GAINESVILLE – I am the son of a Subway Alumnus who never attended but sent me to the University of Notre Dame.
By John Fineran
It was football which drew my Dad’s interest to Notre Dame, that and the fact he was one of 12 children of Margaret and John Fineran, an Irish Catholic family who lived in Orange, N.J., just around the corner from the Rheingold Brewery (how fortuitous for an Irish Catholic family) and maybe 15 miles at most from New York City, where the subways used to carry thousands of non-alumni to Yankee Stadium for games against Army.
But Irish alumni and Subway Alumni are everywhere, which might explain Notre Dame’s strong following and ability to draw good viewing numbers whenever its football team plays on television. Based on their 12 national titles in the sport, 7 Heisman Trophy winners, 178 All-Americans and a coaching lineage of Knute Rockne to Frank Leahy to Ara Parseghian to Dan Devine to Lou Holtz – all of them enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame, which is located in – ta-da – South Bend, Ind. – it’s no wonder NBC has tied the Irish home broadcast rights up for almost two decades.
But for all those millions of dollars NBC has sent Notre Dame’s way, the football team has never given the network its chance of advertising itself as “the home of college football’s national champions.”
That’s right, Notre Dame’s last national championship, under Holtz, came in 1988, 20 seasons ago. Prior to this, the longest the Irish ever went without winning a national championship in football was 17 years on a couple of occasions. And it hasn’t been much better in the other sports like men’s basketball (none), women’s basketball (one) and women’s soccer (two).
In Biblical terms, Notre Dame’s national championship drought in football is not a drought – it’s a freakin’ plague. But for this transplanted southwest Floridian, it’s not a mystery. The State of Florida is the land of milk and honey, as far as football talent and national championships are concerned, and their epicenter is right here, down where the Gators play.
Yes, right here in Gainesville, which Thursday put in its bid to be called “TitleTown USA” by ESPN SportsCenter. After stops at such pretenders as Green Bay, Wis., Lawrence, Kan., Knoxville, Tenn., Pittsburgh and Los Angeles, ESPN took up residence outside the north end zone of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium and held a mid-summer pep rally that included ESPN sideline reporter (and Florida graduate) Erin Andrews and reigning Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow of Urban Meyer’s football Gators.
What better opportunity did I have to find out what advantages Gainesville has over the other pretenders and those to co me afterward, a group that is missing South Bend.
Thursday, my mission was clear: What does the University of Florida have which allows it to win three major championships – the 2006 and 2007 men’s basketball titles sandwiched around the 2006 football crown – in the span of 365 days and thus should be declared “TitleTown USA”?
Ultimate Death Wish
Tom Schoendorf was dripping gold sweat and suddenly realized that if the running gold facial paint got into his eyes, he would have the ultimate gilded view of the world, one he would not like to have.
Schoendorf was dressed like the figure of the old-time football player in the stiff-armed pose that is atop maybe the best known individual trophy for sports in the United States – the John W. Heisman Memorial Trophy, given annually to the best college football player by New York’s Downtown Athletic Club.
Tebow, whose monster sophomore year blew the competition away for the honor in 2007, will be seeking to become only the second person in the history of the award to win it back to back (Ohio State’s Archie Griffin won the trophy in 1974 and ’75). As Andrews interviewed Tebow underneath the warm and humid blue Florida skies, Schoendorf’s gold-painted old-time helmet and uniform (complete with Tebow’s No. 15) made his gilded body release torrents of sweat.
Now, it isn’t hard to imagine a Florida student doing this for his20team. College students do weird things. But you must understand this about Schoendorf, who is currently attending Barry Law School and hoping to transfer to Florida’s law school in the future: he received his undergraduate degree not from Florida but some school in Tallahassee.
That’s right, Florida State University, where Schoendorf, a Tampa resident, was a stranger in a strange land – a Gator fan among Seminoles.
Talk about a Death Wish!
“Really, it wasn’t bad and I wore my Gator gear to class,” Schoendorf said. “I’ve been a diehard Gator fan my entire life and I wasn’t about to change. Actually, these last couple of years, it’s been the best time to be there. It was hard for those Florida State fans to say anything when we are winning all the time.”
