The Tradition

The winning tradition of both Urban Meyers and the Florida Gator’s football team were assessed by Franz Beard in the article, “Are Gators dynasty in the Making?”. Before joining the coaching staff at the University of Florida, Meyer was a head coach at both Bowling Green and Utah. In both of these football programs, Meyer brought winning streaks in two years. Once he began at Florida, he won an SEC conference, the BCS national championship, and had twenty-two wins in two years with quarterback, Chris Leak. In the two years with quarterback Tim Tebow, he had twenty-one wins, an SEC championship, and the national championship. Everything went periodically in two year segments. This was a pleasant change to Gators fans who always said we’ll get ‘em next year; the wins finally starting coming in. As Beard explained it, “Expectations are high and will remain high because this is a state that produces an abundance of extraordinary high school football talent and Florida is a school with every resource necessary to play football at a championship level. It simply takes the right coach with the right plan to win, which is what Florida has now in Urban Meyer” (Beard).

A tradition comes with both good and bad. It’s good to look back and realize that success should be right around the corner. However, things do not always go as planned or as they had in the past. It is very easy for fans to get used to this winning pattern and become discouraged when bad years come. A football team, even one as good as Florida’s, can not stay on top forever. It is unavoidable that there will be rough, unsuccessful years. True fans will understand and stick around no matter what. The tradition gives them something to look back on and have hope. If it could happen once, it could happen again. It really depends on how you look at the tradition and interpret the meaning to whether it is a positive or a negative.

Beard, Franz. "Are Gators Dynasty in the Making?." Gator Country 08 Jan 2009: Web. 10 May 2010.