Corey, you have a pretty small data base of Gators to say we speak poorly of other teams. To start with this Gator doesn't. :wink: :wink:
Corey, This corroborates what I was saying as the Spurrier issue piles on to what existed before. I am not saying Floridians themselves are despised by other southerners but the football program at the U of F sort of carried the banner for the disdain and mistrust of the old Deep South of the cultural differences that used to exist in spades. An interesting side story when I was Googling to find out if Florida's Willie Jackson Sr. was the first black player in the SEC. I found this excerpt about two black players signed at Kentucky two years earlier who were the first African Americans in the SEC and I was startled to read this: "1967 During an August football practice in 1967, the Kentucky Wildcats ran a pursuit drill that they had done in hundreds of practices. The drill is simple: One player has the football, the 11 defenders chase him and each hits the ball carrier once and then backs off. Greg Page, a defensive end, was the ball carrier on this particular drill, and when the defenders cleared out, Page didn't get up. Page never got up again. He was paralyzed and required a respirator. On Sept. 29, Page dies, 38 days after the injury. The next day, Sept. 30, Northington, a wide receiver who was Page's roommate, became the first black player to participate in an SEC game. Northington played several minutes in UK's 26-13 loss to Ole Miss in Lexington and appeared in three more games before leaving the team, distraught over his friend's death." The relevance here is that was the Deep South unfortunately. Backwards and racist in many respects and in many parts of the countryside. In those days there were more rural dwellers by far than city dwellers and old customs and backwoods culture was the order of the day. Not all bad things about that culture but certainly as I have stated the state of Florida's foreign image to them was not what you and I know to be true about the northern half of Florida. I will say this emphatically...without a doubt over time the northern half of Florida has welcomed Deep South transferees into it's communities probably 20 times over the southern half who years ago saw mostly white northerners come in as transferees. Only in the last 35 years has southern Florida grown to become as Latin as it is today. I know about northern Fla because I grew up in Jax and there were many more people who had migrated into the Jax area from rural Georgia than from anywhere north of the Mason-Dixon by far. The same cannot be said about Tampa, Lakeland, Orlando, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, etc... Again...this is changing for Jax in the last 10 years or so as are many areas of the south. Retirees are now setting up shop in many areas of the south that 25 years ago were still mostly only locals. So...with old cultural disdain combined with new Spurrier-generated hate these old ex-football playing SEC refs from Deep South Dixie just do not look very favorably upon Florida football and neither will their sons when they grow up to be good ole boy refs from rural Dixie.
... <t>perception is reality and I have yet to meet a person who dislikes Florida because of the University of Florida.<br/> <br/> They all like the state just fine. It was Florida, under Spurrier, that drew their ire.<br/> <br/> I just don't see this hatred... and certainly none that UF is carrying the banner for.<br/> <br/> A good many of these folks in 'Dixie' have deep family ties along the Gulf and that extends down to the fishing areas of Miami, Tampa and the pan handle region.<br/> <br/> They don't hate Florida, they hate(d) Spurrier.</t>
Ha! That's good. I disrespect you by refusing by insisting I don't hate you? Okay! :roll: It's okay MCG I give up. I'm tired of trying to explain myself.
Corey, I see you ignored my post yesterday so let me try again. UF is not carrying any banner for hatred, some fans yes, UF and most fans, NO! As far as SEC fans hating Spurrier, Tough beans! No matter what they say about hating Spurrier and not Florida, they hate the fact that he was such a consistent winner. How many fans now hate S. Carolina because of Spurrier? The whole hate thing is really, really, overdone. But I think you really know that!