shoes. All the ritzy schools from South Florida pointed and laughed when we walked up in naked feet. (They all had co-ordinated cc-designed shoes.) We were the rural Ruprics in that day. During the race, I passed our captain 'cause he was having an asthma attack. He got control of it and finished 3rd in the state, Anyway, at the top 10 medal ceremony, the PA speaker got to say "all right, you guys from Ribault line up - we had finished 3,6,7,8,9,10.= 6 in the top 10. It was the only time any of us ran barefoot. We all glowed inside walking to the medals stage in front of designer shoes South Florida.