To my Gator Bait extended family: Merry Christmas with love

For more than 20 years my Christmas column has tried to recreate the excitement I felt on December 25, 1964, when I raced down University Avenue to Florida Field in my brand new, white Florida Gators football jersey with the No. 11 stitched on by the folks at Jimmy Hughes Sporting Goods. Once I found an open gate to enter the stadium, I ran around Florida field channeling my inner Steve Spurrier and throwing imaginary touchdown passes to Charlie Casey, I felt a tingling sensation all over my body. In my mind I heard the Florida band blasting out “Orange and Blue” and the roar of a crowd gone crazy.

I knew I was a Gator for life back on September 18, 1960 when Ray Graves held two fingers in the air to go for the win instead of kicking an extra point that would have tied Georgia Tech. That was my first college football game, my first time ever in a crowd so big (something like 39,000 if memory serves me correctly), but that day on the field in 1964, the stands empty except in my mind, I WAS Steve Spurrier. I WAS a Gator.

There’s a difference in sitting in the stands or in the press box than it is even in a totally empty stadium. There at midfield, looking up at grandstands that seemed to go on forever, my feet on the same field where real Gators fought and won football games, it was a special moment that sealed it forever that the Gators would be the only team that would ever matter.

I’ll say it once again: Mickey, Yogi, Roger and Whitey retired or were traded away, so there went the Yankees. Brooks, Frank, Boog and Jim Palmer, same thing. So long Orioles. The Colts traded Johnny Unitas and then they one day packed up in the middle of the night for Indianapolis. Indianapolis Colts has never had quite the ring of Baltimore Colts. The Baltimore Ravens just don’t do it for me. Bill Russell and Cousy retired. The Celtics had a rebirth for Larry Bird, but even he retired because his back gave out. The Chicago Zephyrs became the Baltimore Bullets who became the Washington Bullets who became the Washington Wizards.  The Washington Senators became the Minnesota Twins. The new Washington Senators became the Texas Rangers. Now there is such a thing as the Washington Nationals, no ties whatsoever to the Senators, Twins or Rangers. The Kansas City Athletics, formerly the Philadelphia Athletics, became the Oakland A’s and now they’re orphans waiting for a new stadium to be built in Las Vegas. The Raiders left Oakland for LA, came back to Oakland and now they live in Vegas. No matter where they are the ghost of Al Davis will haunt them forever. The St. Louis Cardinals became the Arizona Cardinals and the Los Angeles Rams, formerly the Cleveland Rams, became the St. Louis Rams only to become the LA Rams again. Carroll Rosenbloom sold the Colts, bought the Rams, croaked and his former Vegas showgirl trophy wife owned the Rams. People have forgotten more football in a nanosecond than Georgia learned in a lifetime.

Maybe you’re starting to catch on. I never could depend on a pro team but there has always been the constant that is the Florida Gators. Sure, players come and players go, but the University of Florida is in the same place it has always been, the Gators are still the Gators no matter who wears the uniform for one or four years. The Florida Gators were, are and will always be the Florida Gators, the only team that will always matter to me.

I dread the day when a Gator jersey will resemble something out of Euro soccer -- “I keeck a touchdown!” said Alex Karras -- and we have corporate logos turning our beloved blue jerseys into walking billboards. I long for the faith to pray that notion straight to the depths of hell, but I fear that the day is not far off.

But, even when the day comes and the Florida Gators presented by Publix play the Chico’s Bail Bonds Georgia Bulldogs in Jacksonville or the Maker’s Mark Bourbon Kentucky Wildcats in Rupp Arena in Lexington, I will still be a Gator. I will always be a Gator.

No matter what.

I don’t think anyone should be too surprised by that. I’ve been called everything from a homer to unthinkable names by Georgia fans. I guess they never saw the humor when I nicknamed them the Poodles in 1999 and it went viral. The internet wasn’t nearly as expansive as it is now and social media hadn’t even been invented yet, but that caught on like wildfire.

And it stuck. I still call them the Poodles. I still loathe them. I still believe that the only time a true Gator ever pulls for Georgia is when a Georgia win somehow benefits the Gators quest for a championship. My ultimate Gator fantasy is the Gators score a touchdown with 15 seconds left and rather than kick the extra point, they go for two. And they make it.

Florida 94, Georgia 0.

It doesn’t end there, though. The Gators execute a PERFECT onside kick and recover. Rather than a victory formation, they throw the bomb. It’s like a grown man beating up a 5-year-old and yet it feels righteous. Florida 100, Georgia 0. A perfect ending to a perfect day.

