It's June. June 2020. That year. That time.
CoronaVirus, shattered economy, Another Black Man nakedly executed by the system on video.
Tough times for all. Plenty of time to reflect.
A schoolmate Dash knew from grade school took his own life.
Macro and micro.
Growing Pains. Parenting Pains.
Both our jobs are safe; most everyone we know is healthy.
We're okay. But a fragile time.
I haven't always felt disconnected.
But before that first remembered disconnect, I was disconnected. At birth I was given up for adoption, and my dad's first wife left when I was two.
A lesser disconnection, but the first remembered: Aunt Alice, my nanny - the earliest mother figure I still remember...
The first time my new stepmom hit me - at five-years old - I remember a disconnect, a violent shattering.
At eight, I remember huddling outside in the dark, hiding, scared. Trying to figure out where I could go, how I would eat. Stepmom had yelled at me "Tonight there is only going to be one of us in this house." She hadn't left. I was alone in the dark. The world was huge. I was facing how helpless I was in it. I was scared.
DEI at its heart IS heart.
An intentional structured strategy to notice and include those who historically have been systematically or unintentionally overlooked.
And now the system has swung to unneglect the historical and systematic in-group. "What about me? I don't see any of us in those efforts to unneglect others."
Will anyone feel any better as we use the system to explicitly re-neglect and performatively re-ostracize?
"You were starting to feel included? Hold my Modelo."
I can not claim to know the lived experiences of those not the most privileged.
I am NOT a "protected class".
I am among the most privileged class. Cishet white male. Grew up Middle Class - briefly upper middle, sometimes free-lunch poor. Very engaging, always a smile. And for a while beautiful in the way that all young and athletic youth look from old eyes. In short, I had it about as easy as it gets as far as being welcomed.
I went to five different elementary schools. We often moved in the middle of a school year. We weren't in the military, where moving is so integral that they have multiple strategies and programs to help welcome, integrate, cope. We were on our own and were winging it.
My fourth school (5th Grade, mid-year) was the first school where I felt my outsider status was a formal unshakeable attribute. Cliques and bullies. I got targeted, threw my lone "socially-forced" punch - a hiccup in the normal assimilation process.
Transferring to my fifth school (6th Grade, mid-year), I led with something of a bad-ass persona. Stern, quiet. I didn't know why at the time, but clearly it was to not to look vulnerable. Eventually, I felt safe and let goofy me (the real me) out.
We moved a couple more times, but didn't have to change Middle or High schools.
I joined a military academy. We were all actively, systematically, insulted and psychologically abused for the first year. But it was a universal abuse - where every flaw was ruthlessly exploited. To me it felt like a tactically flawed but fair meritocracy. I didn't see any out of the ordinary (telling phras) explicit race-based anti-favoritism, but the female cadets (10% of the corps) endured continual prejudice (most subtle). Homophobia was rife.
It took me about a year and a half to find my people there.
I transferred to a highly-ranked Party College after the two-year pause in my overall social development (and an actual degradation in my emotional robustness). One of those lifetime moments: I'm in a throng at the Campus Bookstore and even though I had heard the song hundreds of times, I for the first time really connect with Jim Morrison when he laments "Women seem wicked, when you're unwanted."
My longstanding joke was my goal at UF was "to get back up to Social Zero... I'm still working on it."
It took about about 10 months to find my group.
Most of my remaining Outsides were city moves for work. Orlando, Huntsville, Orlando, San Diego.
The social and emotional onboarding, for me, typically was sports, either work-"sponsored" or found on my own.
San Diego took a while. Hang-gliding, roller hockey and open-gym volleyball. The volleyball players were younger than me and much better players. They were always so gracious to me, making me feel welcome, even though I was older, less skilled, and basically not like them. I ultimately stopped playing because I didn't want to burden them (Ididn't realize at the time that having someone over half a foot taller than anyone else on the time is valuable even if that lunk isn't that skilled). It may be my first experience with wide intentional kindness rather than spontaneous/earned. To this day, I am still thankful to them.
It was probably a year in San Diego that I found my place. How did I find my place? I paid to be in a club of "Athletic Singles". Peers in play and playfulness. I felt included; paying for it was money well spent.
But, like I often come to understand, my tendencies towards apparent altruism are extensions of my own experiences.
While I not be diverse from The Us, and I never need lift to Equity, I understand some struggle to be included.
We don't need to experience the same level of pain to feel compassion towards others in pain.
(a letter to HBC's email account (unanswered, but, hey, he and his staff are flooded).
Hi Coach Spurrier,
They say it’s just a game, but it can be so much more. Thank you for making Gator Football for what it is and empowering Gator Nation to be a greater force for good in the world – in big and “small” ways.
Thirty-plus years after you made Florida Football the juggernaut it deserves to be, you and it continue to make lives better.
The following is a screenshot of something that took me over fifty years to say – and mean sincerely. The longest, hardest reconciliation of my life.
I met my stepmom when I was five. It was not a good relationship. I even joined the military just to be able to completely cut off her influence in my life (I later enrolled at University of Florida (BSCE 1989)).
Our path to redemption was slow, and for a long time stayed stuck at an arms-length détente.
Gators Football was a common interest, and it provided a continuous thread of dialogue between my mom and me over decades (sadly, some friends from other schools, whom I love, I still touch base with only to talk smack pre-game. Without college football, we’d go years without talking).
She became a big fan and it has been a delight talking pre-and post-game with her. It seems simplistic to say it was the core upon which everything else coalesced, but such is the value of shared pleasures.
Such is the impact of “just a game”. Surrounded in a stadium with our brethren in fellowship. Having an excuse to say hello to some unfortunate soul wearing a rival’s hoodie. Healing individual wounds through a mutual “irrelevant” commitment.. Connection.
While it may seem shallow to say thank you for making my life better by kicking Bulldog and Seminole butt, my life IS in fact better. From the hours and hours of remote joy of our young men overcoming their young men in play, to the decades and decades of remote connection – ultimately morphing my team of demons and her team of demons into a single fairly well-behaved family.
“I love you, Mom”. Meaning it, fifty years in the making. Call it the 2023 Nurtural Championship.
You have added a lot of joy to all the lives in Gator Nation, and there are myriad untold stories of “small” but life-enriching connections you and Gator Football have catalyzed.
Thank you, Coach! My mom and I thank you.
-jeff martin
UF BSCE ‘89
Go --;==;<
PS: one of my favorite things about HBC were the interviews along the lines of “Well, I’m still a little mad from when back in 1965, they…” SOS is not only inarguably our best Coach, (arguably) our best player, but he’s truly one of the best Gators fans ever. He is the Ultimate Gator.
