Gator Chomp - University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame

University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame

Main article: List of University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame members

Over 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 of, university, florida, athletic, hall and/or fame:

    The scholar is that man who must take up into himself all the ability of the time, all the contributions of the past, all the hopes of the future. He must be an university of knowledges.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    In the United States, it is now possible for a person eighteen years of age, female as well as male, to graduate from high school, college, or university without ever having cared for, or even held, a baby; without ever having comforted or assisted another human being who really needed help. . . . No society can long sustain itself unless its members have learned the sensitivities, motivations, and skills involved in assisting and caring for other human beings.
    Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917)

    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)

    Generation on generation, your neck rubbed the windowsill
    of the stall, smoothing the wood as the sea smooths glass.
    —Donald Hall (b. 1928)

    The fame of heroes owes little to the extent of their conquests and all to the success of the tributes paid to them.
    Jean Genet (1910–1986)