On Friday, NBC’s TODAY aired a video package highlighting former Florida Gators running back Chris Rainey and how the family of Maurkice and Mike Pouncey took him in as a youngster and made him a part of the clan. All three are now playing in the NFL, of course, with Rainey and Maurkice both members of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Mike playing for the Miami Dolphins.
“We’re brothers, blood brothers, man. Nothing will ever change that,” Rainey said.
ONLY GATORS Get Out Alive opened exactly three years ago today during one of the most news-packed months in the history of the Florida Gators.
October 2009 featured widespread panic about Tim Tebow’s concussion and preparedness for LSU, the debut of the lacrosse program, the arrest of Erin Andrews’s stalker, concern about the commitment status of Matt Elam and devastating season-ending injuries to a pair of Florida football players.
After 36 months of long hours, stressful days and plenty of late nights, it is my pleasure to say that OGGOA remains alive and kicking entering its fourth year.
As I stated last year, I truly never thought that a phrase I jotted down on a piece of paper a few summers ago would not only materialize into this website but become something that has encompassed my life in so many ways.
OGGOA was always meant to be a website even when it started simply as a Twitter account that quickly gained a strong following and provided this publication with an unexpected but certainly appreciated built-in audience of Gators news-craving readers.
Now three years later I’m proud to say that OnlyGators.com has amassed more than 6.1 million visits since Oct. 1, 2009. This officially marks the 3,502nd post on the website, and the next comment submitted will be the 19,306th since inception. The @OnlyGators Twitter handle has added nearly 5,000 more followers in the last 12 months (18,367 total as of press time) and approximately 52,600 tweets have been sent out with the news, information and opinions that you crave.
Many of you reading this right now have been with us from the very beginning. You may remember the website crashing when we broke the information about the team’s Nike Pro Combat uniforms. (Luckily the servers have been significantly beefed up since then.) Perhaps you were a frequent reader when OGGOA’s very first in-depth interview (with Al Horford) was posted in early 2010. You might be someone that joined us along the way or maybe you’re even a brand new reader who stumbled onto the site a few months ago.
No matter the longevity or frequency of your patronage, please know that I very much appreciate you for clicking on your OGGOA bookmark, tapping the iPhone home screen icon, reading my tweets or even visiting the site through my work with Yahoo! Sports and Rivals. Without you, the reader, this website does not exist. Period.
As always, plenty of love and thanks goes out to OGGOA’s contributors, the more than 30 Gators athletes who have sat down for extensive interviews with me, those in the industry who have supported and endorsed the website, the great folks at Acceleration.net for keeping us up and running, and obviously all of my friends and family who are equally instrumental in keeping the passion going on a daily basis.
Albert Einstein once said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Hard work does pay off; this site is a testament.
Here’s to another year!
Adam Silverstein
Owner, editor
It’s been two years – two years and six days to be exact – since I first turned the light on at ONLY GATORS Get Out Alive headquarters and, well, we’re still alive.
What started out as a passion project has turned into something that continues to amaze and humble me day-in and day-out. Never did I think that an idea that popped into my head and a name I wrote on a piece of paper back in 2009 would not only materialize but become an endeavor that is continuously taxing and rewarding at the same time.
Many of you started following us through Twitter as @OnlyGators began months before OnlyGators.com ever existed. As our following slowly grew, I hoped only that the website would satisfy the 2,000-or-so people who chose to read my tweets and trust me for information about the Florida Gators.
Just a few months after the website began, Twitter readers were only a portion of our daily audience. I was surprised how quickly the site took off but considering it started days after Tim Tebow suffered his concussion and just months before Urban Meyer resigned for the first time, perhaps it should not have been much of a shock.
If you’ll allow me to humble-brag for a minute, I feel it is worth noting that OnlyGators.com has amassed more than 4.2 million visits since Oct. 1, 2009. This is our 2,500th post and sometime today the site will register its 15,000th reader comment. Our Twitter account has amassed more than 35,200 tweets and ballooned to over 13,500 followers. (Every number mentioned has more than doubled since 10/1/10).
Please indulge me once more as I wanted to take a moment to thank some people and organizations for supporting us over the last two years. Thanks to Brett, Dustin, Rebecca and Jesse from Acceleration.net for keeping us up and running.
Much love to Erin Andrews for her constant support and generosity, and thanks to many, many other Gators – such as Jack Youngblood, Kevin Carter, Alex Brown, Danny Wuerffel, Mike Peterson, Cornelius Ingram, Joe Cohen, David Nelson, Dorian Munroe, Al Horford, Chandler Parsons and Taurean Green (just to name a few) – for opening up your lives to us at one time or another for our in-depth interviews.
Thanks to Mark Wheeler of Rivals/InsideTheGators.com for bringing me on board and helping me reach an even larger audience, and much appreciation to both Abe Gordon from SiriusXM and Marc Ryan from 100.3 FM The Ticket for putting me on the air on a regular basis. Thanks to dozens of major media outlets including CBS Sports, ESPN, FanHouse, NBC Sports, Sports Illustrated, The Huffington Post and USA Today (just to name a few) for either sourcing or linking to posts from the site.
