62 years ago, Coach Ellenson inspired UF past the Aggies

Florida vs. Texas A&M. In all the years these two teams have been playing football, they’ve only met six times, four since the Aggies joined the Southeastern Conference in 2012. Both teams come into Saturday’s game (3:30 p.m., ABC) with 1-1 records, both disappointing week one losers followed by crushing wins over D1AA teams last week.

Most in the national media consider this a make-or-break game for the Gators who play the nation’s most difficult schedule. Win Saturday and the Gators would be favored to win the next two – at Mississippi State, home against UCF. A 4-1 record would certainly lend itself to optimism when the Gators travel to Knoxville to face a Tennessee team that is already being discussed as both an SEC and playoff contender.

A loss to the Aggies would ratchet up the pressure on Florida head coach Billy Napier and send a serious case of doom and gloom through a fan base still feeling the pain from a 41-17 thrashing at the hands of 10th-ranked Miami in game one. Beating the Aggies wouldn’t put an end to the pressure on Napier but it would at least provide a reprieve if even for one week.

There is no such pressure on Texas A&M coach Mike Elko. He’s still in his first year on the job honeymoon period as the replacement to Jimbo Fisher, who has $75 million worth of memories from his time on the job in College Station. Jimbo never met the expectations of Aggie boosters, who thought they could simply buy a national championship contender when they hired him after a ultra-successful run at Florida State. Aggie fans won’t be happy with a loss to the Gators, but they’ll give Elko a mulligan since it’s his first season and he has them convinced they can win the national championships Jimbo promised.

Billy Napier needs this game badly. His situation isn’t all that dissimilar to the one Ray Graves faced in 1962 when the Gators were set to play host to the Aggies on October 13. After a beatdown by 8th-ranked Georgia Tech in week two followed by a heartbreaking 28-21 loss to Duke in Jacksonville in which the Gators blew a 21-0 halftime lead, Graves was feeling the heat. The good will of a 9-2 first season wore off in 1961 when the Gators went 4-5-1, tying FSU 3-3 and losing to Miami 15-6.

Fans and media alike were on the Gators’ case and it seemed the team was on the verge of collapse when defensive coordinator and assistant head coach Gene Ellenson wrote a letter to the team on Thursday prior to the game with the Aggies. Ellenson won both a bronze and silver star for his heroics at the Battle of the Bulge during World War II. He wrote the letter hoping to lift the Gators from the depths of depression.

It went like this:

“Dear _____ :

“It’s late at night. The offices are all quiet and everyone has finally gone home. Once again my thoughts turn to you all.

“The reason I feel I have something to say to you is because what you need now more than anything else are a little guidance and maybe a little starch for your backbone. You are still youngsters and unknowingly, you have not steeled yourselves for the demanding task of 60 full minutes of exertion required to master a determined opponent. This sort of exertion takes two kinds of hardness. Physical, which is why you are pushed hard in practice, and mental, which comes only from having to meet adversity and whipping it.

“Now all of us have adversity – different kinds maybe – but adversity. Just how we meet these troubles determines how solid a foundation we are building our life on; and just how many of you stand together to face our team adversity will determine how solid a foundation our team has built for the rest of the season.

“No one cruises along without problems. It isn’t easy to earn your way through college on football scholarship. It isn’t easy to do what is expected of you by the academic and the athletic. It isn’t easy to remain fighting when others are curling around you or when your opponent seems to be getting stronger while you seem to be getting weaker. It isn’t easy to continue good work when others don’t appreciate what you’re doing. It isn’t easy to go hard when bedeviled by aches, pains and muscle sprains. It isn’t easy to rise up when you are down. The pure facts of life are that nothing is easy. You only get what you earn and there isn’t such a thing as “something for nothing.” When you truly realize this – then and only then will you begin to whip your adversities.

“If you’ll bear with a little story, I’ll try to prove my point. On midnight, January 14, l945, six pitiful American soldiers were hanging onto a small piece of high ground in a forest somewhere near Bastogne, Belgium. This high ground had been the objective of an attack launched by 1,000 men that morning. Only these six made it. The others had been turned back, wounded, lost or killed in action. These grimy, cruddy six men were all that were left of a magnificent thrust of 1,000 men. They hadn’t had any sleep other than catnaps for over 72 hours. The weather was cold enough to freeze the water in their canteens. They had no entrenching tools, no radio, no food – only ammunition and adversity. Twice a good-sized counter attack had been launched by the enemy, only to be beaten back because of the dark and some pretty fair grenade heaving.

