DESTIN — Of all the places to get confirmation that her basketball program is heading in the right direction, Amanda Butler found it last Saturday at Katie Seashole Stadium watching Stacey Nelson blow away Cal’s Katie Vickers for the final out to punch Florida’s first ever ticket to Oklahoma City for the softball version of the College World Series. Nelson is the best pitcher in all of college softball, a dominating presence who has put the Gators on her back and turned this into a dream of a lifetime championship season.
“One player can make all the difference in the world,” said Butler, who got a case of the warm and fuzzies watching her buddy Tim Walton celebrate on the field with Nelson and her Gator teammates. This was Florida’s first Super Regional championship. A couple of weeks earlier, the Gators won the Southeastern Conference tournament, capping a season that they also won the regular season championship, both firsts in the history of the Florida softball program.
Walton’s team is 67-3 and ranked number one in the nation. It is a true team effort but the difference maker is Nelson, who is 45-3 with a 0.75 earned run average. Softball is a pitcher’s game and the team with the best pitcher usually wins. One player can indeed make all the difference in the world.
One player can make a staggering difference in basketball, too, and Butler might have that dominating presence that can do for Florida women’s basketball what Nelson has done for Florida softball. Her name is Azania Stewart and she is a 6-4 eraser looking for another shot to block.
Remember that name and remember it not just because she is the best defensive player coming from the high school ranks to college basketball but because she is a symbol that the Florida Gators can compete with the established powers on the recruiting trail. Stewart is a Parade and ESPN All-American and players with those kind of credentials used to avoid Florida like the plague.
Not anymore.
“It’s all about recruiting,” said Butler, 19-14 in her first year on the job even though the Gators were the shortest team in the Southeastern Conference. That’s a 10-win improvement from the 2007 season when Carolyn Peck was running the show. Peck was dismissed after four years of inconsistent basketball and disappointing efforts on the recruiting trail.
During Peck’s tenure, Florida wasn’t on the radar for homegrown talents like Sylvia Fowles, the Miami native who led LSU to four straight Final Fours, or Krystal Thomas of Orlando, who chose Duke without ever giving the Gators the time of day. Rumors persist to this day that Peck burned her share of bridges with Florida’s high school coaches.
Butler, whose career as a gutsy, no-nonsense Florida point guard under Carole Ross was distinguished by record numbers of floor burns and charges taken, understands that repairing the fractured relationships in the state won’t happen overnight but she is confident that she can establish a recruiting beach-head in the Florida and stop the exodus of the state’s best players.
“We’re the fourth largest state in the nation and we have great players right here,” said Butler, who is attending the Southeastern Conference Spring Meetings at the Hilton Sandestin Resort this week. “We have a great university that sells itself in the University of Florida, great academics with a support system second to none, great facilities … and this is a place where championships are expected. This is a place where championships are won. We’re Gators. That’s what we do. We’ve got to get the message to the players in our state and we’ve got players in our state that can compete with anyone, anywhere.”
Championships are won at the University of Florida, once again the SEC’s All-Sports champ largely on the contributions of a women’s program that produced five SEC championship teams. Walton, who got softball its first championships this season, has a chance to bring home a national title. The Gators have already tied the all-time NCAA record for wins in a season (67) and they’re the top-ranked and top-seeded team heading into Thursday’s College World Series in Oklahoma City. He knew exactly what he was getting into when he came to Gainesville three years ago and he has been selling a dream of championships ever since.
He knows that championships are expected no matter the sport and if you aren’t ready to win championships “this place will eat you up and spit you out.”
Now that Walton has taken softball to a championship that leaves women’s basketball as the only sport on campus that hasn’t produced at least one conference champion. That’s a distinction that isn’t lost on Butler who insists that it’s not a matter of IF Florida can win women’s basketball championships but a matter of WHEN.
“Billy Donovan won the NCAA basketball championship back to back and Urban Meyer won it in football,” said Butler. “Mary Wise has won the SEC championship in volleyball 17 straight times. Becky Burleigh has won a national championship in soccer. Look what Rhonda (Faehn) has done with gymnastics and now Tim with softball. I can go on and on but can we do it here? Are you kidding me? Of course we can. Everybody has won here except women’s basketball but we can change that. We WILL change that.”
But to get to the top of the SEC women’s basketball mountain, Butler will have to knock off the proverbial 800-pound gorilla, better known as the Tennessee Lady Vols, who won their eighth NCAA championship under Pat Summit a few weeks ago back in Tampa. That is a challenge she embraces.
“If you want to be the best you have to beat the best and Tennessee is the best and has been the best a long time,” said Butler. “How do you beat them? You start by recruiting the kind of players that can compete with the ones that they bring in every single year.”
Azania Stewart is the first and most significant piece in completing that puzzle. A native of England, Stewart played at Notre Dame Academy in Middleburg, Virginia. Heavily recruited, she bought into the dream that Amanda Butler is selling and she has the chance to be the same kind of difference-maker that Nelson is to Tim Walton’s Gator softball team.
“She gives us a presence that we didn’t have this year,” said Butler. “In the SEC you better have some size and you better have someone that can make a defensive difference in the paint. Look at the two teams from the SEC that made it to the Final Four — LSU’s had Sylvia Fowles and Tennessee had Candace Parker, two of the greatest players ever in the women’s game. It’s not a coincidence that LSU and Tennessee got to the Final Four because they had size in the front court.”
It is also no coincidence that the Gators were a team of overachievers that did well to get to the Women’s NIT. LSU had Fowles, who is 6-5, in the post. Tennessee played Parker, who is 6-3, everywhere on the court to exploit the mismatches. Florida, meanwhile, relied on 5-11 Marshae Dotson in the low blocks. Dotson will battle you every step of the way and won’t back down from anyone, but she’s only 5-11 and you don’t win conference championships or compete at the national level with a 5-11 playing the post.
With Stewart in the lineup, Dotson will be able to play the high post or the wing where she is much more comfortable and effective.
“Having Azania, we’re so much more versatile,” said Butler. “You don’t win in the SEC without an inside presence.”
She is quick to remind that Stewart shouldn’t be viewed as the savior of Florida basketball, just the cornerstone of a foundation that she’s putting in so that the Gators will be competing at the top of the heap every single year.
“She’s important to us because of the skills she brings and the size she brings and the fact that she is a national recruit,” said Butler, whose recruiting class also includes Trumae Lucas, a 5-8 point guard from Greensboro, North Carolina whose attitude probably reminds Butler of her own playing days, and Tailor Jones, a 5-11 wing from Lake Mary that brings a much needed scorer’s mentality.
There is a common denominator for all three signees. They are winners who expect to compete for championships. If you don’t think that’s important, ask Tim Walton, whose entire softball roster is stocked with players that have competed for championships.
“Players that know how to win give you something extra when a game is on the line,” said Butler. “You have to have players that won’t settle for losing. You have to get those players that will be at their best when you need them most.
“One of the things I love about Trumae and Tailor is that when there are tough shots that have to be taken, they’re not shy about taking them. They want that kind of responsibility.”
And when it comes to responsibility, Butler wants the responsibility of changing the culture of Florida basketball. In her mind, simply being competitive is not good enough. She believes the Gators can be the best and she’s not going to settle for anything less.
“I’m not going to tell you it’s going to be easy,” she said. “It isn’t. This is a tough job and we’ve got so much work to do to catch up with the teams that are at the top but if I didn’t think it couldn’t be done and I didn’t think that I could get the job done, I would have never come to the University of Florida. Of course it can be done here and we’re going to prove that we can.”
All she has to do is take a look at what Tim Walton and his softball team have done to know she can do it too.
“What he’s done with that team is fantastic,” she said. “That’s one of the best teams in any sport you’ll find and before he got here three years ago, Florida couldn’t have dreamed of something like this in softball. We can do it, too. We’re going to do it. I know that we will.”