Maybe I Like You A Little*

It would be redundant to state my feelings for that other school in my home state of Florida.

It's no secret; I'm no fan of the Orange and Blue. Now, hate is a strong word for an entire school and general grouping of people. I mean I hate things like pickles and purple skittles. But to hate an entire university of people, 95% of which I'll never meet? To despise something for the simple fact that they are a rival to my alma mater? To disasociate myself in celebrating a team that wins it for the state of Florida? 100% Yes. When it comes to sports, feelings reserved only for disgusting food can suddenly transfer over to evil little opponents running around in helmets. So with this admission, the following two stories (which both occurred in a matter of 72 hours time) horrifies me. To. No. End.

Thursday- July 26, 2007
Joakim Noah. Corey Brewer. Heard of em?
They were in town (when I say town, I mean Scarsdale, NY) to sign autographs and promote their new NBA trading cards. I will not go into detail about my feelings towards these two before this encounter, but lets just say I was none to happy when the Gators ruined my NCAA bracket and wound up in the Final 2.

To get to the point, I was a little more then pleasantly surprised by Noah and Brewer. They were charming, funny, and well spoken. They were nice to the little kids. They smiled for pictures. They were happy to be there. They were ... likeable! I left the signing pretty excited for them to do well in the NBA. Could I maybe...? I couldn't, could I?

Saturday- July 28, 2007
Out to dinner with huge group. Discussing sports. Guy tries to tell me that USC deserved to be in every National Championship game they played. While I had no hard feelings to the Carroll-Leinart-Bush regime, I stated my case by saying USC didn't exactly play the toughest of schedules to get there. He began to argue. I referred to the SEC. I actually went there and said, "Look at UF's schedule. Come on. You're telling me USC can compare?" The fact that I used UF as an example actually made my argument stronger. The rest of the table agreed, UF had a harder schedule then USC. We went back to talking about Dan Marino.

*Lesson learned: Maybe, just a very little bit, I might actually semi begin to stick up for UF. Of course the circumstances for this to happen must be when FSU isn't in the discussion, I've actually met the players (and liked them) and someone has the courage to argue that UF doesn't have a hard schedule. Even I know that's a ridiculous statement. And I hate ...