All-Around Excellence
By Andy Staples, Tampa Tribune, Fla.
Jan. 13–GAINESVILLE — The morning after the night of his life, Urban Meyer had to explain whether the University of Florida — now defending national champion in the NCAA’s two biggest revenue-producing sports — was a football school or a basketball school. Florida’s football coach came armed with a familiar answer.
“I keep saying,” Meyer said, yanking out a well-worn line from his spring-banquet stump speech, “that the darn volleyball coach [Mary Wise] thinks it’s a volleyball school.”
Wise can make a case. Her teams have won 16 consecutive Southeastern Conference titles and appeared in six Final Fours.
Meanwhile, men’s basketball coach Billy Donovan led his team to the national title in April and has the Gators ranked No. 2 in the nation entering today’s game at South Carolina. Baseball coach Pat McMahon led his team to a second-place finish in the 2005 College World Series. Gymnastics coach Rhonda Faehn led her team to a fourth-place finish at last season’s Super Six, and men’s golf coach Buddy Alexander led his team to a second-place finish in last season’s NCAA tournament.
Since the wire services began handing out national titles, only seven schools (Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Syracuse and UCLA) have won football and men’s basketball crowns. Only Florida has won both in the same calendar year — the title the Gators won Monday counts for 2006 — but, as the previous paragraph illustrates, Florida has had success in almost all its athletic endeavors. Those endeavors also have paid for sustained excellence.
According to figures collected by the U.S. Department of Education, Florida’s athletic department took in $82.4 million in revenue against $78.2 million in expenses in 2005-06.
Meyer surmised Tuesday that Athletic Director Jeremy Foley may be presiding over the most successful period any college athletic program ever has enjoyed.
“[Foley] created an atmosphere,” Meyer said, “maybe second to none in the college athletic world right now.”
Fans and columnists ripped Foley for his hiring — and firing — of ex-football coach Ron Zook. Many also blasted Foley for hiring Meyer, assuming UF president Bernie Machen ordered Foley to hire the coach at Utah, Machen’s former school. No big deal, Foley often has said. He also took some heat for hiring a 30-year-old men’s basketball coach from Marshall prior to the 1996 season.
“That stuff is in the rear-view mirror,” Foley said Monday night as the Gators celebrated around him in their locker room in Glendale, Ariz. “We’re focusing on tonight.”
Coaches such as Meyer and Donovan believe Foley deserves much of the credit for fostering the winning attitude on Florida’s campus. Any championship, Donovan said, reflects well on the entire program.
“I’ve always been a big believer that anytime you’re a part of something bigger than yourself, that’s always a good thing,” Donovan said. “It gives you a level of appreciation for what has happened here not only in football and basketball, but in all the sports. I’m very, very happy for Urban and for the football players and for the Gator Nation and the people that support it.”
Even Donovan, who often downplayed his own team’s national title last year, couldn’t hide his pride in pulling off the basketball-football double.
“It’s quite a great thing — for our team, too — to be a part of something that’s never happened in the history of college athletics,” he said. “It’s never happened. For the University of Florida to be a part of that is special.
“What a great run and ride it’s been for the fans. It’s been a lot of fun.”
Foley said he understood it may never get better than Monday night as he — for the second time in eight months — stood inside a locker room full of players celebrating their climb to the summit of college sports. But that doesn’t mean the man in charge is satisfied.
“Tonight, we’re riding the crest,” Foley said Monday. “Obviously, it won’t always be this way, but we’ll be in the hunt. This is a program that will always be in the hunt.”
Reporter Andy Staples can be reached at (352) 262-3719 or astaples@tampatrib.com.
—–
Copyright (c) 2007, Tampa Tribune, Fla.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.