And thank you to all of my friends, family and colleagues I did not name (you know who you are) for your advice and support.
This may be a bit too much of a reflective post considering we are not going anywhere any time soon, but I’ve always believed in remembering how you started and appreciating what you’ve accomplished along the way.
As Steve Jobs once said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference.”
While there is no blueprint for what I am trying to accomplish here, there are some exciting possibilities on the horizon for OGGOA over the next few months including one project in particular that I sincerely hope will come to fruition sooner than later.
Here’s to another year!
Adam Silverstein
Owner, editor
ONLY GATORS Get Out Alive has decided to sell our first product – a comfortable and eye-catching T-shirt featuring our one-of-a-kind logo. Created on high-quality Hanes Beefy-Ts, our shirt is made of ultra-soft premium cotton, preshrunk to stay true to size and has a full cut that provides a roomier fit.
For more information, or to purchase a shirt, simply click on the image to your left or the link below. 100 percent of all profits will be used to support OnlyGators.com.
As some of you may have heard – but most of you probably have not – I have accepted a columnist position with Rivals/Yahoo! affiliate InsideTheGators.com. Starting April 1, I will contribute three-to-five columns each week about a wide variety of topics and subjects as one of the website’s few full-time staff members.
Being hired as a columnist for a major publication is something that I desired since I first created ONLY GATORS Get Out Alive on Oct. 1, 2009. The editor there reached out to me a year ago, but a combination of issues prevented him from bringing me on earlier.
The BEST news for all for you, the OGGOA readers, is that absolutely nothing will change in regards to this website. OGGOA will continue to be independently owned and operated. As we have for the last 18 months, OGGOA will exist as its own entity and continue to publish the same quality and amount of material on a day-to-day basis.
Because ITG is a subscription-based website, only a small portion of the columns I write (like this one) there will be available to read for free. That being said, I have every intention of attempting to work out some discount or added benefit should you choose to spend your hard-earned money to read the rest of my work. Hold tight and stay tuned for that possibility as I explore it in the near future.
Above all else, I cannot express enough my gratitude for the support and dedication that you have shown to both myself and OGGOA since our inception. We surpassed three million pageviews in March 2011, now have more than 9,200 Twitter followers (@OnlyGators), have sent more than 27,000 tweets through that account and have seen more than 12,000 user comments on this site.
In addition to your endless passion for the Florida Gators, your enthusiasm for what we are doing here keeps us going day-in and day-out. Please continue “Liking” and sharing our posts (options below each article), commenting on those you find interesting and letting us know what features and coverage we can add in order to help you enjoy your OGGOA experience even more.
With a new season and era ahead for Florida football and plenty of interesting things going on all summer long, this is as exciting of a time as ever here at OGGOA. Stay tuned for more and always remember… ONLY GATORS Get Out Alive!
Adam Silverstein
Owner, editor
As the old adage goes, “Time flies when you’re having fun.”
While owning and operating ONLY GATORS Get Out Alive for the last 12 months has certainly been fun, it has also resulted in long hours, late nights and more hard work then I could have possibly imagined.
Exactly one year ago, OGGOA was created to be THE stomping ground for die-hard Florida Gators fans on the World Wide Web – an online home base to serve as your all-inclusive, one-stop portal for everything you wanted or needed to know about your favorite team. Looking back on our accomplishments over the last 365 days, I am confident that goal is in the process of being reached and hope to continue providing content that you, the reader, will enjoy.
In normal anniversary fashion, allow me to recount what has been accomplished over the past year while simultaneously paying tribute certain individuals and organizations.
BRAGGING
As of press time, OnlyGators.com has registered 1.75 million total hits. We are also approaching 6,000 followers on Twitter and have just under 2,000 Facebook friends. OGGOA has published 1,424 posts on the website, tweeted 17,096 times (since August 2009), received almost 7,000 comments on the website and have been sent (and responded to) more than 2,000 reader e-mails.
FRIENDS and INTERVIEWS
Since last October, OGGOA has interviewed 13 Gators, 12 of which have been published on OnlyGators.com. We sat down for half-hour sessions with former dazzler now ESPN reporter Erin Andrews, New Orleans Saints defensive end Alex Brown, Heisman Trophy winner quarterback Danny Wuerffel and free agent tight end Cornelius Ingram; we were even granted extensive time with QB Tim Tebow.
OGGOA also interviewed Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Percy Harvin, Atlanta Hawks All Star Al Horford, New England Patriots linebacker Jermaine Cunningham, Chicago Bears safety Major Wright, Montreal Alouettes LB Earl Everett, free agent C Chris Richard, current Florida DE Lynden Trail and NFL scout Daniel Jeremiah.
MEDIA COVERAGE
Luckily breaking a number of news stories over the last year, OGGOA has been referenced, covered or linked to by a variety of major media outlets. We appreciate ESPN (four times), Sports Illustrated (two times), USA Today, The Huffington Post, SPORTSbyBROOKS, NBC Sports, AOL FanHouse, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel (five times), the Palm Beach Post (two times), the Sun-Sentinel, The Press-Enterprise and WWSR radio for providing us with additional opportunities to reach the masses.
