by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
Over the years there have been some dynamic and diverse personalities on Jacksonville’s City Council. Through the course of discussing and analyzing thousands of resolutions and ordinances, there have been differences of opinion. Many of those disagreements have been quite public, but for the most part they are left on the floor of the Council chambers.
Denise Lee and Jim Tullis were notorious for clashing professionally but actually got along well personally. However, Ginger Soud and Alberta Hipps have been feuding since they publicly battled over the Council presidency in 2000.
While there are dozens of similar examples, there is one place that every Council member sees eye-to-eye: the Council box — which is in the northwest corner of the stadium and actually belongs to the mayor — at Jacksonville Jaguars games. Ten times a year, regardless what takes place during the week, everyone agrees on one thing — rooting for the Jags.
According to Council president Jerry Holland, there’s not a bigger Jags or pro football fan on the Council than Gwen Yates. Yes, that Gwen Yates who, on Sunday afternoons in Alltel Stadium, transforms like the Incredible Hulk from soft-spoken, dignified lady to screamin’ and yellin’ Black and Teal zealot.
“She’s real fanatical,” said Holland of Yates. “She is the biggest Jaguars fan and pro football fan. She’s intense and she watches the whole game. She knows her football and she high-fives everyone. She is very supportive and she’s fun to sit by. She really gets into the game.”
It wasn’t always like that for Yates, though. She flatly admits there was a day when she couldn’t give two flips about football at any level. Then 1995 rolled around and Jacksonville was put on the NFL map.
“I absolutely love football, but prior to the Jaguars coming to Jacksonville I cared nothing about football,” explained Yates. “I wondered how men could sit around all day and watch football and not care about important things like shopping.”
Ironically, it was a shopping trip to Orlando during the Jaguars’ inaugural season that proved Yates had the football bug.
“I fell head over heels for the Jaguars and my husband [Alton] knew I was hooked when we went to Orlando and I sat in the car the whole time and listened to the game on the radio,” she said.
Yates doesn’t sit in the Council box for all the Jaguars home games. In fact, outside of Holland, none of them get that privilege. Each football season Council is allotted 24 tickets to each home game. Holland, by virtue of being president, gets six tickets and nine other Council members get two each. It’s deciding who gets to go to which game that can get fun.
The first step is simple and logical. Each Council member is asked to submit their list of four games they want to attend. It’s first-come, first-served and Holland says he tries to be as fair as possible. This year, the Nov. 10 game against the Washington Redskins and head coach Steve Spurrier was by far the most requested game.
Once the requests are handled as equitably as possible, names, literally, go into a hat and the season’s schedule is set. Sort of. And Holland is out of the picture.
“They are totally on their own if they want to swap tickets,” said Holland. “It seems to go pretty good. There is one difficult thing about swapping tickets and I don’t know if it’s controversial or not. I give out the tickets the week of the game. That way, if they do work out trades, no one has to go home to get the tickets.”
There is one other tricky aspect about sitting in the Council box that must be dealt with: there are only 20 seats for the 24 ticket holders and a few Council members get very territorial about their seat.
“Sometimes, they don’t show up and there will be enough seats,” said Holland. “But it’s usually tight and people stand or sit on the floor. The humorous part is the front row is in the sun until about halftime of a one o’clock game and it’s real hot. Sometimes, no one wants those seats.
“Overall, it’s gone real well this year.”
Former Council president and current State Rep. Dick Kravitz said his Council, too, was very cordial about tickets to the games. And, he can boast something no one else will ever top. Kravitz was president during the team’s inaugural season and said the atmosphere in the stadium that year was unlike any year since.
Kravitz said in addition to enjoying the games, he reveled in the remarkable transformation of the stadium. As a longtime member of the Jacksonville sports scene — he was the general manager of the Jacksonville Express of the World Football League and the Tea Men of the North American Soccer League and he managed the Gator Bowl (not the game, but the facility) for the City — Kravitz said he marveled at the renovated stadium.
“Some of us remembered the old Gator Bowl and during halftime of the first game I walked around and looked at all the improvements,” said Kravitz. “In the old stadium, the drainage was bad, the restrooms were bad and it was really a horrendous experience playing a whole season there. Everything is so much better. The locker rooms are 150 percent better.”