West Cocoa Chat

What happened in College Basketball is truly amazing to this long-time Florida boy. My mother was from Kentucky, one of the truly great “basketball states.” Walk into most restaurants in Kentucky (unless you’re in Louisville) and you’ll see a shrine to the great Kentucky Coach, Adoph Rupp, as well as pictures of all the great Kentucky teams and players that have played for that storied program. I understood and cherished this part of my family’s tradition but I always felt like the red-headed (apologies to any of our bloggers that are red-headed) step child because what could a “Florida Boy” know about basketball? Everyone knew we were and still are a “football state.”


Then Billy Donovan, aka “Billy the Kid,” showed up at UF. In 2000 he took the Gators to the “promise land,” the Championship Game only to lose to Michigan State. But this year, even this proud Florida State Seminole is willing to say, for the moment, all of Florida belongs to the “Gator Nation!” Congratulations to Billy Donovan and the Florida Gators for doing something in a football state that nobody just a few years would have ever had dreamed, bringing a national championship home to the great state of Florida! The pressure is on Urban Myer to manufacture the same kind of success with the Gator Football Team.

No, pigs don’t fly but for the moment, Gators and the state of Florida do, a recognized “Basketball State!”