Valby, Skylar and Cag: This spring we saw true greatness

Parker Valby crosses the finish line at NCAA meet in Oregon (UAA Photo)

Years ago, long before I was born, someone in the sports writing profession wrote a set of rules, one of which was we’re not supposed to cheer either for a team or a particular player. My mentor, the late, great Jack Hairston, once laughed at me and told me that if I were Catholic I would be sentenced to 10,000 Hail Mary’s or else I would do a thousand years in purgatory as my penance before St. Peter would let me into heaven, all because the Florida Gators were the only team I actually cared about and I had my list of favorite Gators.

When I confessed what Jack had told me to another of my mentors, the late, great John Crittendon, he laughed and then told me that if I didn’t have a rooting interest in a team or favorite players then I had no heart, just a thumping gizzard.

A recent visit to the emergency room to deal with a dislocated and fractured shoulder proved once and for all I do have a heart, which means I do have a team – the Gators, of course – and a list of favorite Gators.

Along the way I’ve had flirtations with other teams. The Yankees because of Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra; the Orioles because of Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson and Jim Palmer; the Colts until they traded Johnny Unitas to San Diego then moved the team to Indianapolis; and the Celtics of the Bill Russell era and again during the Bird, McHale and Parrish era. Flirtations. When they won I was happy. When they lost I got over it in about 30 minutes.

Then there were, are and will always be the Florida Gators. I outgrew the feeling that I live and die with the Gators sometime around the time Jack Hairston took me under his wing, offering me this reminder that sticks with me every time I have to write about a game or an athlete. At the SEC baseball championship game between the Ole Miss Rebels and the Gators at old Perry Field back in the spring of 1969, Jack told me, “Your job is to get the story. Sometimes the score is the story, but not all that often. By the time people read what you write, nearly everybody already knows the score. The story is the people who made the score possible. Your job is to get the story.”

As I have discovered in the 55 years since I got that advice, the story is never the same, particularly in collegiate sports where turnover is constant, especially now that there is the equivalent of unlimited free agency. The games change. The scores change. There are always new athletes competing which always leads to the inevitable comparisons of those from different eras.

I hear it constantly that players like Babe Ruth or Joe DiMaggio or Sonny Jurgenson wouldn’t be as good in this modern era, but the years have taught me that with few exceptions, the great ones would be great in any era. The great ones did what they had to do to be great in their eras but no matter the era, their competitive drive would lead them to do whatever it took to achieve greatness.

Sports fans revel in the glory, but they rarely get a glimpse of the pain and sacrifice that goes into the success we see in person or on the tube. At the Masters in 1973, I spent an hour watching Jack Nicklaus on the driving range, hitting ball after ball, taking moments to self-critique each shot. Many years later at Bay Hill, I watched this kid named Tiger Woods on the range. It was like Nicklaus all over because he hit with purpose and self-critiqued each shot. It was practice with purpose. Then I read about how he would hit balls until his hands bled when he was a youngster and I understood once again that great ones do whatever it takes to be great.

For the past month as I have watched and chronicled this remarkable end of the 2023-24 athletic year at the University of Florida, I’ve been able to see real greatness. Mike Holloway, probably the greatest coach in any collegiate sport, won his 14th national championship with the Florida men’s track and field team. If you add all the national championships won by the entire coaching staff at each Southeastern Conference school, there isn’t one staff that can equal Mike’s 14 national championships. It took a near world record 4X400 relay on the last event of the night for the Arkansas women to win the NCAA title, edging out the Florida women who came in second, otherwise Mike would have 15.

In watching the track team, I got to watch the incredible Parker Valby, who will go down as the greatest female distance runner in the history of college sports. In the 2023-24 athletic year she won NCAA titles in cross country, the 3,000 and 5,000 meter runs at the indoor nationals, then won the 5,000 and 10,000 outdoors. Five NCAA titles in one year. Nobody has ever done that.

She has a year of eligibility remaining. The selfish part of me, my inner Gator, hopes she will come back for one more year, but I seriously doubt she will. What more does she have to prove at the collegiate level? Absolutely nothing. If you watched her run to win the two events at the NCAA outdoors in Eugene, Oregon, she ran so effortlessly that it was like someone out on an afternoon fun run. That is, until she decided to leave the field behind. When she kicked in that gear that no one else has, we saw what real greatness is all about.