APPRECIATION
As mentioned previously, a lot of hard work has gone into making OGGOA a success. Without the following people and organizations (listed in no particular order) we may not have progressed as far as we have in such a short period of time.
- Acceleration.net (web hosting, site design, technical backing)
- Southeastern Conference
- Palm Beach Autographs and Steve Dodson
- Erin Andrews, Danny Wuerffel, Dan Shanoff, Jeremy Fowler, Brady Ackerman
- All of my friends who have supported and promoted this website
APPRECIATION PART DEUX
While everyone listed above has certainly influenced and assisted OGGOA in one way or another, no one has had more of an impact on us than you, our readers. In addition to your endless passion for the Gators, your enthusiasm for what we are doing here keeps us going day-in and day-out. In fact, between the commenters on OnlyGators.com and our biggest fans on Twitter, OGGOA has grown into a bit of an extended family.
Please continue “Liking” and sharing our posts [below each thread], commenting on articles you find interesting and letting us know what features and coverage we can add in order to help you enjoy your OGGOA experience even more.
I appreciate all of your continued support and dedication. It astounds me each day how many new visitors come to this site and how you have made OGGOA the fastest growing Gators website on the Internet. I am truly grateful.
Here’s to another year!
Adam Silverstein
Owner, editor
1 » Opening the University of Florida’s 2010-11 athletic season on Friday, No. 11 Florida Gators soccer (1-0) defeated the Miami Hurricanes (0-1) 2-1 in a double-overtime match at James G. Pressly Stadium in Gainesville, FL. Scoreless in the first half, redshirt sophomore midfielder McKenzie Barney kicked the ball across the goal to the far post at 49’ to put Florida ahead. In the blink of an eye, Miami’s Blake Stockton hit an equalizer at 53’. Almost an hour of game time later, now in the match’s second overtime, freshman forward Taylor Travis put the Gators ahead for good with a seven-yard golden goal into the far post at 107’. Florida will need to regroup quickly as the ladies will travel to Orlando, FL, for an away game against the Central Florida Knights on Aug. 22 at 7 p.m. The match will air live on FOX Sports Florida.
2 » The defending National Champion Alabama Crimson Tide earned the No. 1 spot in the Associated Press Top 25 preseason poll released Saturday with the Gators coming in three slots behind at No. 4. In between the two are the No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes and No. 3 Boise State Broncos; Alabama was awarded 54 of 60 possible first-place votes. Other Southeastern Conference teams ranked by the AP this preseason include Arkansas (No. 17), LSU (No. 21), Auburn (No. 22) and Georgia (No. 23). Florida finished last season listed No. 3 in the USA Today and Associated Press polls, also earning the No. 3 spot in the USA Today preseason poll released on Aug. 6.
Photo Credit: University of Florida/GatorZone.com
1 » Denver Broncos veteran Pro Bowl cornerback Champ Bailey has been heaping the praise on rookie quarterback Tim Tebow and that trend continued Wednesday in an NFL.com report. Talking about Tebow’s star quality and magnetism, the former Georgia Bulldogs star placed the Florida Gators legend above even the most famous Florida State Seminole. “I’ve been on a team with some [high-profile] players, such as Deion [Sanders] and guys like that, but I’ve never seen nothing like this,” Bailey said. “It’s amazing. […] I’m kind of proud of him for the way he handles himself. He wants to be one of the guys. People are going to put him on that pedestal, but he handles both sides very well.”
Defensive end Justin Bannan is also impressed. “I’m kind of blown away,” Bannan said. “I’ve just never seen anything like it. It’s like a phenomenon. This city’s just become obsessed with Tebow. The guy has earned that right to get that kind of attention, because he’s probably going to go down as one of the greatest — if not the greatest — college player to play the game.”
2 » It should be no question that Pittsburgh Steelers rookie center/guard Maurkice Pouncey, the University of Florida and the NCAA all want the allegations surrounding the player to be settled – one way or another – as soon as possible. Nevertheless, according to the University Police Department, determining whether or not Pouncey accepted a $100,000 payment from the runner for a sports agent may take up to two more months to settle. “It’s still an ongoing investigation,” Capt. Jeff Holcomb told The Gainesville Sun. “It could be another month or two before it’s finally closed out. It’s a slow-going process.” The process has been underway since June.
Photo Credit: Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post
| Date | Team | Gator Bait | TV | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6/27 | Basketball | 2013 NBA Draft | ESPN | 8:00 pm |
| 7/16 | Football | SEC Media Day | - | 10:00 am |
| 8/17 | Soccer | vs. UCF (Exh.) | - | - |
| 8/23 | Soccer | vs. FGCU | - | 7:00 pm |
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| Commitment | Pos. | Rivals | ESPN | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chris Chiozza | PG |  | | 90 / 39 |
| Commitment | Pos. | Rivals | ESPN | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kevarrius Hayes | PF | | | - / 58 |
Roll over player names for additional information.
