Thoughts of the Day "Life After Football Is What GatorMade Is All About"

By Franz Beard - Gator Bait Media

Billy Napier - Head Ball Coach Florida Gators.

“Better people make better football players” – Billy Napier

At some point – for some sooner and others later – reality will grab the lapels of the approximately 125 scholarship and walk-ons at the University of Florida and shake them with the cold, hard fact that their football playing days are over and done with. The handful that extend their careers beyond Florida to play in the NFL know their time in the league is limited. The average career is four years. Some play longer, but from the moment they go to their first training camp, their days are numbered. For the vast majority of Gators, there will be no NFL but just like their talented brothers who play professionally, they will be faced with dealing with whatever is next.

Billy Napier, who played quarterback at Furman in the Southern Conference of what is known today as the Football Championship Series, understands all too well that the opportunities to play at the next level are extremely limited. Of the 262 players selected in the 2022 NFL Draft, only 20 were from FCS schools and only five were taken from Division II. Even for players at a high profile Division I school like Florida, the odds are stacked against a professional career. Each year, more than 4,000 Division I players either use up their eligibility or leave early for the NFL. You can do the math. There is less than one percent chance a Division I player gets taken.

Napier was fortunate when he graduated from Furman. The son of a Georgia legend of a high school football coach, he already knew what he wanted to do and was very well prepared when it was time to hang up his cleats. He wanted to be a football coach. He had a degree and the willingness to start at the bottom to climb the coaching ranks until now when he’s the head coach at the University of Florida. In his 20 years since entering the coaching business, he’s come to understand a couple of basic facts: (1) If you’re not getting the kids you coach ready for life after football, then you’re doing them a tremendous disservice; and (2) if you invest the time and effort into turning them into better people, it will pay off on the football field.

This notion that a head coach has a far-reaching impact on the lives of his players is why there is such a thing as the GatorMade program, which occupies prominent space on the second floor of the new Heavener Football Facility. Napier believes that football is only a part of the overall equation, that he owes it to the kids who come to play for the Gators and their parents to send a kid out into the world better off than when he arrived at UF. Prominent in this effort is the GatorMade division of the “army” Napier promised back in December when he became Florida’s football coach.

Led by Savannah Bailey, who is assisted by Vernell Brown Jr., Marcus Castro-Walker and Diane Lebon, GatorMade is there for every player whether scholarship or walk-on. Former Florida center and ultra-successful business exec Mike Ricketts knows what a life-changing experience football can be, which is why he made a significant investment into the program whose function it is to change lives while preparing players for the inevitable, that day when, like it or not, they know it’s time to turn the page for the next chapter in life.

“We want to equip and educate the players,” Napier said at his Wednesday press briefing after the Gators had finished their last full contact practice for Saturday’s close encounter with Missouri. “We want to create experiences for the players, ultimately that changes and impacts lives for the better. Hopefully these young men leave here more prepared for life after ball.”

Far too many kids when they are being recruited are sold this bill of goods that college football is akin to changing planes in Atlanta. It’s just a stopping off point in the journey to the National Football League. It’s called selling the dream, and far too many kids learn too late that they have little or no chance to turn their dream into reality. At some point the kids realize that while they were studs in high school, college football is played at an entirely different level and the NFL is only for the best of the best, the one percent of the one percent as Urban Meyer used to describe it.

Some kids arrive on campus understanding they’ll never make it to the NFL. For others who have dreamed the dream since they were kids just starting to play, there is that unexpected wakeup call. If a school is doing it the right way, that dreamer will have help transitioning to something meaningful when football days end. Schools that are doing it the right way also invest in the kids who will have a chance to fulfill their dreams by playing on Sunday. They, too, will one day see their playing days come to an end so they have to be prepared to adjust to civilian life.

Preparing kids for the future is only a portion of what GatorMade is all about. It’s also about preparing them for the here and now, the small things in life that we’ll never see like balancing a checkbook or buying insurance for a car or a hundred other things that are part of daily life. Helping football players develop the skills to handle even the situations of a daily routine eliminate the kind of distractions that can keep a kid from focusing on the practice or playing field. When a kid learns one of these new skills and becomes more accountable, it is a victory.

To Savannah Bailey, who spent five years as the director of life skills and community service for Dabo Swinney at Clemson, the little victories that aren’t necessarily football-related are reasons to celebrate.

“There could be the guy who is late constantly, but he’s there a minute early, great!” she said. “That is progress! I’ll take it! It’s just one of those kind of things. You celebrate all of the things in their accomplishments, all the progress that they make. It’s not just a football-related thing. It’s how do you keep them encouraged in the small details because all the small details add up.”