Skylar Wallace after one of her home runs against Oklahoma (UAA Photo)

At the Women’s College World Series, we saw the end of Skylar Wallace’s remarkable career. Prior to Florida’s semifinal loss to eventual NCAA champ Oklahoma, Skylar put the Gators on her back and carried them. Along the way, Florida won the SEC Tournament title, regional and super regional championships and then she had the Gators within a walkoff homer by OU of playing for the national championship. She hit .404 with 16 homers, 18 doubles, four triples and 47 RBI. Along the way she stole 37 bases in 40 attempts and set the NCAA record for runs scored in a career.

Career numbers: .406 batting average, 239 runs scored, 211 hits, 37 doubles, 17 triples, 41 home runs, 174 RBI and 118 stolen bases. She was easily the best shortstop in college softball her three years at Florida.

The selfish part of me wants her to come back for one more year, but she has exhausted her eligibility, has a master’s degree from UF and a life ahead of her. I hope somehow, someway, Tim Walton is able to carve out a spot for her on his coaching staff.

Jac Caglianone digs in for third base vs. Texas A&M (UAA Photo)

And then there is Jac Caglianone. Can anyone remember a Florida baseball player who wasn’t afraid to let us share the fun he was having on the field? We got to share it because Cags always had a beaming smile that told us he was this 6-6, 250-pound kid with generational ability having fun doing what he’s done since he was a kid, just playing baseball.

He hit sub-orbital moonshots for home runs. He hit line drives that were like laser beams off the bat. He hit balls that left the bat at 120 miles an hour and when he pitched, there was always the chance he was going to uncork a fast ball that clocked in at 100.

The Gators were one of the very last teams that was invited to the NCAA field of 64. The Gators weren’t supposed to make it past the Stillwater Regional, but they did. They weren’t supposed to get out of Clemson alive, but they disposed of 6th-seeded Tigers in two epic games. The Gators were supposed to be two and through in Omaha at the College World Series. They made it to the semifinal round, largely because Caglianone put his team on his very broad shoulders and carried them to a most unexpected third place finish. In 11 NCAA games, the Gators won eight as Cags hit .444 with six homers and 14 RBI despite getting intentionally walked time and time again.

For the season he hit .419 with 104 hits, eight doubles, 35 home runs, 72 RBI and an on-base percentage of .544. He also went 5-2 on the mound with 83 strikeouts in 73-2/3 innings. Without Caglianone, the Gators never make the NCAA field, much less finish third in the country.

What Mike Holloway, Parker Valby, Skylar Wallace and Jac Caglianone have is true greatness. They are truly elite, the best of the best. They are those athletes that would find a way and do whatever it would take to be great in any era.

Mike Holloway will be back next year and he’s likely to win at least one more national championship, more than one if Valby somehow elects to return for one last shot at collegiate records. So, no reason to say good-bye to him, but we should bombard UF president Ben Sasse and athletic director Scott Stricklin with emails demanding a statue of Holloway erected at the Percy Beard Track.

Valby is a longshot to be back, so I’ll simply tell you what I’m going to miss about her. She ran with a smile on her face, almost as if she was going to stop to smell the flowers along the way. Of course, the smile hid the unprecedented determination and the willingness to fight through the pain wall that every distance runner has to either break through or break down. I’ll miss the way she beamed after running, enjoying that the points she scored helped lift her entire team.

What I will remember about Skylar Wallace is that she never once ducked a question. When it went well, she praised her coaches and teammates. When things didn’t go well, she shouldered the blame for the entire team. Ask her a question and the answer was always straight from the heart. When the Gators were eliminated from the Women’s College World Series, Skylar broke down in tears, explaining how blessed she has been to be a Gator and how coming to UF was the best decision she ever made. I’ll miss that.

Caglianone we will see playing in the Major Leagues someday, probably very soon. There may not be another player in baseball with his raw power but unlike so many of the power hitters, Caglianone makes contact. Constantly. He rarely strikes out. When teammates succeed, he’s one of the first if not the first to congratulate. He’s at his happiest when the Gators win.  

Perhaps I feel kinship with Valby, Wallace and Caglianone. If you hear them talk, then you know just how important it has been for them to be Gators. No matter what they do in life, no matter where they go, the Florida Gators will be the only team that really matters. I know they will be successful no matter what they do or where they go, but I’m going to miss them. My love for the Gators will never die nor will my appreciation for what Valby, Wallace and Caglianone accomplished, but I will miss seeing them suit up for the Gators.

As many Gators as I’ve had the opportunity to watch and write about, I actually only have a handful that I would call favorites. There are occasions when I’ll add a new one after he/she ends their UF career. This year I add three to my favorite list, which is a rarity. Again, I break the rule about favorite teams and favorite players.

Sue me if you don’t like it.