The more time goes on, the more I become aware of the fact that every season of Gator football is someone’s first, and every season is someone’s last.
Those can take different forms, and you don’t always know when they’re going to happen. My father has increasingly experienced mobility challenges. I don’t know if he’ll get to attend a game again, and I don’t know if he knew the last time he went might be the last time he goes. I do know this year is my last season to go to a game for a while. My wife is in the Navy, and so we’re going to leave Jacksonville for somewhere a continent away or farther come next June.
But I also have an almost 6-year-old son. I have watched games with him around every fall he’s been alive, and rarely have any held his attention longer than a couple minutes at a time. He’s seen the Gators play, but I wouldn’t say he had his first real season.
Until now.
On Saturday, the Samford game was his first. I took him up early to get him some gear, and the shiny shakers caught his eye strongly enough that he wanted two. We walked through campus from where we parked, and I got to do the thing to him that my dad did to me where I pointed out buildings I had class in while the kid couldn’t possibly have cared less.
The mere sight of the stadium made him jumpy with excitement. He got to do a boom on Big Boom by where the marching band warms up, something he could barely contain his glee about. Getting through the crush of people at the entrance gates was about the most crowded environment he’d yet been in, but he stuck through it without being intimidated by it because he was so ready to go.
My wife and I had tried to prep him with cheers and songs ahead of time, but again, he’s not quite six, so his attention span is quite variable. He mainly knew to shout “go Florida Gators” a lot, and he made the most of every opportunity.
But when the band finished pregame, and when the team ran out on the field, he couldn’t contain his excitement. You don’t have to prepare a kid for that. The intro video, the band, the fire effects, and the electricity of the crowd do far more than any briefing session could.
It was simply amazing to see how in tune with the crowd he was. He couldn’t tell you what a tackle for loss is, but when everyone got excited for one, up he popped shouting and waving one or more shakers. He was enthralled by the post-touchdown fireworks. The only thing that came close to comparing was when his cousin, just seven months his elder, agreed to share her cotton candy with him.
The 7:00 pm kick wasn’t ideal for bringing a young kid, but I chose it because the opponent was Samford. I expected a crowd that was at least at the stadium baseline energy but maybe without so much negativity as can happen with conference or rivalry games. And aside from a gentleman a few rows back who had some choice words about Billy Napier’s use of the wildcat early on, it overall was the family friendly environment I had hoped for.
The attendance was higher than I expected it to be after the face plant against Miami, but no doubt the debut of DJ Lagway was the main reason why. I am grateful for that, even as I am disappointed for Graham Mertz that he had to miss any of his final season of college ball, because when the crowd is into it, the Swamp remains undefeated.
I can recite chapter and verse all the problems with the Gator football program. You want the last ten months or the last ten years? Either way, I got you covered.
But all the way through the ups and downs, Ben Hill Griffin Stadium has always been one of the absolute best places to experience a college football game. Generation by generation, Gator fans make it so. The building itself has some advantages with the walls in the corners, the steep grades of the bleachers, and the seats right on top of the field, but that only goes so far. The occasional late-season snoozers on an interim coach’s watch have shown that.
It’s the people of the fan base that cause the place to be special: those in their first seasons, or their last seasons, or somewhere in between.
“A memory for a lifetime” is an overused cliche, but I truly made one with my son last weekend. I did it at a so-called cupcake game, against a mediocre FCS team, in a season that some were ready to give up on a mere week earlier.
For all of you reading this, Saturday was the amazingly exciting introduction of the Lagway era. It was for me too, and I can’t wait to see what he does in the rest of his time in Gainesville and parts beyond.
But for me, it was mainly my son’s proper induction into Gator Nation. He now knows what it means to cheer for the Orange and Blue, may it wave forever. There’s no place like the Swamp to ignite a lifetime of passion.