The small details off the playing field have a way of manifesting themselves on the playing field. That player who has been in the habit of arriving late, hustles to be on time to a meeting. During the game, he hustles to get on and off the field. How important is that? Think back to the SEC Championship Game against Alabama in 2020. On a third-and-eight at the Alabama 43, a Florida player didn’t hustle off the field just as Mac Jones threw an incompletion. Florida was flagged, giving Alabama a third-and-three do-over rather than a fourth-and-eight punt. Bama converted the third down, drove nine more plays while taking nearly four more minutes off the clock before scoring a touchdown.

Florida lost that game, 52-46. A few seconds of hustle, an Alabama touchdown is eliminated and perhaps the Florida Gators win the Southeastern Conference championship.

Another part of the program is bringing in motivational speakers like Inky Johnson, a former Tennessee cornerback whose playing career ended with an injury that left his right arm permanently paralyzed. Johnson got his degree and has become an in-demand motivational speaker. When he spoke to the Gators recently, it had a far-reaching impact on the entire team.

“Inky was a really cool guy,” tight end Keon Zipperer said. “I watched him growing up. I always watched the one little video about how his career went. Seeing him in person, like, amazed me a little bit. I just, like, damn. It’s real. Stuff can happen in football. Your career can end like that. So from that, I took, each and every play, I try to give it my all, because you never know when your time is up.”

With the assistance of the GatorMade staff, linebacker Ventrell Miller is using his NIL money, name recognition and platform to form the Ventrell Miller Foundation. He’s using the foundation to raise money for victims of Hurricane Ian who have lost their homes and livelihood.

There is the Service Abroad program that did a trip to Greece back in the summer. For wide receiver Justin Shorter, his eyes were opened up to life in a different country and a culture he knew nothing about. He raves about the experience.

“I had my favorite life experience I've ever had,” Shorter said. “Just changed my whole perspective on life, really how I look at things … I feel like that's definitely a program that's going to help a lot of boys become men in this program, which is I feel like a lot of us need.”

It was Shorter’s first time outside the United States. It was a short but valuable experience.

“Really just seeing something else, seeing how other people live, someone else's culture for a change … That really opened my eyes up,” he said. “I was kind of like, whoa!”

Napier said there has already been the GatorMade Atlanta Business Break and next year (2023) there will be a trip to New York City.

“I’m different because of the people I've met along the way, the people I've listened to along the way, and the experiences that I've had,” Napier said.

Napier sees preparing players for life after football as one of his main missions, but the fact is, he’s paid quite handsomely to prepare his players to win football games. He sees a direct correlation between investing in the lives of his players and the amount of time and effort it takes to develop them into football players who can win games. It’s all part of his own version of the Nick Saban made famous “Process.”

In the Napier version, there is a Plan A and a Plan B.

“I think Plan A should be the degree, the education, the experience, the skill set, the connections, right, the career, who I am as a person, my character,” Napier said. “I think Plan B is the National Football League. Sometimes we obviously have to paint that picture in a little bit different way, but I firmly believe that football is a game that can teach a lot of lessons about life.”

No other game requires football’s emphasis on teamwork. On any given play it is 11 players working together as a single unit. In a game it is sometimes 50-60 players, all with a job to do, but functioning as a team. In practice, it is the starters, the reserves, the redshirts, the walk-ons all working together with the idea of getting better every single day.

It is a game that demands accountability, not just from the players but from the coaches and support staff. Coaches demand accountability from the players. Players should demand accountability from the coaches as well.

And when there is accountability on all sides, the result is better people and better players which will translate into winning football.

“I think it does show up on the field,” Napier said. “That would be my opinion. I think that trust factor, knowing that you've got a plan for them, knowing that you care for them, knowing that you're investing for them … I think ultimately that ends up paying you back in some form or fashion along the way.”

Accountability. Investing in the lives of players. Getting them to focus on what’s right. Expanding their horizons to show that there is a whole world out there waiting to be conquered once football is in the rearview.

It is also about players taking the time to do what’s best for their own future.

“It’s them investing in themselves,” Savannah Bailey said. “Football is just a tool for life. It is not something you rely on your whole life but you can use it to power yourself through many, many doors.”

After all, there are 470,000 University of Florida alumni. The Gator Nation is very large, very real and an asset available for every football player. When playing days are done, the Gator Nation can open doors of opportunity.

Doors of opportunity is what GatorMade is all about.

“I think this is more of a complete, holistic investment into making them the absolute best person, student and football player they can be,” Napier said. “I mean, I think we're making significant impact. We've seen young men change for the better. I think they're more prepared than maybe they would have been without it.”