The Boys from Old Florida: Inside Gator Nation

by Buddy Martin

Book Overview

In The Boys From Old Florida, Buddy Martin takes the reader beneath the surface of Florida football as, without bias or sugar coating, he skillfully excavates the truths behind The Gator Nation.In... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1582611734
• ISBN13: 9781582611730
• Release Date: September 2006
• Publisher: Sports Publishing LLC
• Length: 234 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Response to the above review

Just so you know, "The Boys From Old Florida" is in the process of being updated. The publisher will have a "National Champioship Edition" out in the fall of 2007. -- Buddy Martin, author

GATORS, 2006 NATIONAL CHAMPS!!!

I got this book for Christmas and by the time I read it (Feb) it was totally outdated. Gators-National Champs 2006!!! Too bad for Buddy Martin that he didn't wait till after the 2006 season to write this thing. The book is an interesting and in-depth look at Gator football over the last 50 years. Being born in 1980, I didn't really have much of an appreciation for the history behind the UF football program even though I've been a Gator fan for my whole life. This book takes you through the years of trials and successes that lead to the powerhouse that is now Gator football. Basically the history is broken into "era's" under each of the coaches from the last 50 years [The first 50 years are briefly discussed in the intro to the book, but not much info there]. So, divided up into chapters such as "The Bob Woodruff Era" through the "The Urban Meyer Era" the book tells the tale of what made each period special. The one complaint I have is that not enough information on a lot of great players (Emmitt Smith) was included in favor of more information about the character and idiosyncracies of the coaches. Even though each phase of Gator football has been somewhat defined by the coach of the time (Steve Spurrier), I thought more about some of the players and teams should have been included. Also, simply including some tables with the starting offense and defense for each year would have been really nice. Most players of the past weren't mentioned at all in the book. Martin talks a lot about how it is going to be so hard for anyone to ever live up to the excitment of the 1996 season in the book. As I said, its too bad he didn't wait until after the 2006 season to write this!