RE: AAFL Team Florida Newsletter: January 23, 2008

 

It's time for someone to state the obvious: Gator Nation is the strongest community of football fans in the country. Stronger than Notre Dame. Stronger than USC. Stronger than even the Raiders.

And here's how we know: We are not just talking about the support our fans give the current team. Our strength comes from our fans who simply will not forget the Gator greats of the past.

Recent and otherwise.

And the latest examples of that come in and out of Florida. During the recent bowl game, media all over Florida could not get enough of Chris Leak, Shane Matthews, Fred Weary and other Gator greats as part of their bowl coverage.

That is because lots of reporters know by instinct what former Gator players know by experience: People are intensely interested in what happened to former Gators. But even I have been a bit surprised at the attention Team Florida is getting outside of Florida.

In the space of just a few days recently, major papers in Arizona, North Carolina, and New York City have written major stories about the AAFL mostly featuring guys from Team Florida. Here they are:

http://www.nysun.com/article/69312

http://www.charlotte.com/308/story/423801.html

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/cheapseats/articles/0101whatsup0102box.html

Lots of Gator fans in Jacksonville last weekend for autographs. Fred Weary, Eli Williams, Zac Zedalis, and Tay Cody were just a few of the Gators there with Sharpies in hand.

The event was sponsored by the good folks at the Gators and More radio show -- who were there to promote the league, handle ticket sales and hand out some cool merchandise.

Now I'm not in the newspaper business, but if you hang around enough reporters for a long enough time you start to pick up the lingo.

And when you put what could be the most important part of a story at the end, they call that burying the lead. So let's unbury it:

The AAFL Draft is this Saturday, January 26th! And you can watch it LIVE on TV or online. Television and online broadcasts of the draft will begin at Noon EST / 11 AM CST / 9 AM PST.

The AAFL draft will be broadcast live on Comcast Sports Southeast (CSS): CSS will broadcast to 5.8 million households across the following 12 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

You can also see the entire draft live on the web at www.aafl.com.

I may have an even better option for you than watching the draft live at home...if you want, you can watch it with us at one of our draft parties. We have parties at Noon and 7PM in Gainesville, Jacksonville, and Winter Park. Click here for event details (see bottom of that page) and to RSVP.

More later,

Travis McGriff
Team Florida
All American Football League

P.S. Don't forget all the great AAFL videos on YouTube. We Gator fans need something to keep us going till Spring!