by Fred Seely
Editorial Director
The Gator Bowl Association got an early start Tuesday evening in what its chairman called “the best financial shape ever, and with more opportunity than ever before.”
Mike Hartley of The Hartley Press told about 100 GBA committee members at the Omni that the association’s first-ever two-game season “will be a success because this organization is strong and knows how to get things done.”
GBA President Rick Catlett said the chance to host the Atlantic Coast Conference championship on Dec. 3 as well as the traditional Toyota Gator Bowl on Jan. 2 will bring the predicted benefit to the city.
“This is about economic impact,” he said. ‘It’s like bringing in two $15 million companies, except we don’t have to build more roads or schools. They come on Friday and leave on Sunday, leaving money behind.”
Scott Keith will be the association’s president-elect. Formerly with SunTrust and Scott-McRae, he’s in the process of buying a business. Keith will head the Marketing Committee and oversee the sales teams which have a goal of selling $500,000 in tickets before the competing teams are announced.
The GBA committee finished 2004-5 with 187 members and Keith said he expects a substantial increase as there are 38 nominees to join the committee. Members each pay $500 for meeting costs and must raise up to $3,000 in ticket sales or in-kind contributions.
Catlett said the ACC game would be played at either 1 p.m. or 8 p.m. The network, ABC, will set the time.
“There are four games that really matter each year,” he said, “and we have one of them. There are the three major conference championships (the Southeastern and Big 12 also have playoffs for their titles) and the national championship game.”
The GBA, in conjunction with the City, will operate the game, he said.
The Toyota Gator Bowl will be a day later than its usual New Year’s Day game as Jan. 1 falls on a Sunday and that’s the final regular-season date for the National Football League. Game time tentatively is 12:30 p..m. and it will be on NBC.
Other executive committee members are immediate past chairman Bob Smith of Cendant Mortgage, secretary/treasurer Dan Murphy of Fidelity National Financial, Bob Moore of Southeast Toyota, Dan Dieterle of Harden & Associates, Ken Tonning of Ch. 12/25, attorney John Donahoo, Kelly Madden of Wachovia, Bob Shields of Copytronics, Brian Goin of The Players Championship, John Strom of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Andy Pradella of Mercury Luggage and Bob White of Compass Bank.
Also on the executive committee are past chairs Leerie Jenkins of RS&H, Jim McCollum of BellSouth and Carl Cannon of The Florida Times-Union.
Captains for the sales teams, which will be led by Keith Ledsome of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, are Chris Cigrand of B. Braun Medical, Bob O’Neill of the Radisson, James Craig of the Rogers Towers law firm, Gene Maszy of Medtronics, Allen Skipper of Peak 10 and Andy Wheeler of RS&H.
Also, Bill Grant of AXA Advisors, Bob Hall of Zurich Insurance, Bill Stanton of Autolease of Florida, Mike Muldoon of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Glenn Warren of the Harris Guidi law firm, Nancy Noe-Nichols of Zurich Insurance, Greg Stuart of Boston Scientific, freelance writer Glenn Guzzo, Ron Bethman of Titan Corp. and Brian Cook of The Gardner Group.