93 Days to Florida Gator Football!

[Escambia94]

Trace Armstrong transferred to the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, from Arizona State and played his final college season for coach Galen Hall in 1988. He was recognized as a first-team All-Southeastern Conference (SEC) selection and a first-team All-American at defensive tackle. He set a new Gators single-season record for most tackles for a loss with nineteen, including seven sacks. In all, Armstrong made fifty-nine tackles with forty-one of those solo.

Armstrong ended his college career with 169 tackles, including thirty-two tackles for losses and fifteen quarterback sacks. He graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts in 1989, and returned to earn a master’s degree in business administration in 2006. As part of a fan poll conducted by The Gainesville Sun in 2006, he was voted to the Florida Gators 100th Anniversary Team as a defensive lineman together with fellow Gators Jack Youngblood, Wilber Marshall and Kevin Carter. He was also inducted into the University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame as a “Gator Great” in 2000.

RUNNER UP: #93 Alonzo Johnson, LB (1983-85). Johnson joins Robin Fisher and Wilber Marshall as the only Gators to be in the top 10 in both career tackles and sacks. Typically overshadowed by Marshall, Johnson was a star in his own right.

 

[DRU2012]

Sorry I've been away for so long--Since SouthBy went west to work on movie, came back in time for more rain in the past few weeks than Austin's had in the last 20 years...and to move. Stayed in hotel with friends who came to visit, tried to show 'em a good time here and around Texas WHILE I was looking for a new place to live. Bunch of other stuff personal and professional dropped on me all the while. Finally got nice here last coupla days--right after they left, of course.
But you're right: JUST "93 more days"!!! Been following all things Gator as best I could (my phone auto-searches and stores Gator news for my daily perusal, no matter where I am, or when I find a little time to grab as much as I can), and soon it'll be summer/pre-fall practice.
These guys you speak of were there during and just after my undergrad years: I watched, in some cases even knew them. Someone from the same (maybe slightly earlier) period you may have already spoken of was David Galloway, whom I tutored, and who made it to the pros to play for the (then still St. Louis?) Cardinals, as I recall, with whom he had a pretty damn solid, if a bit foreshortened by injury, career.
So glad you've been holding the fort, E-, and in the usual fine fashion. Nothin' but appreciation from me.

 

[Leakfan12]

on . Someone from the same (maybe slightly earlier) period you may have already spoken of was David Galloway, whom I tutored, and who made it to the pros to play for the (then still St. Louis?) Cardinals, as I recall, with whom he had a pretty damn solid, if a bit foreshortened by injury, career.

He played ten seasons in NFL which is very impressive especially with some players today retiring early.

 

[DRU2012]

He played ten seasons in NFL which is very impressive especially with some players today retiring early.

Thanks, bra'...Yeah, THOUGHT it was "pretty solid", and went on as long or longer than they tend to do at his position in the NFL, taking the beating they take (knees especially, I already knew). I did run into someone from the Alumni group in LA one time who mentioned that he'd seen him (I asked after him 'cause I really liked David, good-hearted, gentle big man who was also a fast-twitch monster on the O-line...my girlfriend at the time, a German exchange student, tutored him as well--in GERMAN, addressed and referred to him then and ever after as "Herr Galloway"...always made me laugh), and had talked to David at a G-ville confab during Homecoming coupla years back and said he was contemplating full on "titanium knee-replacement" (!!!). Guess it's "the price you pay" sorta thing.

 

[DRU2012]

(BTW--saw a TEXAS license plate on a young guy's "everyday hatchback" yesterday that actually had the snarlin' GATOR "Eat 'em up!"-head/logo on the middle-left side, a few numbers to the right, and "The Gator Nation" printed underneath instead of "The Lonestar State" (...Love that!). Pulled up beside him at a light, talked to him and found out how/where/when you get one, how much extra, etc.--and I WILL when my reg. rolls over next month. Didn't even think/know you could get or have anything along those lines in this "Bigger/better-than-everywhere-else", "Not-from-Texas-but-got-here-as-fast-I-could" state except for the common Longhorn and Aggie ones they flog and you see all over the place in Tejas, here and there a Texas State Bobcats version--espec. the UT ones here in "da ATX"...Might bring some abuse come the day we finally play 'em for all the marbles, but such stuff is generally just verbal, and mainly good-natured in this town. Anyway, turns out not to be insultingly expensive, and it'll look great on my still-newish Gator-blue Dodge.)
I know, not at all related to anything else here--except maybe to the real underlying point E- made in the thread-topic/headline: Gotta pass the next now-92-days-and-counting SOMEHOW--like with small, everyday Gator stuff like this, while we slowly crank up for Season 2015...also "BTW", I know this isn't going to be "our year", not yet; more a transition, "show where we're headed" sorta season, I suspect, before we hopefully really start to "bring the magic" in 2016...But more thoughts/words on all that elsewhere here at GE as we get to August. One forerunner to throw out there: New staff is layin' the groundwork for an eventual winning hand at WR, but I think maybe we STILL need to land a real program-changing stud at QB: Treon's good, Greer might be even better, but let's face it, unless one of 'em blossoms bigtime, Coach Mac and staff able to help either find a whole new level, we'd need at least one other WR besides Robinson to step way up, AND one of the RBs to begin to dominate--and he (whether Taylor or one of the others) better be both a freight train and mucho shifty 'cause we don't look to have much more than a "serviceable" O-line, maybe not even that once injuries start chipping away...Reading/remembering about "the old days", the names of so many great ones who went out there and performed each week, constantly raising the standards and helping to build towards championships, well, among everything else it does remind me of what we've been missing so much OF last few years, especially on offense. Just sayin'.