As the clock nears midnight here in Gainesville, I’m almost deafened by silence. My stepfather, who rarely had a quiet night in the final weeks before his death back in November, is not calling me. I know he’s gone but my mind and heart have not adjusted to his loss. They wait impatiently for his call in the middle of the night, the one that leads me to his bedside where I ask him what’s wrong? Sometimes he smiles, sometimes he cries. Vascular dementia is so cruel. He knows he needs something but what? He can’t remember. He cries because he can’t tell me because when he called he believed I would have the answer to something he can’t remember. It was cruel that he needed and I was unable to deliver anything except to hold his hand, touch his cheek and tell him everything would be all right when I knew in my heart it wouldn’t be.

It hurts deep because I remember how bright and intelligent he was, this man who called VMI, Georgia Tech and Vanderbilt alma maters. This man who read hundreds, even thousands of books in his life and who could carry on an intelligent conversation about anything. It hurts deep because this was a man who served three tours in Vietnam and was with a Marine tank unit during the heavy fighting of Tet. He was brave. He was proud. He never stopped believing in God, country, family and the United States Marine Corps.

In place of his cries for help that I anticipate but are no longer, my 96-year-old mom sobs gently. She can no longer see and her mobility is so limited. She is lonely. Her best friend forever has gone to a place where there always will be a forever. After 52 years of marriage, she feels a void that can’t be replaced. She knows he is in heaven. She knows in her heart that the day will come that she will see him again, only this time there will be no disease ravaging his brain until the point when it stops telling him to swallow and he aspirates. He will see her the same young beauty he fell in love with. She will see the same strapping Marine who had that confident, disarming grin.

I try to comfort her but nothing can take the place of a companion so close that they could carry on 5-minute conversations from across a loud and crowded room. A look, a smile, a gesture, a raised eyebrow, a shrugged shoulder, a nod of the head. They spoke to each other loud and clear and yet nothing was actually verbalized. I marveled at the depth of their love for each other that they could telepathically carry on full blown conversations. I’ll never know that. I don’t know more than three or four people in my 73 years who could. They could. They were connected and now they are apart. He’s safe. He has no pain or sorrow or tears. She’s alone and the pain in her heart almost overwhelms her. She longs to be with him but feels an obligation to remain on this earth to help God oversee my sister Donna, my brother Gregory and me. So she hurts and we hurt with her. We pray that her pain will somehow lessen, but we know her. We know it won’t.

So what does all this have to do with a sports column on a website devoted to the Florida Gators. Perhaps nothing if you aren’t the sentimental type. Perhaps everything if you have felt the loss of someone you loved dearly. Dom and Carleta Underwood were so connected that they gave each other’s lives new meaning from the first “I love you.”

Long before there was Jerry Maguire, he had my mom at hello and she had him the moment she answered.

There are people in your life who you love. Today, tell them you love them and not some casual “love ya” or something that almost numbs those very powerful words, but tell them in such a way that they feel what is in your heart. Take the time. You won’t regret it.

There may be some people in your life that at some point in the past, whether long ago or recently, you had a falling out. Maybe you haven’t spoken in a long time. Maybe it wasn’t even your fault, nothing has been resolved and fingers of blame are still being pointed. Pull those fingers back in. Call or go by or text or email, but take that first step. Love is a powerful thing and even if your heart isn’t overflowing with love the gesture alone will say words that you can’t bring yourself to say.

Christmas cards and Christmas gifts are wonderful whether we are giving or receiving, but nothing -- absolutely nothing -- can do for someone else on Christmas Day like reaching out to say “I love you.” The Bible tells us we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Take a moment and consider the fact that when we love our neighbor or our friend or our brother or sister or mother or father we are allowing God’s love to flow through us. There is nothing more gracious than to send the perfect love of God to someone.

Consider this, also. We can never know completely what goes on in another one’s mind and heart. That moment you reach out might be the one thing that ends a miserable moment, day, week or year. That moment you reach out might be the one thing that lifts someone from unheard of depths and back into real life.

I’m reminded that when we point a finger at someone we have three pointing back at us, so I think I should start. Today, I’m going to tell friends and family alike that I love them. I’m going to call some people and let them know that whatever is amiss in our relationship, I still love and care for them. If I have hurt or offended you in any way and I don’t know about it, please contact me and allow me the opportunity to at least try to make it right.

This is my Christmas gift to friends, family and the many friends and acquaintances I have collected through the years writing about the Florida Gators.

Merry Christmas everyone. I love you.