Jimmy Freeman and Reid Fogler arrived at the media entrance of The Swamp on Tuesday evening hoping to sneak in to see Will Muschamp’s introductory press conference as Florida’s new football coach.
Former students at Gainesville’s Oak Hall School, Freeman was a classmate and basketball teammate of Muschamp’s when both were middle school age, while Fogler, a year older, played football and basketball with the head Gator.
Ultimately, they were turned away, but not before Freeman agreed how surreal Muschamp’s hiring is to those who knew him way back when, and not before Fogler joked (as if he were speaking to Muschamp) something along the lines of “we knew you were better than us as a player, but you were also smarter than us, too?”
Like many from Muschamp’s past, Fogler and Freeman stopped by to offer support and reflect whimsically about their childhood pal.
Willie and Terry Jackson, also friends of Muschamp’s as kids, were among the former Gators in attendance. Charles Olinger, who Muschamp also knew as a child, was there, as well.
And so was Larry Muschamp.
Will’s father and the very popular former headmaster at Oak Hall, Larry looked about as proud as a dad possibly can, as he shook hands with well-wishers and remembered old times with former students.
The elder Muschamp said he knew his son would be involved with sports as an adult, though he always imagined Will playing and not coaching. Still, the idea of Will running UF’s program is “very pleasantly surprising” to Larry.
And he said the orange and blue in his youngest child never faded, despite the Muschamp family moving to Rome, Ga. when Will was beginning high school.
“Will stayed a Gator fan,” said Larry, at the press conference with his wife, Sally. “Most of us because all of our friends were Georgia people, we became Georgia people.
“Of course, Will went to Georgia because he didn’t have anywhere else to go (after severely breaking his leg and having his scholarship offers pulled).”
The funny thing is, Will has had a lot of places he could have gone since he made his name in coaching, though this is the first head coaching job he has accepted.
Learning at the knee of such coaching luminaries as Roy Kidd, Nick Saban, Tommy Tuberville and Mack Brown, Muschamp has been preparing for this job seemingly since those days in the backyard at 1122 NW 22nd St. in Gainesville. There, in family games he pretended to be Tony Lilly while older brothers Mike and Pat acted as if they were Wayne Peace and Tyrone Young, respectively.
Being the baby brother no doubt meant Will had to try to outthink his siblings because they always were stronger and faster than he was. And eventually, all three would play college football: Mike at Duke, Pat for Army and of course, Will for the Bulldogs.
To this day, oldest brother Mike remains in coaching and has helped make Atlanta Lovett into a Georgia high school powerhouse.
His career exemplifies the ups and downs in the profession.
Back in 1997, Mike was named the interim head coach at West Alabama following the firing of head coach Todd Stroud. However, Mike recommended the school hire longtime defensive coordinator Bobby Johns for the main job, which it did.
Johns then fired Muschamp a day later.
However, 13 years later, Mike says he loves where he is and has never been happier. This season, LHS reached the Class 2A state semifinals with a team that had just 15 seniors on its 65-man roster.
And Will has come back home to take a job he and Florida Athletics director Jeremy Foley each referred to as a perfect fit on multiple occasions. (Ironically, Muschamp may run into Johns, now the head coach at Milton High School, during recruiting.)
The job started privately when Muschamp began calling recruits over the weekend, became very real when he met with his new team at 5 p.m. Tuesday and entered the public realm with the packed press conference.
It actually wasn’t the first time he had appeared on local television.
As a child, WCJB TV20 in Gainesville did a piece on local Boy’s Club football. There, a promising young talent was interviewed.
His name (as listed on that night’s new broadcast): “Willmus Champ”
Yes, Will Muschamp is back, and he is back to stay.
Hopefully, Fogler and Freeman were able to catch the whole thing on SunSports. No doubt, Muschamp’s name wasn’t misspelled this time.