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My first college beat as a Jacksonville newspaper cub was Florida Gators basketball. Norm Sloan was coach. It would be an education.
Stormin' Norman grew up in Indiana, where the state heartbeat was the thump of a dribble on a hardwood floor. Hoops is also religion at N.C. State, where Sloan played for legendary coach Everett Case. UF hired Sloan in 1960, when basketball was semi-ignored around the SEC except at mighty Kentucky. Most arenas were small and sad. Auburn had a World War II Quonset hut that seated 2,000. Woodruff Hall at Georgia was so rickety that Bulldogs coach Red Lawson used to say, "If we win the toss, we take the wind."
UF's gym handled 6,500.
Two of the scariest flights of my life came with Sloan in the seat beside me. That was before the university got football-rich and could afford its own airplanes. Norm's guys rode a prop-driven Martin 404, plowing through low altitudes to outposts such as Starkville, Miss.; Tuscaloosa, Ala.; and Knoxville, Tenn.
We once skirted a tornado over the Florida Panhandle. So fierce were air pockets that even with seat belt tight I kept bouncing high enough to bump my head on the overhead rack. I remember Sloan saying, "I don't like this, Hubert. But how the hell else can we get there?"
Tulane was then an SEC member. Florida played the Green Wave in New Orleans one Saturday night and was scheduled for a Monday night game at LSU. We took off on a blue-sky Sunday for a 35-minute trip. After an hour aloft, I began squirming.
Finally, the pilot 'fessed up, announcing a cockpit light that indicates landing gear is locked into position refused to come on. Emergency vehicles lined the Baton Rouge runway. We were told to take sharp objects out of pockets and to lean over and grab our ankles.
It got really quiet. Tense. Prayers were mumbled. Maybe three minutes off the ground, Cliff Luyk, a terrific 6-foot-8 center from New York, spoke up. "I've got this great joke, Coach," he said. "I'd better go ahead and tell it. There might not be another chance."
In a tough moment, Sloan broke into a smile. "That's young people for you, always tougher than we old fogies think they'll be. Solid in the face of pressure. That never changes through the generations, through all the wars that Americans fight. We, and our country, are going to be okay."
The joke bombed, but the landing was safe.
Sloan made the Gators respectable (235-194), but they weren't about to challenge Kentucky and coach Adolph Rupp. When the N.C. State job opened in 1966, it was an easy decision for the combustible Sloan.
He got strong in Raleigh (266-127) but never quite became king of that basketball-nutty neighborhood. Not with Dean Smith sizzling a few miles away in Chapel Hill. But the Wolfpack did brush aside UNC for stretches of excellence, especially in 1974 when David Thompson, Tom Burleson, Monte Towe and pals beat Bill Walton and a UCLA colossus in the Final Four, then defeated Marquette to win a national championship.
Sloan's run withered at State and he was gone in 1980. He resurfaced at the place where his basketball patience was so often tested, in Gainesville as UF coach.
Everywhere he coached, Norm's wife sang the national anthem before home games. JoAnne Sloan had a wonderful operatic voice, but media smarties sometimes made fun of her role. Last time she uncorked the the Star-Spangled Banner before tipoff was in 2002 at N.C. State. Sloan, long retired, rushed over to give his silver-haired spouse a Stormin' hug.
Sloan pushed NCAA rules in recruiting. Cracked them at times. He got UF into trouble, put on probation.
But the 1980s product in a new, flashy O'Connell Center was better than Stormin' could muster in his first Gator stint. He pushed the Gators higher, setting the table for Final Four joy that would be coached in the '90s by Lon Kruger and then Billy Donovan.
Stormin' Norman died a few days ago at 77. A memorable character.
POOCH PUNTS: No matter the Heisman passions, I think there are 20 or 30 better college football players than Oklahoma quarterback Jason White. ... Speaking of Heisman Trophy biases, the ridiculous sham of ignoring defensive talent continues, so here's a protest vote for Miami safety Sean Taylor. ... Bruce Smith, all-time NFL sack king with 199, says the best offensive tackles with whom he has grappled were Anthony Munoz (Bengals), Jonathan Ogden (Ravens), Tony Boselli (Jaguars) and Jackie Slater (Rams). ... What, no Kenyatta Walker? ... I hope, somewhere in Cuba, Elian Gonzalez is a happy little baseball player. ... Donovan McNabb's marvelous surge must be a bitter pill for Rush Limbaugh.
THE LAST WORD: By now, the national eye that was so wide on the Super Bowl champion Bucs is squinting. Exposure sinking. Not so many TV cutaways of Warren Sapp. Fewer of the cutesy "Chucky" looks from Jon Gruden. Ads are showing more McNabb peddling Campbell's Soup and less John Lynch.
Tampa Bay, citizens and players, embraced the mass visibility. But now when the Bucs are mentioned by networks, it's usually a negative tidbit. Just as they earned last season's sweet highs, they also have earned the sour dropoffs of '03.
Getting back to the NFL mountaintop will be difficult, perhaps a long and testy ride. Just ask the Redskins, Packers, Bears, 49ers and Cowboys.