I remember when there was no North Endzone at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
I remember a 1989 game against Mississippi State in the old Tampa Stadium.
I remember the artificial turf that new head coach Steve Spurrier finally had taken out when he arrived in 1990.
More games than I can count, and through them all, next to me was my dad. Also my namesake, my dad was a quarterback in high school, even recruited by Notre Dame, before he got hurt his senior year.
He took my brother and I to games every chance he could.
We’ve celebrated in a downpour after beating Tennessee and cursed Auburn’s name more times than I care to remember when they would always find a way to beat us.
My freshmen year of college, Florida won its first National Championship. At Christmas, he told us we were going to New Orleans. And we spent two straight nights together on Bourbon Street. The first with a mix of Florida and Florida State fans. The second night — following the game — with Florida fans only.
He had to come find me in the stands in 2001 after we played Tennessee. The game had been pushed back after the horrific events of 9/11 and Tennessee managed to beat us 34-32 and cost us a chance at a national championship in that next January’s Rose Bowl.
Through it all, if we weren’t at the games, we were on the phone “watching” the games together.
Then life happened and my son was born. And it revolved around a Gator championship game too!
Florida was on its way to play Ohio State in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl and everyone else — my brother and his wife, my dad and stepmom, were going — except me. Something about my son being due any second and my wife saying she’d kill me if I went to the game and missed the birth.
But he waited, and was born six days later, my dad back to be there along with everyone else.
I dreamed about the day I’d get to take my son to Gainesville.
It’s who I was and what we did. And I knew only one other fact: the day that happened, my father would be with us too.
When Noah was six we picked a game in late November, for the milder weather and the opponent, so it was less traumatic as possible. And the three of us went.
We didn’t make it past halftime, as Noah was sound asleep in my arms. But I thanked my dad for being there, and he thanked me for asking him along. And I soaked in the moment.
About four years later, my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. There had been signs and so it wasn’t a shock.
We continued to live our lives and do whatever we could together. But each year the football conversations dwindled. He couldn’t remember things, or it was just a struggle, and I didn’t want to put him or (selfishly) myself, through all that.
Noah and I still go to games every year.
He doesn’t like football.
He’s me and not me all at the same time.
But he loves going to Gainesville.
We have our game day rituals. If we don’t go to The Swamp Restaurant the boy may have a fit.
But my dad cannot go. It’s not possible at this point. And I miss that.
More than my dad will ever know.
And Noah won’t understand for a few more years just how precious it is to me that he still wants to go. But he is getting older too, and I think about whether he will want to continue to go in the future.
We went two weeks ago to watch the Gators play Sanford.
We had a ball.
And I thanked him for wanting to be there. He shrugged. He didn’t get it.
I did though.
He may never truly understand what it means to me.
And I hope my dad knows what it has meant to me.
It was everything.