Schoendorf and his Tampa buddy Steve Barrett will do anything – they snuck into Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals between Tampa Bay and Calgary by dressing up as Outback Steakhouse workers – and they’ve snuck in some places to watch their beloved Gators.
“We’re pleading the fifth,” Barrett said.
Bob Gendron, a 1960 Florida graduate who worked in the school’s sports information department, just shook his head watching Schoendorf sweat. “He reminds me of those FSU glitter boys,” Gendron said.
Oh, those crazy, young Gators.
Rabid fans
Bra d McClenny proudly held up a sign that read, “Florida, home of the fastest freshman alive! Jeff Demps 10.01 seconds” as the ESPN cameras recorded the festivities for showings next Monday on SportCenter.
“I graduated just after we won the second national title,” said McClenny, who is from Fort Pierce but is living in Gainesville as a part-time photographer for the Gainesville Sun. “Talk about a great senior year – we won all three national championships in what was my senior year.
McClenny was hooked as a Gator fan when he saw Gator and future NFL Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith run for a long touchdown on his first visit to “The Swamp.”
“I’m loving this,” he continued. “I think Urban Meyer is a great guy. I like his style of offense and you’ve got to give credit, too, to Charlie Strong and his defense.”
Meyer and Strong, by the way, once were assistant coaches on Lou Holtz’s staff at Notre Dame.
Donna McCraw stood in the shade of an oak tree, dressed in all her Florida regalia – a hat with a Gator on it, a Gator paw and wearing a shirt filled with Gators.
“I’ve worked 25 years here at the University of Florida,” said McCraw, a graduate of Ole Miss who has seen the light.
Daniel (last name withheld for reasons that will be obvious) and a couple of his buddies tried to catch some of the T-shirts20ESPN had brought for the Florida cheerleaders to distribute. On Daniel’s shoulders was his 5-year-old son Tyler, wearing a Tim Tebow jersey.
“We all skipped work today,” Daniel noted.
Loyalty sometimes is hazardous to your “health.”
Gator Inter-NATION-al
Also in the crowd was Gannon Cornley, his wife Kellie and their two children, son Gannon II and Kia (who rode her father’s shoulders). They were in Gainesville visiting from Kansas City, Mo., where Gannon and Kellie actually were classmates at Lincoln Academy before Gannon left for Gainesville to attend Florida and also to be a running back on the 1989 Gators team.
“I knew Kellie in high school,” Cornley said, “but we didn’t start dating until after college and we’ve been married now for 14 years.”
And obviously still cheering for the Gators in America’s heartland.
Yes, Gator Nation is everywhere, just like Notre Dame’s Subway Alumni.
Indeed, the Gators’ fandom is global: Gator Inter-NATION-al, if you will.
“Yes, I enjoy American football,” said Haifa Aliali of Saudi Arabia, who is working on a Master’s degree in English at Florida. She was watching the “Titletown” celebration with fellow Saudi Fatimah Almahdi and two of their friends – recent Florida graduate Farrah Beg of Orlando, whose parents are natives of India, and Razan Al-Nahhas of Pana ma City, who will be entering her junior year in Gainesville. Razan’s parents are from Syria.
Who would have thought a few Gator chomps could bring us all together?
Yes, indeed, it’s good to be a Florida Gator, as this Notre Dame Irishman can attest. Back home in North Port, my son Matthew’s room is a shrine to his favorite school.
And it’s not the one that is in South Bend, Ind., where his old man once did crazy things.
His Grandpa, the Subway Alumnus, even raves about the glory of “The Swamp” at night.
“Hey, that was great,” Dad told me as we drove away from Gainesville one evening two years ago. “A little hot and steamy for me, but I won’t catch a cold like I did that time I was in the last row of Notre Dame Stadium for a Navy game when it was snowing and the wind was whipping all around me.”
So Gator Nation, got room for me?
John Fineran, a 1974 graduate of the University of Notre Dame (his senior year the Irish won the national championship in football by beating Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, 24-23, and ended UCLA’s 88-game winning streak) has covered college football for almost 35 years in Michigan, Indiana and now Florida. He can be reached at flafinman@aol.com.