Time To Honor The 1984-85 UF Football Team With A Weekend

Bill Carr, the last Boy Scout and former athletic director at the University of Florida, went to his grave believing there was something noble and virtuous about athletes accepting scholarships to entertain us in exchange for a debt-free college education. In a Thursday conversation he had with Bill Feinberg and me more than a year ago at an eatery near Haile Plantation, Bill admitted there could have and should have been tweaks to the system long ago. He believed the NCAA could have and should have made long term health care available to athletes, particularly those who play a violent sport like football. He believed the NCAA, in its infinite wisdom, was dumb to oppose schools paying for the education of athletes after their eligibility expired. After all, he admitted, most sports these days and times are a full-time job and a full-time job plus the rigors of training weren’t exactly conducive to graduating within a 5-year time frame.

The NCAA finally gave in on these and other critical demands of collegiate athletes, but only because it kept losing in one court case after another that should have been settled amicably. The mess that is collegiate athletics now can trace its roots back to Cedric Dempsey and the brain dead Mark Emmert, who were unfit to run a convenience store but somehow managed to be presidents of the NCAA. They chose to fight (and lose) when they should have been listening to athletes and then figuring out ways for a fair compromise.

As much as he was sold on the idea of the amateur athlete model that the NCAA was supposed to represent, Bill Carr knew all the problems the NCAA faces today were of the organization’s own doing. In so many respects, what the NCAA has done is akin to a former Southeastern Conference defensive end who tried to convince a judge and jury that he didn’t assault this girl with a beer mug. No, she ran face first into the mug. Several times, in fact. That was his story and he stuck with it.

You could apply this analogy to the NCAA. By fighting every case in court it was the equivalent of running face first into a beer mug multiple times.

It didn’t have to be that way, of course, but that is essentially why we have the mess we have now. The NCAA, in its infinite wisdom, grew weary of getting its face bloodied by the beer mug so it did a Roberto Duran, threw its hands in the air and said, “No mas!” All this led us to out of control NIL and this ridiculous settlement with the House of Representatives that allegedly will allow athletes from other sports and team and schools in the past to get paid. There are other anti-trust lawsuits against the NCAA that have to be settled, most of which deal with NIL so we’re a long way from anything being concrete when it comes to NIL.  

NIL. Bill Carr said that day the same thing everybody says about NIL these days – Now It’s Legal. What used to be a sentence to the NCAA jailhouse is like shoplift until your heart’s content in San Francisco because you won’t go to jail in these days and times.

This prompted Mike Bianchi, the Orlando Sentinel’s gifted columnist, to write that the late Charley Pell was not a cheater but instead “a pay for play pioneer.”

For those of you born after 1984 who are either unfamiliar with Charley Pell or you choose to believe some of the tales that have been passed down about the former Florida football coach, he was fired for 59 NCAA violations. The NCAA slapped UF with three years of probation and limited the Gators to 12 scholarships per year. When Charley Pell was fired, Florida was practically an NFL team. Don’t believe it? Look up all the future NFL players that were on the roster that year. Three first round draft pick running backs. Five offensive linemen including Hall of Famer Lomas Brown. Five future NFL wide receivers. Three defensive linemen. Five linebackers. Five corners and safeties. A punter and a walk-on SEC Player of the Year, QB Kerwin Bell. A year earlier when the Gators played Auburn there were 57 players who took the field that day who spent at least one year on an NFL roster including two-time national defensive player of the year and future College Football Hall of Famer Wilber Marshall.

Charley was the original big spender. Yessirree. Among the NCAA violations were – I’m not making this up – a pack of Juicy Fruit and a Sprite bought for quarterback Dale Dorminey at the Gainesville airport by UF assistant coach Dwight “Hoss” Adams. Oh, and Dorminey never returned a T-shirt and a pair of gym shorts given to him to wear to sleep the night he arrived in Gainesville from Pensacola because Eastern Airlines lost his luggage.

It is worth mentioning these heinous crimes because if you add everything together that put Florida on probation and forced the firing of Charley Pell, it wouldn’t add up to one decent NIL deal for a backup offensive lineman in the Southeastern Conference thanks to NIL. Now it’s legal. What put an entire football program in the NCAA jailhouse for three years isn’t anything more than a mosquito bite on an elephant’s butt in the world of NIL in 2024.

