While the Jacksonville Jaguars are trying to figure out how to put people in the stands, the University of Florida is busy getting ready to construct a 5,000-seat, $50 million addition onto Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Once completed, The Swamp will hold about 90,000 Gator fans six Saturdays a year and will enter the upper echelon of stadiums in the country.
Although it may never reach the size of stadiums at Michigan, Penn State and Tennessee, there’s no telling how many Gator faithful would buy tickets if they could get them. Ever since head football coach Steve Spurrier came to town, a Gator ticket — regardless if it’s Ball State or Florida State — is one of the most difficult.
Foley says it’s a simple Economics 101 principle at work.
“You’ve got a supply and demand problem at the University of Florida,” said Foley, who was in town Monday to speak at the Meninak Club meeting. “We’ve been sold out since 1991, ever since we expanded the stadium the last time, and we have no tickets. We can’t take care of alumni, we can’t take care of boosters.”
One of the main reasons for the expansion, according to Foley, is to better accommodate the media covering Gator football games.
“This addition really is generated by the fact we need a new press box.
We will also add a few more seats and some [sky] boxes,” said Foley. “The bottom line is you add seats because you can sell them and that’s what we’re doing and that’s the trend around the Southeastern Conference.”
While Foley admits football is king at UF, the other sports have done well too during his tenure. The men’s basketball team has been to two final fours in the last 10 years and, under current head coach Billy Donovan, played in the national championship game two years ago (they lost to Michigan State). The golf and swim teams are ranked every year and the women’s volleyball team has been ranked No. 1 in the recent past. Three years ago, the women’s soccer team won an improbable national title, knocking off perennial power North Carolina along the way.
“We had only started women’s soccer four years earlier,” said Foley.
Over the last 10 years, the Gators have been consistently, from top to bottom in virtually every sport, one of the top athletic schools in the country. Much of the credit should go to Foley. However, he quickly deflects all accolades to his coaching staff, noting there’s a cohesion and family-like atmosphere unlike anywhere else in the country.
“The day the volleyball team was ranked No. 1, Coach Spurrier called the volleyball coach to congratulate her and talk to her about what it’s like to be ranked No. 1,” said Foley. “The coaches all care about each other and their teams.”
Foley also said it may look like his main focus is usually on football, but that perception is wrong. Not only is he involved in the recruiting process of many of the athletes, he maintains an active role in their academic careers. And, because the successful teams sell themselves, he pays particular attention to those that are struggling.
“We spend a lot of time on all our sports,” said Foley. “We have goals to be as good as we can be in all our sports. Obviously, we made a change in baseball [Andy Lopez was fired and former Bishop Kenny head coach Pat McMahon was hired] and got a new coach in place because I didn’t think we were as good as we could be. That could happen under Pat McMahon.
“I think we’ve got some sports in Gainesville that have done a heckuva job and I think we’ve got some sports that could be better. We’re going to focus on the one where we need to get better. If they can reach the level of some other sports, then we can have an even better athletic program than we have today.”
One thing Foley and his staff will not dwell on is the Heisman Trophy race. Although his name has yet to appear on any national media’s list, Gator quarterback Rex Grossman is putting up Heisman-caliber numbers and he’s doing for the nation’s second-ranked team.
“We don’t campaign for individual awards at the University of Florida,” said Foley. “We will just focus on LSU [Saturday’s opponent] right now. We didn’t campaign for Danny Wuerffel, Shane Matthews, anybody. The way it is these days, if you’re successful there’s enough attention on a team like the University of Florida that all that will take care of itself. We have never done that and never will. We are focusing on the team aspect of what we do because that’s what’s most important.”
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• Speaking of Spurrier, Foley commented on the much publicized gash on Spurrier’s, which the coach got over the summer while playing ping pong at Foley’s house. “He was playing my wife and do you know what the score was?” Foley asked. “It was 1-0. That shows you how competitive he is.”
• Addressing the fact that UF sometimes takes a public relations beating for playing lesser opponents to open every season, Foley said: “Next year we play Miami, FSU, Tennessee, Georgia, LSU and Auburn. I dare anyone to challenge that schedule.”