University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame
Main article: List of University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame membersOver 250 notable former Gators athletes and coaches have been inducted into the University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame. Hall of Fame inductees fall into three categories: "Gator Greats"; "Distinguished Letterwinners"; and "Honorary Letterwinners." Gator Greats are those former athletes who distinguished themselves during their undergraduate sports careers, and include former All-Americans, all-conference selections, winners of major national awards, individual national champions, and those who significantly contributed to national team championships. Distinguished Letterwinners are those former Gators athletes who achieved distinction after graduation, as athletic coaches or administrators, professional athletes, or in public service or other career activities. Honorary Letterwinners are those persons who are not University of Florida alumni and former undergraduate athletes, but have distinguished themselves by their significant contributions to the success of Florida Gators sports teams, including former championship Gators coaches.
Gator Greats include Heisman Trophy winners Steve Spurrier and Danny Wuerffel; consensus first-team All-Americans Carlos Alvarez, Wilber Marshall and Emmitt Smith; Olympic gold medal swimmers Tracy Caulkins, Nicole Haislett and Dara Torres; individual NCAA golf champions Page Dunlap, Nick Gilliam and Bob Murphy; Olympic gold medal soccer players Heather Mitts and Abby Wambach; and individual NCAA tennis champions Jill Craybas, Jeff Morrison and Lisa Raymond.
Distinguished Letterwinners include head coaches Doug Dickey, Lindy Infante and Dutch Stanley, as well as U.S. Senator George Smathers.
Honorary Letterwinners include former Gators national championship coaches Buster Bishop, Andy Brandi, Randy Reese and Mimi Ryan, former football coach and four-star general James Van Fleet, as well as medical professor Robert Cade, who invented the sports drink Gatorade as a rehydration aid to assist Gators athletes.
Read more about this topic: Gator Chomp
Famous quotes containing the words university, florida, athletic, hall and/or fame:
“The most important function of the university in an age of reason is to protect reason from itself.”
—Allan Bloom (1930–1992)
“In Florida consider the flamingo,
Its color passion but its neck a question.”
—Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989)
“Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness—a harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster-children into strength and athletic proportion.”
—William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)
“In football they measure forty-yard sprints. Nobody runs forty yards in basketball. Maybe you run the ninety-four feet of the court; then you stop, not on a dime, but on Miss Liberty’s torch. In football you run over somebody’s face.”
—Donald Hall (b. 1928)
“The great difficulty is first to win a reputation; the next to keep it while you live; and the next to preserve it after you die, when affection and interest are over, and nothing but sterling excellence can preserve your name. Never suffer youth to be an excuse for inadequacy, nor age and fame to be an excuse for indolence.”
—Benjamin Haydon (1786–1846)