Thank you, Tim; You Kept Your Promise

How dare we?

How dare we Florida fans lament, how dare the Sentinel columnists condemn and ridicule a program whose only sin was losing to a better team?

How dare MIke Bianchi suggest in the Sunday paper that Tim Tebow's promise was broken? Did we all really think they would never lose again?  Did we think after close calls to programs like Arkansas and Mississippi State that we were really the same team? Did we think losing Harvin and Murphy and the rest would not come back to bite us?

Come on, Gator nation! Wake up! Tim promised that "no one would work harder", etc etc.  We all know it by heart. We also know in our hearts that we expected this.

We knew we were not the same team. But we WON. However, whenever, whatever; the team was 12-0, and for 4 glorious years, we in Florida had something to cheer about.

And what a time it was to be a Gator fan! While the papers were crowing, while fans were furrowing their brows at why, how, we could allow Tennessee to score a touchdown or let Mississippi State make a game out of it, while all that was happening, we were watching our malls turn from thriving centers to empty warehouses. While we read headlines like 'Ho-hum, Gators win", we drove down empty streets lined with unoccupied houses; houses built by ruthless developers in the throse of the greatest greed-driven feeding frenzy in the nation's history. We watched our neighbors and relatives lose jobs (if we ourselves were lucky enough to keep ours), and worry about how we were going to buy food, pay rent, and fill our cars with that overpriced $130-per-barrel crude product so we could drive our kids to their half-empty schools, which by now were threatening to lay off half the staff or go to a 4 day week.

We were treated in 2008 to a reprive of this existence; after Ole Miss, we buried ourselves in the excess of the Gators wins; we marveled at their resolve, their discipline. We apprecaited how hard they prepared, and we exalted when they lifted that Glass footbal in January of '09.

And then, like those land-barons who overdeveloped our subdivisions and ruined our housing market; we got greedy. We thought that in '09, the Gators would go undefeated, unscored upon, not allow a yard on a single punt return and Tebow would make good on his promise and run for 2,000 yards and throw for 3,000 more.

We expected- we demanded- perfection. In an imperfect world. In a state that ranked 39th on money spent per child; that had to create a new tuition to fuind its universities, that had more empty forclosed properties than it had doctors; we wanted the Gators to be perfect.

We were okay with the Jaguars being called the "Biggest disappointment of the season" (MIke & MIke), we were fine with the Dolphins going 1-15 and then coming back to life using- of all things - an offensive formation right out of "College Football 101".  We would chuckle at the Buccaneers being the perennial laughingstock and say "Thats the Bucs being the Bucs".  We watched Huizenga disassemble the Marlins, and then watched them disassemble again a few years later. We looked on as the Lightning hoisted the Cup and then the next year the 100-year-old league almost went under.  We were okay with that.

But the Gators, only beating Tennessee by 10??  But Florida almost losing to the Pigs and Bulldogs?  We almost packed up and set out for Detroit!!!!!!!!

We should take a lesson from the folks in Detroit. The city hit hardest by the recession, where the single greatest employment source became the face of American economic failure- where the football team lost every game it played; had their beloved Red Wings. But even the Wings succumed to a superior team in the Stanley Cup Finals, and the Wings fans stood tall; after all, they said, it was just a game. And they knew (like the rest of the world) that dynasties do not last forever. The Celtics; the Steelers; the Niners; the Edmonton Oilers; at some time, nature and Nature's God dictates that the torch must be passed...

And so we Gator fans must set aside our petty greed; we must look to the future, which is not as bleak as the media would have us think. We have a great football mind as our coach, and we have one of the most talent-rich states in the nation. All is not lost. We will survive. And the Gators will, too.

And someday, we will look back on these years with nostalgic flare, remember the time when we could actually get a parking space in the mall and when houses were less than $500,000, and gas was (gasp!) only $2.65 a gallon!

And if we are decent people, and good Gators, we will say; "Thanks, Tim. It was a great ride. And it couldn't have come at a better time.  God Bless".

And then we will lift that glass football again...