Not only did Florida get probation for three years, UF also had its 1984 Southeastern Conference championship stripped by a vote of the conference presidents spearheaded by Georgia and Tennessee at the behest of their athletic directors. The Gators would have won the SEC title in 1985 as well except the presidents made UF ineligible. Again. Funny, but Georgia and Tennessee also had a hand in Florida being ineligible to win the SEC in Steve Spurrier’s first year in 1990. That was because Galen Hall allegedly paid a child support payment for Jarvis Williams that Williams’ mama paid back the next day. Jarvis was long gone when UF got hit with that probation. In a vote of the SEC presidents, Florida was declared ineligible for the conference championship. The NCAA wouldn't let the Gators go to a bowl game.

Isn’t it strange that when Alabama went on probation in 2001 for a play for pay scheme that took place in 1999, Bama’s 1999 SEC title wasn’t stripped by a vote of the league presidents? Big money was involved and Bama lost 21 scholarships over that one, but it was allowed to keep its SEC football championship. So much for fairness.

What happened 40 years ago is relevant today just as what happened in 1990 and, even though it’s Alabama, 1999 as well. So many people had their lives turned upside down by the NCAA for things that are now considered legal. I’m reminded of a joke told to me by a Catholic friend when I was writing for the Savannah News-Press back in 1972. We were eating ribs at Johnny Hilliard’s on Victory Drive on a Friday afternoon when my friend quipped, “Meat on a Friday. There are Catholics doing time on the meat rack in hell because they dared to eat a hot dog one Friday!”

Here's what I am getting at. North Carolina State’s 1983 NCAA champion basketball team is suing the NCAA for back NIL money. The NCAA will probably capitulate rather than go to court where it is certain to lose. The NCAA always loses in court. Some say that when the dust settles, every scholarship athlete for the past 30 or so years is going to get paid something. If the NCAA can do that, can't it at least try to undo some of the damage it has left in its wake?

I think Florida should sue the NCAA for the probation that cost Charley Pell his job and kept the Gators from playing for the 1984 national championship. The Gators were the best team in the country in 1984 but because UF couldn’t go to a bowl and had NCAA problems, BYU won the national championship even though it played a 6-5 Michigan team in the Holiday Bowl BEFORE Christmas. Florida would have wiped the floor with BYU that year.

Florida should also demand the Southeastern Conference award the Gators with the SEC championships won on the field by the 1984-85 teams and the Spurrier team of 1990. If Alabama could keep its championship, then why shouldn’t Florida be awarded its titles that were earned on the field?

I think the NCAA should make a formal apology to Ward Pell, widow of Charley who passed away in 2001 after a long fight with cancer. Charley was blackballed from ever coaching again and that just wasn’t right, particularly when several Gators who played for him start talking about what they were offered by schools like Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Auburn and LSU.

If the NCAA is going to hand out money to players who missed out on NIL deals because it wasn’t legal back then, then why can’t it do its part by at least attempting to restore the good name of Charley Pell? And why can’t Florida be awarded its championships by the Southeastern Conference? There is no reason why this can’t be done.

Finally, one other thing that HAS to be done. NOW.

This year will mark the 40th anniversary of the first SEC championship won on the field by the Gators. As far as I know, there are no plans to have a special weekend for that team and that is a tragedy.

How difficult would it be for the University of Florida to bring back that team and acknowledge what they accomplished on the field? Maybe short of a lawsuit, the NCAA won’t apologize for demonizing Charley Pell and the entire UF football program. Maybe, short of a lawsuit, Greg Sankey and the Southeastern Conference won’t do anything about restoring the championships UF won on the field.   

But at least bring the team back for a weekend. Let Florida fans appreciate that the seniors on this team never lost to Florida State. Let Florida fans appreciate guys like Lomas Brown and Ricky Nattiel and Neal Anderson.

How difficult is that to honor guys who played for the Florida Gators, put their bodies on the line and won what would have been SEC championships? Not much if you ask me.