In my parents’ living room in Boca Raton, Fla., there’s a collection of University of Florida Gators football paraphernalia they like to call “The Shrine.” They have the shrine because my brother Alex played on the team. Well, sort of.
Inside the shrine are framed photographs of my brother’s hand clad in championship rings and the back of his head meeting President George W. Bush. There’s a Plexiglas-encased 2007 BCS national championship pigskin, a game helmet and several laminated game tickets. There’s also a painting entitled “A Meeting of Champions,” that displays two alligators dressed in Gators football and basketball jerseys, shaking hands in a swamp. It commemorates the greatest year in Gator history, when the school secured national championships in both sports.
As a 5’9, 179-pound walk-on, my brother was all but ignored by the coaching staff, even though he was required to work out until he collapsed, attend all practices and take hits from huge guys on a regular basis. Alex rarely got to wear a uniform or travel, and he never did get out on that field during a game. Not for one minute. Not for one play. Not ever. For me, though, the most telling aspect of the shrine is a photograph of my brother and Tim Tebow standing next to each other in identical blue and orange football uniforms. If you look closely at the picture, though, you’ll notice that my brother isn’t even standing next to Tebow; there’s another player in between them. My dad snapped the photograph off our television screen at the exact moment the camera’s angle obscured the gap between my brother and the superstar.
Few people ever notice that. My brother’s tentative spot on the team elevated our family from relative nobodies into relatives of somebody who sometimes stood next to Tim Tebow. (...)
At the time, I was living in my parents’ house, having boomeranged back home for the second time since college. I saw first-hand what it meant to my parents that my brother had become a Gator.
One time I was shopping with my mom at Nordstrom, looking through racks of shirts, when a woman near us found a blouse she liked. “Oh, I’m so excited,” the shopper said to her friend. “This is exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
My mother smiled and scooted closer. “No, I’m so excited,” she informed the strangers. Then she paused expectantly.
“Why is that?” one woman finally asked.
“My son’s football team is going to the national championship,” my mother said. "He plays for U.F. – the Gators.”
Although I got caught up in an interior debate on how to subvert my own genetics, I did catch snippets of the unfolding conversation. “That’s wonderful news,” the women were saying, and they seemed genuinely impressed. Apparently having a son that was a Gator – any Gator – permitted my mother to break the rules of social etiquette. What the hell was going on?
I had friends who attended U.F., and when they heard my brother made the team, they too went ballistic. They insisted that I attend the games to see what it was like to be among the 90,000 people packed into Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, which I was told to call “The Swamp.” Everybody would be wearing orange and blue (two colors I thought looked hideous together) and rocking together to "We Are the Boys of Ol' Florida" when the third quarter ended.
by Ashley Harrell, SB Nation | Read more:
Inside the shrine are framed photographs of my brother’s hand clad in championship rings and the back of his head meeting President George W. Bush. There’s a Plexiglas-encased 2007 BCS national championship pigskin, a game helmet and several laminated game tickets. There’s also a painting entitled “A Meeting of Champions,” that displays two alligators dressed in Gators football and basketball jerseys, shaking hands in a swamp. It commemorates the greatest year in Gator history, when the school secured national championships in both sports.As a 5’9, 179-pound walk-on, my brother was all but ignored by the coaching staff, even though he was required to work out until he collapsed, attend all practices and take hits from huge guys on a regular basis. Alex rarely got to wear a uniform or travel, and he never did get out on that field during a game. Not for one minute. Not for one play. Not ever. For me, though, the most telling aspect of the shrine is a photograph of my brother and Tim Tebow standing next to each other in identical blue and orange football uniforms. If you look closely at the picture, though, you’ll notice that my brother isn’t even standing next to Tebow; there’s another player in between them. My dad snapped the photograph off our television screen at the exact moment the camera’s angle obscured the gap between my brother and the superstar.
Few people ever notice that. My brother’s tentative spot on the team elevated our family from relative nobodies into relatives of somebody who sometimes stood next to Tim Tebow. (...)
At the time, I was living in my parents’ house, having boomeranged back home for the second time since college. I saw first-hand what it meant to my parents that my brother had become a Gator.
One time I was shopping with my mom at Nordstrom, looking through racks of shirts, when a woman near us found a blouse she liked. “Oh, I’m so excited,” the shopper said to her friend. “This is exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
My mother smiled and scooted closer. “No, I’m so excited,” she informed the strangers. Then she paused expectantly.
“Why is that?” one woman finally asked.
“My son’s football team is going to the national championship,” my mother said. "He plays for U.F. – the Gators.”
Although I got caught up in an interior debate on how to subvert my own genetics, I did catch snippets of the unfolding conversation. “That’s wonderful news,” the women were saying, and they seemed genuinely impressed. Apparently having a son that was a Gator – any Gator – permitted my mother to break the rules of social etiquette. What the hell was going on?
I had friends who attended U.F., and when they heard my brother made the team, they too went ballistic. They insisted that I attend the games to see what it was like to be among the 90,000 people packed into Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, which I was told to call “The Swamp.” Everybody would be wearing orange and blue (two colors I thought looked hideous together) and rocking together to "We Are the Boys of Ol' Florida" when the third quarter ended.
by Ashley Harrell, SB Nation | Read more:
