October 30, 2001 — If the madness that surrounds the annual meeting between the college football teams from Georgia and Florida is indeed the “World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party,” then the game itself is simply the excuse for throwing it.
It’s the wedding, the graduation, the reunion, the New Year’s Eve. Just another justification for getting juiced.
This past weekend, I spent roughly 24 hours in Jacksonville, Fla. Some of those hours were spent more roughly than others — and only three of them had much of anything to do with football.
Now, don’t get me wrong. The game is important, agonizingly so for many fans. And the partying serves a purpose for the thousands of Georgia backers who, after Saturday’s 24-10 loss, have now watched their Bulldogs fall to Florida in 11 of the past 12 seasons. You need some medicine to make the pain go away.
This was my first visit to Georgia-Florida (Florida-Georgia if you live south of the Okefenokee Swamp) and I wanted to experience as much of it as my schedule would allow.
With my Friday night full of high school football, I booked a flight that left for Jacksonville at 8:25 a.m. Saturday. My return flight was set for 6 a.m. Sunday. And no, there was no hotel room in Jacksonville reserved in my name.
My companion and I were prepared to pull an all-nighter. Or, at least, we thought we were.
All I had with me were the clothes on my back and the contents of my pockets: wallet, cell phone, car keys, disposable camera, tape recorder, gum, two rain ponchos — which we didn’t use — and a small bottle of mouthwash — which we did.
The one thing I didn’t bring with me was a good night’s sleep. That would have been useful.
The plane was packed with buoyant Bulldog fans. One used the plane’s intercom to recite a poem she had penned for the occasion. “Regardless of the outcome, whether winning sooner or later,” she said, “the entire Bulldog Nation remains Gator haters.”
A man seated near me had more immediate concerns. His cell phone rang shortly before takeoff. “Y’all got beer?” was the first thing he said.
I’ll never know for sure, but I imagine the person on the other end responded, “Yes.” Everyone in Jacksonville, it seemed, had beer.
We started our tailgating before 11 a.m. at a parking lot far away from Alltel Stadium, which most folks still refer to as the Gator Bowl. The lots were labeled with letters, but they ran out of alphabet by the time they got out to where we were. Our lot — more of a construction area, really — was labeled with dollar signs and lined with large piles of dirt.
A cold wind swirled. Dust Bowl seemed more appropriate than Gator Bowl on this day.
We didn’t stay there for long. We wandered our way to a place known as “the party bus.” And the name fit. It was both a bus and a party, red and silver with loud black speakers and Georgia fans on top.
Next to the bus, people were dancing in the streets … and trying not to spill their drinks.
My cell phone didn’t work at all on Saturday. And if you were at the game, yours likely didn’t work either. Too many people. Too many calls. Too taxing on the telephone towers. All this in the shadow of a stadium named for a communications company.
With no phone, people I planned on meeting went unmet. There were, however, plenty of strangers to take their place. Greet people wearing red and black with a “Go Dogs” and they are your friends for life, or at least until the end of the game.
Oh yeah, the game. It started 10 hours after I had left Gainesville that morning, and nearly 15 hours before my return flight was scheduled to leave the following morning. I was beginning to drag.
I closed my eyes late in the first quarter. When I reopened them it was early in the second. I ate a hot dog and some french fries and caught my second wind.
If you’ve never seen the inside of the Gator Bowl during Georgia-Florida, you must.
I imagine it’s what a football would look like if you sliced it open like a cantaloupe. Half red and black. Half blue and orange. Both sides wanting to take a big bite out of the other. I wonder if Gators ever get sick of the taste of Bulldog.
The colors come together after the game. At The Landing — an outdoor mall on the banks of the St. John’s River — Bulldogs and Gators party together. A latecomer would find it difficult to determine the outcome of the game.
It’s a dancing sea of thousands, a crowd so thick you need to bring along Verron Haynes as your blocker to cut your way through. I felt the bass inside my body and the crunch of empty cups beneath my feet. On my way through the maze of portable toilets, I heard one tired fan sum it all up.
“Go Dogs. Go Gators,” he sighed. “Aw, it really doesn’t matter.”
At 1 a.m. — five hours to flight time — we crashed the lobby of the brand new Adam’s Mark Hotel. Its couches looked comfy. We weren’t the only ones who felt that way. Hundreds followed.
Soon the hotel was a frat house. One young man fell asleep at my feet. A bellhop walked by, shaking his head in disgust.
The elevators broke that night. And the bathroom sink was filled with vomit. I saw my first fight at 2 a.m. The fire alarm went off shortly after that.
I’m not sure if the Adam’s Mark Hotel was ready for its first Georgia-Florida weekend.
And as I lay on my makeshift bed on the floor of the Jacksonville airport at 3 a.m., I was wondering the same about myself.