Consider this your personal invitation to join the Gator Country staff Thursday, Aug. 20 from 5 to 7 p.m. for a cocktail party celebrating the Florida Gator Super Sophs of 1969 at the Hilton Conference Center.
Joining Buddy Martin, Franz Beard, Justin Wells, Laura McKeeman, Brenden Martin and gang will be Carlos Alvarez, Mac Steen, Jack Youngblood and other members of the team to be announced in an evening of celebration and reminiscence. Also expected to attend, but unconfirmed, are Andy Cheney and Mike Rich.
The event will take place at the Mr. Two Bits Lounge at the Gainesville Hilton following a taping of a show for Gator Country TV, part of which will be seen in Ocala/Gainesville on Cox Channel 15 and ESPN2, as well as GatorCountry.com.
The Hilton Conference Center is located at 1714 SW 34th St, Gainesville 32607. Telephone352-371-3600.
The 1969 Super Sophs: A brush with greatness
By GATOR COUNTRY STAFF
Remember the Super Sophs?
Those of us past the age of 50 will never forget that band of youngsters who shocked the football world in 1969 and very nearly brought the Florida Gators their first championship.
In fact, under today’s playoff format, the Super Sophs would have been SEC Champions, because they beat the league winner, Tennessee, in the post season.
Turn back your clock to yesterday and try to visualize that day in September forty years ago when two young Gators making their football debut at Florida Field connected on The Pass: 72 yards from John Reaves to Carlos Alvarez. It will trigger the memories of a football Camelot that, unfortunately, wound up like a Shakespearian tragedy.
After posting the school’s best record, 9-1-1, Ray Graves was forced to step down. Camelot was over and pretty much so were the happy days.
Gator Country Managing Editor Franz Beard recalled it recently in this article:
By FRANZ BEARD
Forty years later, they are all but forgotten except for old-time Gators who remember The Super Sophs and that 1969 season that was like Camelot in Gainesville. Florida went 9-1-1 that year, beat Southeastern Conference champion Tennessee in the Gator Bowl and set offensive records that nobody of that generation figured would ever be broken.
Until the back-to-back 9-1-1 teams of 1984-85, the 1969 Gators were the best team in school history. Unlike the 2009 Gators, who live with the hype and expectation of being one of the greatest teams in college football history, the 1969 team entered the season with low expectations.
“We shocked ourselves,” says Mac Steen, a Deland orthodontist who was a senior captain of that team that came within one bad snap of winning Florida’s first-ever SEC championship. “We had no idea what we had. We had a bunch of sophomores. Think about it. We were supposed to be great the year before when we had Larry Smith, Guy Dennis and Jim Yarbrough. We were supposed to have a great team the year before but we tripped up. We hoped we could be better [in 1969]. We were ranked in the worst 20 in America opening against number one [Houston]. How good could we be?”
They found out soon enough. The third play of game one was an omen, a 72-yard touchdown pass from sophomore quarterback John Reaves to sophomore wideout Carlos Alvarez. The 1969 season is perhaps more remembered for what is now known as “The Pass” and that 59-35 season opening win over Houston than the other 10 games on the schedule.
But those who were around for that season of magic, those were 10 games that will last a lifetime. In game two, the Gators beat Mississippi State, 47-35, another offensive explosion that Steen says proved “we had an offense that could score all night long.” It took wins in games three and four for Florida fans to sense that this might be a team that could make the dream of winning an SEC title come true.
After the Florida State game in 1969, which some remember best as Jack Youngblood’s coming out party since it seems he spent as much time in the backfield as Seminole quarterback Bill Cappelman, the Florida Gators and their charismatic Super Sophs were almost like The Beatles in Gainesville. For a team that was picked so low to start the season, they were like rock stars.
That 21-6 win over Florida State was followed by a miracle finish, come-from-behind 18-17 win over Tulane in Tampa. Reaves and Alvarez connected on a two-point conversion to save that one.
“Once we beat Florida State, the whole town was buzzing,” recalls Steen. “When we came from behind to beat Tulane people were talking that maybe we were a team of destiny. That’s when it got crazy in Gainesville.”
A year earlier the Gators had started 4-0 only to lose to North Carolina in Chapel Hill (22-7), a game played in a driving rainstorm as a hurricane approached the North Carolina coast. The season unraveled after that — “It was shut down the party; season’s over,” Steen recalled — so when North Carolina came to Gainesville for Homecoming anxiety was mixed with anticipation. The sellout crowd at Florida Field wasn’t disappointed. The Gators torched the Tar Heels 52-2 and then followed that up by hanging 41 on Vanderbilt in Gainesville the following week.
The bubble burst against Auburn when Reaves threw an NCAA record nine interceptions and fumbled two times as the Gators lost their first game of the season, 38-12. Florida still had a chance to at least tie for the SEC championship the next week but the Gators and Georgia tied, 13-13, on a missed chip shot field goal.
“Kim Helton (Florida center and long snapper) got hurt the play before,” Steen said. “If we had won we would have tied Tennessee for the SEC championship. We were one play away.”
So 1969 turned into another “wait ‘til next year” season for the Gators, who wouldn’t win the Southeastern Conference officially until 1991.