The Boys from Old Florida: Inside Gator Nation

by Buddy Martin, Woody Paige (Foreword by)

Overview

In The Boys from Old Florida, Buddy Martin takes the reader beneath the surface of Florida football as, without bias or sugar coating, he skillfully excavates the truths behind “The Gator Nation.” In this book, Martin, a Florida native, has chronicled the real stories of Gator coaches and players through their own eyes and in their words over a 55-year period since 1950—and not all are valentines. The school asked all but one of the coaches interviewed to leave or move up. Some players became estranged or never really felt appreciated. Yet, others are forever grateful for their experience as Gator players and feel a sense of brotherhood. Liberating moments such as the arrival of Ray Graves come to life through the words of somebody who experienced it firsthand. Martin’s fresh investigations have bolstered his sharp memory of those moments as they unfolded, including Graves’s firing after a fairy tale season with his “Super Sophs.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781613212967
Publisher:	Sports Publishing LLC
Publication date:	09/01/2013
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	276
File size:	956 KB
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Buddy Martin is a veteran journalist and radio talk show host who has won more than 150 awards for his writing and editing in newspapers and magazines. He has written for the Charlotte Sun, St. Petersburg Times, Florida Today, New York Daily News, and Denver Post. He also won an Emmy Award for his work at CBS Sports in 1992. Buddy is also the cofounder of the Sports Journalism Summit at Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Table of Contents

Authors' Note viii

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction xvii

1 The Bermuda Triangle of Coaches 1

2 The Mount Rushmore of Gators 15

Preface II: Over the Decades with "The Boys' 25

3 The Bob Woodruff Era (1950-1959) 29

4 The Ray Graves Era (1960-1969) 49

5 The Doug Dickey Era (1970-1979) 83

6 The Charley Pell Era (1979-1984) 115

7 The Galen Hall Era (1984-1989) 143

8 The Steve Spurrier Era (1990-2001) 157

9 The Ron Zook Era (2002-2004) 197

10 The Urban Meyer Era (2005-2010) 211

Epilogue 235

11 From Meyer to Muschamp (2007-?) 257

Epilogue II 271