Franz Beard’s Basketball Confidential

Dan Werner had been threatening to shave his head but teammates never believed the sophomore from New Jersey would actually do it. When he came to Florida’s pre-game meal in Nashville before the Vanderbilt game with the new hairless look, he caught his teammates by surprise.

“I just started laughing because he was always talking about doing it for about two weeks,” said freshman Jai Lucas. “Everybody was saying ‘Dan you aren’t going to do anything.’ People started betting him. He came to pre-game meal with a bald head so everybody was like ‘wow, he really did it.’ I was really surprised when he went bald.”

Werner said the hairless look was just a crazy idea to shake things up for himself and his team. The Gators have been in a slump both in the win column and with their outside shooting, so he shaved the head.

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Franz Beard
Back in January of 1969, the late, great Jack Hairston, then the sports editor of the Jacksonville Journal, called me on the phone one night and asked me if I wanted to work for him. I said yes. The entire interview took 30 seconds. It's my experience that whenever the interview lasts 30 seconds or less, I get the job. In the 48 years that I've been writing and getting paid for it, I've covered Super Bowls, World Series, NCAA basketball championships, BCS championship games, heavyweight title fights and what seems like thousands of college football, baseball and basketball games. I'm a columnist and special assignments editor for Gator Country once again, writing about the only team that ever mattered to me, the Florida Gators.