So I’m really quite amazed that up until this point I haven’t written a single story about the Gators yet. Don’t expect that trend to continue as I’m a huge Florida Gators fan. I was born in Gainesville, FL while my parents were attending UF, and I also ended up going to UF. One of the earliest pictures of me has me just out of the hospital and rocking a shirt that says “I’m a Baby Gator.” So expect me to show a lot of Gator love on here.

What I want to talk about today though is our university president Bernie Machen and his crusade to curb alcohol abuse at anything associated with the university. Now I used to have a major alcohol problem, and consequently I don’t drink anymore, but I think the majority of people can just fine. I don’t condone drinking during class like I used to do or anything, but a football game is a whole  other story.

Mr. Machen’s  latest pet project is to try to cut back on alcohol at the Florida vs Georgia game. Now this is a game that is known as “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party” and for good reason. A few years ago they asked the TV stations to stop using that nickname, but your not gonna wipe out years of history and an ingrained nickname with the fans. It most certainly is still “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.”

The reason the game got that nickname is of course for the tremendous amounts of alcohol consumed by fans before, during, and after the game. Not to say that is really any different than any other football game at UF, but here they are actually allowed to sell alcohol inside the stadium as its not located on a college campus and rather played at a nuetral site in Jacksonville. Although that didn’t really change anything for me when I went. I’d still rather smuggle in a couple of ziplocs filled with bourbon rather than pay those ridiculous prices.

In a letter to the mayor of Jacksonville, Bern the Worm requested that the number of locations selling alcohol inside the stadium be cut in half. This isn’t really that unreasonable, but I don’t think it would really have any effect. The only thing that would cause would be longer lines and cause people to miss more of the game. The best way I’d think to satisfy Mr. Machen here would be to cut the # of locations in half, but just make those locations larger and able to serve more people. See, we can all win.

Machen’s 2nd request though is the one that is just insane. He wants the city to ban all shot sales at Jacksonville Landing bars and restaurants. This is just crazy. Your going to go and tell these business owners that they can’t sell any shots on their busiest weekend of the year. That’s pure and simple crazy talk, and you can go sell it somewhere else. This is America and we should have a right to drink our booze in whatever form we wish. If this crazy rule was adopted it wouldn’t have any effect either. If bar owners are anything, its inventive. They would surely find ways to make drinks that are just as strong and get you just as drunk without it being in shot form. Hey, since shots are banned I guess I’ll just have to buy a whole glass of Jager instead. Cheers Bernie!

This is just so typical of the way things have been heading in recent times. Since a couple of years ago when “binge drinking” became a big buzz word among administrators, all sorts of plans have been made to try and curb this massive problem. Though all their doing is making different kinds of problems. This is SEC football at its finest and with that is always going to come a whole lot of drinking. That’s just how we do football in the South.

I can remember that my first couple years at UF there was no 2am closing law and there was a lovely system called “halftime reentry”. Oh god how I loved that. What that meant was that at halftime you could run across the street to The Purple Porpoise or The Swamp, where the lovely bartenders would already have shots lined up and waiting, down a few (or ten in my case) shots and then run back to the stadium and not miss a snap. Now I don’t really have any stats to back this up, but I swear in those times we’d always come out and play huge right at the start of the third quarter. I swear the team fed off the crowd’s increased drunkenness. Now sadly this is no longer allowed during halftime.

We didn’t win the halftime reentry battle, but we can’t lose the cocktail party as well. That’s what Florida vs Georgia is all about and who the hell is Bernie Machen to mess with all this tradition.

Now you know I couldn’t write all this without mentioning the Gators complete and utter dominance of Georgia in recent times. Since 1990 the Gators are an amazing 16-3 in this “rivalry” game. Its even been sweeter since that idiot Mark Richt took over the Georgia program as I really can’t stand that dumbass.

My personal favorite cocktail party that I attended was in 2002. In that game the Dawgs came in rolling at a perfect 8-0 and ranked #4 in the country. My Gators on the other hand were struggling. Spurrier had left and we limped into this game at 5-3 and unranked. Needless to say, Georgia was a fairly solid favorite. Georgia scored first then we answered with a TD pass from my boy Rex Grossman. Gus Scott later added a tremendous interception return for a TD, but we missed the extra point and trailed by that extra point 13-12 in the 4th quarter. Rex than led the Gators on a drive for the ages. That drive ended with him hitting Ben Troupe on 3rd and goal for the go ahead score, Rex added the 2 point conversion himself for a 20-13 lead. Our defense held and that’s how the game ended. Georgia came in riding high and we snuffed their National Championship hopes. They did go on to win the SEC title that year, but they got no further. Hey, if we weren’t gonna have a great year, at least we got to ruin theirs.