Dogs vs. Gators - Fear replaces fun

As you can see from the date below, this does go back a ways. The reason that I am posting this article by LG is that some of this story became true and touched many people in the area that I live, Merritt Island, Florida. Cape Canaveral area, Shuttle site.

A local high school student, from Merritt Island High School, was beaten to death in Jacksonville a few years back. Needlessly . . . and this young man was entering the University of Florida. He was a very good friend of my daughters, same graduating class. If wlayton is reading this article, I am sure that he probably knows of the crime that was commited that weekend. It was covered extensively in Florida papers. This was not Georgia on Florida crime or vice versa. It was several young hoodlums with nothing better to do than what is mentioned in the LG article below.

The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, November 1992

Dogs vs. Gators - Fear replaces fun
By Lewis Grizzard


Jacksonville - The universities of Georgia and Florida, both fine schools, need to make an immediate decision to move their annual football game out of this city's Gator Bowl before somebody gets killed. Jacksonville can't handle this thing anymore. No city could. Putting an equal number of Florida and Georgia fans, who absolutely hate each other, together in an 82,000-seat stadium just invites disaster. This isn't the World's Largest Cocktail Party anymore. It's the World's Largest Crazy House. There are about 40,000 Georgia fans and a like number of Florida fans in the Gator Bowl on a Halloween Saturday night, and rival fans often sit near each other. The taunting never stops. Some of it is fun, but most of it is not. This rivalry has become so intense, it's primed for a riot. There already have been brawls. I remember a year when Florida students stormed the field after the game and tried to destroy it. A Georgia student rushed onto the field and tackled a couple of shirtless guys carrying away part of a goal post. Five or six Florida students then beat the kid from Georgia to a pulp. It was just as ugly and just as mean here Saturday night. Maybe worse.

I went to Georgia and I'm biased, but I witnessed behavior Saturday night in the Gator Bowl I'd never seen at a college football game before. When it was over, and Florida had won 26-24, a few of the Florida players strutted arrogantly in front of thousands of Georgia fans, and made obscene gestures. One Gator grabbed his crotch in front of the Georgians. Another gave a pelvic thrust and shouted an obscenity. The players left, but then returned to rub it in further. A man who I presume was a Florida coach finally had the decency to shove the players away. Leaving the stadium, Florida fans barked directly into the faces of Georgia fans. Georgia fans retaliated with explicit instructions on what the Gator fans could do with their victory. And to think people used to wear coats and ties to college football games, and shook hands at game's end. I stood in front of my car with a group 0 fellow Georgia fans for an hour after the game. We were insulted by passing motorists or Gators strolling by about every two minutes. A drunken teenage girl told us to eat something humans don't eat.

It's out of control. And it's no longer fun. Orlando wants the game, but Georgia doesn't want to play the Gators any deeper in Florida. The best idea is to make the series a home-and-home arrangement. That way the visiting team would get only a few tickets and there wouldn't be this 40,000 versus 40,000 situation, and more control could be administered. \"I'll never come back here,\" a Georgia friend told me Sunday morning. \"I'd like to get Florida between the hedges in Athens every other year, and when the game's in Gainesville I'll just watch it on TV. In other countries, soccer fans riot and kill one another. Georgia-Florida in the Gator Bowl isn't that yet, but go home-and-home before one Halloween night it becomes a nightmare.

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This is an article about what happened that night. Just be careful if you are going to the game, there are always those that want to ruin it for everyone. LG had a lot of foresight.

www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articl.../202010334/1078/news

Yes Buc, unfortunately I remember that beating death incident very well. It gets out of hand every year and is to the point where it's not much fun (geez, we have been losing anyway). A couple of years ago I was at the game with my wife and kids and came REAL close to decking a guy that was causing problems around our area AND he was a UGA FAN !!! Fortunately my wife had enough sense to go get a cop before anything happened and they threw the guy and his date out of the stadium. Man, almost fight YOUR OWN DAWG FANS, now that's pretty bad......and he needed to be decked.

Unfortunately there is an idiot in every group, but i still think there is more good people than bad. My parents, some friends and I pulled our camper over there in 2005 and i have mostly good things to say. there were dawgs and gators in amongst each other, and it was like we were all family for the weekend, the atmosphere was that friendly. word got around the camp site about our bulldog and our ribs, we had lots of people come by just to say hey eat a rib and see our dog. But then again, a UGA student got beat up and ran over that night by some drunk gators. It really is a shame. Never fight a drunk!

wlayton, had that same thing happen back in the 1960's. We were playing Pat Sullivan's team in Athens. At the time I was upper level North Stands. Auburn fellow there with an attitude, and it must be said . . . . some Dawg fans there also with attitudes. As long as the Jack Daniels and Sunshine don't enter the picture, and it is just school rivalry, fine. Tommy Brown never had a chance, and the shame is the outcome of this case. Looks like a lot of slapping on the wrists. Like Grizzard said many times, times are changing. Now, if we can get the WD-40 Defense to stand up, with a fire under \"Slick Willie\" we might fool some folks. . . . Go Dawgs!

DawginFl, totally agree with the fact that the majority of fans at this gathering is a good bunch of folks. Nothing wrong with a \"little smack\" as long as it is being done in the spirit of the game. My autos have Dawg Tags for all to see, and on occasion I get some \"looks.\" However, have been involved with high school sports here for a long time, and now have some of the folks pulling for Georgia with the exception of the Georgia/Florida game. Huge rivalry here is between the Seminoles and the Gators. They don't like each other at all. . . . believe that.

Yeah I agree with both of you. For every jerk, there's 1000 great fans out there.