 

[Escambia94]

(BTW--saw a TEXAS license plate on a young guy's "everyday hatchback" yesterday that actually had the snarlin' GATOR "Eat 'em up!"-head/logo on the middle-left side, a few numbers to the right, and "The Gator Nation" printed underneath instead of "The Lonestar State" (...Love that!). Pulled up beside him at a light, talked to him and found out how/where/when you get one, how much extra, etc.--and I WILL when my reg. rolls over next month. Didn't even think/know you could get or have anything along those lines in this "Bigger/better-than-everywhere-else", "Not-from-Texas-but-got-here-as-fast-I-could" state except for the common Longhorn and Aggie ones they flog and you see all over the place in Tejas, here and there a Texas State Bobcats version--espec. the UT ones here in "da ATX"...Might bring some abuse come the day we finally play 'em for all the marbles, but such stuff is generally just verbal, and mainly good-natured in this town. Anyway, turns out not to be insultingly expensive, and it'll look great on my still-newish Gator-blue Dodge.)
I know, not at all related to anything else here--except maybe to the real underlying point E- made in the thread-topic/headline: Gotta pass the next now-92-days-and-counting SOMEHOW--like with small, everyday Gator stuff like this, while we slowly crank up for Season 2015...also "BTW", I know this isn't going to be "our year", not yet; more a transition, "show where we're headed" sorta season, I suspect, before we hopefully really start to "bring the magic" in 2016...But more thoughts/words on all that elsewhere here at GE as we get to August. One forerunner to throw out there: New staff is layin' the groundwork for an eventual winning hand at WR, but I think maybe we STILL need to land a real program-changing stud at QB: Treon's good, Greer might be even better, but let's face it, unless one of 'em blossoms bigtime, Coach Mac and staff able to help either find a whole new level, we'd need at least one other WR besides Robinson to step way up, AND one of the RBs to begin to dominate--and he (whether Taylor or one of the others) better be both a freight train and mucho shifty 'cause we don't look to have much more than a "serviceable" O-line, maybe not even that once injuries start chipping away...Reading/remembering about "the old days", the names of so many great ones who went out there and performed each week, constantly raising the standards and helping to build towards championships, well, among everything else it does remind me of what we've been missing so much OF last few years, especially on offense. Just sayin'.

My wife's car has a Texas plate with Gator Nation on it. You can get those in Texas. The best part is driving that car around California and watching heads spin.

 

[DRU2012]

My wife's car has a Texas plate with Gator Nation on it. You can get those in Texas. The best part is driving that car around California and watching heads spin.

At least they all know who we are now, and how good the SEC is. I've told you before about getting out there from G-ville the year we started a home-and-home with the Trojans. The folks there all figured they were going into some "tune-up" with a buncha second rate hicks to open the season. Among Trojans that first summer, living on-campus while I got a car then searched for something WELL off-campus (I was on a grad-fellowship at that point--but wanted to get a place of my own well away from USC itself--if you know where the campus is and how it is situated in relation to the city around it, you will well-understand why, if you do not want to live in that "Trojan enclave", you sure don't wanna live "close by"). Anywway, I warned 'em mildly, (in my then-still-strong and purposefully-exagerated drawl) "Weeeellll, we play a purty good brand o' ball down in the SEC...". One of the most satisfyingly memorable game-experiences and outcomes I can remember. In those pre-internet, regional telecast days, those people, so smug and condescending going in (still always smug--that hasn't changed much, has it E-?), just could not believe what they were seeing.
I know what you mean about the "head turning" upon seeing the license plate...but it can work the other way too: I met and connected with a number of folks in my early years out there because of my penchant for always having a Gator license frame, bumper sticker and/or window decal on my cars back then. We met folks (my wife was a Gator too), expanded our "connections" in a biz that lives and breathes such things, even had sudden favors large and small done as a result of it (eg. waved into a full parking lot at the Universal Amphitheater for an REM show one night, given a protected "VIP-space" right up front near the entrance in the '64 T-bird I was slowly restoring--and driving, 'cause back then I couldn't afford such a project unless it was my everyday transport as well--this unexpected, safe and convenient, greatly appreciated treatment bestowed on us just because the top "Grounds Security" guy recognized and stepped in to help a fellow reptile). "Gator Nation" indeed.

 

[Escambia94]

...
I know what you mean about the "head turning" upon seeing the license plate...but it can work the other way too: I met and connected with a number of folks in my early years out there because of my penchant for always having a Gator license frame, bumper sticker and/or window decal on my cars back then. We met folks (my wife was a Gator too), expanded our "connections" in a biz that lives and breathes such things, even had sudden favors large and small done as a result of it (eg. waved into a full parking lot at the Universal Amphitheater for an REM show one night, given a protected "VIP-space" right up front near the entrance in the '64 T-bird I was slowly restoring--and driving, 'cause back then I couldn't afford such a project unless it was my everyday transport as well--this unexpected, safe and convenient, greatly appreciated treatment bestowed on us just because the top "Grounds Security" guy recognized and stepped in to help a fellow reptile). "Gator Nation" indeed.

As they say, the University of Florida is in Gainesville, but the Gator Nation is everywhere.

There is a tradition that when we build satellites, the primary team members get to autograph portions of the satellite. Let's just say that products of the Gator Nation are also in orbit around earth.