As Gator Hater Week draws to a close (this doesn’t mean that you can’t hate the Gators year-round), I’d like to recount one of my favorite Gator hating memories. I wasn’t even in the country for this one. Gator hate knows no borders.
In 1998, on my way to live in Belarus for a year, I made a brief stop in Budapest, Hungary. The brief stop happened to fall on September 19, when the Vols hosted the Gators in Knoxville. Thousands of miles and six times zones away, I awoke my jet-lagged body around 5:45 AM and placed a call to the States on the morning of September 20. I thought the game would long be decided by then, but overtimes ensured that the game had only just finished. The Vols had won in Knoxville 20-17. It was a shot heard ’round the world that set the stage for a national championship.
The best part was the next day, when I found a USA Today international edition. On the front page: Vol fans tearing down the goal posts at Neyland!
Do you still have that paper?
As a matter of fact, I believe I do–somewhere in the massive archives of my pack rat vault.