I go back to the pub's early days and MiaGator. She had a way that attracted lots of followers and was fun. I believe she was instrumental in GC's and Ray's success. The pub was huge in those days and had more action than Swamp Gas. Without her the pub would not have been as popular and GC would have a longer, harder road to making it. Also GatorMatt who moderated the pub in those early years with great skill. Good guy. Wonder how those 2 are doing.
Thanksgiving at Saban's GC battles with Dorthy and all her accusations Football Genius practice reports when he wasn't even there The Pub back in the day and finding my way to sneak into the "other" pub Wb310 PD railing against Hoke Recruiting stories too many to name
When the Pub WAS THE PUB, it said underneath the words Welcome to the Gatortail Pub, Irreverent and not for the faint of heart - it was the wildwest in those days
A poster baritubabone used to get onto Princessgator pretty hard. I defended her, then he included me in his wrath. He would even harass me with PM'S. I reported him and he was banned, all on the Pub. I don't know if he came back under another name, but haven't heard of him again.
One big memory that I have goes back to the Prodigy days. I am not sure if Ray and Gus had teamed up at that point or not, but it certainly is part of the trail to GatorCountry. I goes back to the recruitment of Danny Wuerffel. I had gone to a computer store and bought some software, included in my bag was a disc for Prodigy. I had no idea what it was but eventually loaded it on my computer. I found the Gator group and they were all having pretty lively discussions. I only lurked at first, in fact for a long time. What I remember about Gus was how he was raving about Danny. Literally erecting a statue to him before he even came on campus. It all turned out to be true. A lot of that group migrated to another program because Prodigy was limiting usage somehow. I didn't follow there but when the list serve was started I followed and was kind of active there and on Prodigy. But the memory of how those fans were so high on Danny stayed with me.
My first ever introduction to the world-wide web was on a Gator site (sadly not GC). By 1999 I was on the free boards here (my eldest enrolled in UF that fall), but couldn't afford the insider subscription. Did I say that I had a kid in college? Somewhere around 2003-2004 I became an insider. My youngest was now at UF. My former username was gotgator. The community of GC has been what is meaningful to me. Even in the toughest and drunkest (I don't drink) of times, it is still a great place to connect with Gators that share a great passion for the Orange and Blue!
One of my favorite moments was great because it was so comical. It wasn't a good night for us. I think it might have been Urban's first recruiting class, his "transition" class, and there were two kids in Houston announcing one weeknight at a sports bar not too long before signing day. GC had someone there live to report their announcements. The board was packed. What happened is when the time came, so many people were posting sh@t that the people there to report their announcements couldn't post because the board was overloaded and crashing. About half the board it seemed was frustrated and was posting "QUIT POSTING!" -- well the board basically overloaded and shut down because of all the quit posting posts. There must have been hundreds of posts saying "QUIT POSTING" -- and I'm being nice the way I say it people were pissed. Nobody knew what the hell happened with the announcements. I finally just started laughing. There was nothing else to do. Finally shut it down and went to bed. Learned the next morning both kids chose other schools. I think one went to LSU and the other somewhere else.
Glad to hear that and hope Princess is doing well. She is one of my all time favorites and a great Gator fan. Please tell her Gatorbob76 says hello.