“The rest of the time there were incessant mortars falling in the general area and the trees made for dreaded tree bursts, which scatter shrapnel like buckshot. The attackers were beginning to sense the location of the six defenders. Then things began to happen. First, a sergeant had a chunk of shrapnel tear into his hip. Then a corporal went into shock and started sobbing.

“After more than six hours of the constant mortar barrage and two close counter attacks, and no food since maybe the day before yesterday, this was some first-class adversity. Then another counter attack, this one making it to the small position. Hand-to-hand fighting is a routine military expression. I have not the imagination to tell you what this is really like. A man standing up to fight with a shattered hip bone, saliva frothing at his mouth, gouging, lashing with a bayonet, even strangling with his bare hands. The lonesome five fought (the corporal was out of his mind) until the attackers quit.

“Then the mortars began again. All this time the route to the rear lay open, but never did this little group take the road back. As early dawn a full company of airborne troopers relieved this tiny force. It still wasn’t quite light yet. One of the group, a lieutenant, picked up the sergeant with the broken hip and carried him like a baby. The other led the incoherent corporal like a dog on a leash. The other two of the gallant six lay dead in the snow. It took hours for this strange little group to get back to where they had started from 24 hours earlier. They were like ghosts returning. The lieutenant and one remaining healthy sergeant, after 10 hours of sleep and a hot meal, were sent on a mission 12 miles behind the German lines and helped make the link that closed the Bulge.

“Today, two of the faithful six lay in Belgium graves, one is a career army man, and one is a permanent resident of the army hospital for the insane in Texas, one is a stiff-legged repairman in Ohio, and one is an assistant football coach at the University of Florida.

“This story is no documentary or self-indulgence. It was told to you only to show you that whatever you find adverse now, others before you have had as bad or worse and still hung on to do the job. Many of you are made of exactly the same stuff as the six men in the story, yet you haven’t pooled your collective guts to present a united fight for a full 60 minutes. Your egos are a little shook – so what? Nothing good can come from moping about it. Cheer up and stand up. Fight an honest fight, square off in front of your particular adversity and whip it. You’ll be a better man for it, and the next adversity won’t be so tough. Breaking training now is complete failure to meet your problems. Quitting the first time is the hardest – it gets easier the second time and so forth.

“I’d like to see a glint in your eye Saturday about 2 p.m. with some real depth to it – not just a little lip service- not just a couple of weak hurrahs and down the drain again, but some real steel – some real backbone and 60 full fighting minutes. Then and only then will you be on the road to becoming a real man. The kind you like to see when you shave every morning.

“As in most letters, I’d like to close by wishing you well and leave you with this one thought. “Self-pity is a roommate with cowardice.” Stay away from feeling sorry for yourself. The wins and losses aren’t nearly as important as what kind of man you become. I hope I’ve given you something to think about – and remember, somebody up there still loves you.

Sincerely,

Gene Ellenson”

The letter was read to the team on Friday night. On Saturday, before a crowd of 33,000 at Florida Field, the Gators were inspired. The offense put the ball in the end zone. The defense strangled the Aggies. When the final whistle blew, it was a 42-6 rout, and not just any win, but one that turned the season around. The Gators finished 6-4 in the regular season and were invited to face 9th-ranked Penn State in the Gator Bowl. Florida won that one, 17-7, but the turnaround could be tied to Coach Ellenson’s letter.

The 2024 Gators need some inspiration. Their season could go south in a hurry if the Aggies come away with a win Saturday. Something, somehow needs to lift them up so they play with a passion and a presence unseen against Miami. This is a tough Aggie football team, one that began the season ranked in the top 25. The Aggies like to think their week one loss to Notre Dame was an aberration.

The Gators need to show Texas A&M that the loss to Notre Dame was no aberration and in doing so, show a restless fan base that better times are on the horizon.