Last week, sports were the last thing on my mind.
Nine days ago, I made the four-hour drive from Gainesville to my home in Lake Worth to say goodbye to my grandfather, Shelly Levy. He passed away a week ago today.
Without my grandpa, I wouldn’t have such an incredible love for sports. I wouldn’t dedicate hours of my time every day to watching, reading about and thinking about sports. I wouldn’t be writing this column, and you wouldn’t be reading it.
My grandpa regaled me with stories of his youth. He told me about how his mother – my great-grandmother – would give him a sandwich and a quarter, and he and his friends would catch a New York Giants doubleheader at the Polo Grounds.
He was a diehard Giants fan and was devastated when they moved to San Francisco, but he found a new love in the New York Mets a few years later. Although I grew up a Yankees fan, he never criticized me too much.
He loved sports until the very end. The last thing he gave me was a copy of Sports Illustrated that sat on his living-room end table. It’s sitting in my room right now.
I want to dedicate this column to my grandpa, because I wouldn’t be writing it if not for him. However, I know my grandpa wouldn’t want me to mope, and instead would want to see me be happy and celebrate his life and the sports he loved so much.
And there’s going to be plenty of celebrating of sports in this paper this coming semester. Several UF teams are going to be experiencing – excuse the cliché – the joy of victory or the agony of defeat.
The women’s tennis team and lacrosse team are both two rounds into the NCAA Tournament – Michelle Provenzano and Chuck Kingsbury will have you covered on those fronts.
Men’s and women’s golf are competing in the NCAA regionals and the NCAA championships, respectively. Track and field just finished competing at the Southeastern Conference Outdoor Championships. Richard Johnson and Gordon Streisand will provide you with up-to-date information on those squads.
The Gators softball team just swept through the Southeastern Conference Tournament – the first time the team has won the regular season and tournament titles since 2009. Landon Watnick is your go-to for all the action at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium this summer.
And Josh Jurnovoy and I will both be covering the baseball team as it limps towards a possible NCAA Tournament bid.
So while summer is a much more relaxed time around Gainesville, the alligatorSports staff won’t be taking a break. In addition to the normal sports coverage, there will be plenty of additional commentary, including regular columns from myself (I promise they won’t all be this depressing) and Josh. We’ll also feature the return of the annual Alligator Awards for the best and worst in Florida sports this past year.
It’s going to be a good summer. So watch the thermometer rise, pop open a refreshing beverage and check out some sports. That’s what my grandpa would do.
Contact Adam Lichtenstein at alichtenstein@alligator.org.
