GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The week after beating Florida State in Tallahassee during the 1970 season, Doug Dickey‘s first year in charge of the program, the heavily favored Gators returned home to host Richmond. Not many gave the Spiders much of a chance.

But when the fourth quarter started at Florida Field, the game remained in doubt, with the Gators nursing a slim 7-0 lead. Florida went on to win 20-0 as fullback Duane Doel scored two touchdowns in the final quarter: an 8-yard pass from quarterback John Reaves and then a 1-yard run.

 

Senior offensive guard Donny Williams was a team captain who offered a blunt explanation of why it took so long for the Gators to pull away.

“We were definitely looking past Richmond,” Williams told the Palm Beach Post. “That’s no excuse. I made a lot of mental errors. It’s hard to say what happened.”

Williams had ample reason to be distracted in the days leading up to the game. His wife, Sandra, was pregnant and due at any moment. The baby girl they named Tonya finally arrived soon after 3 a.m. the Thursday before the Richmond game. Williams handed out cigars to his teammates that day after practice, and they smoked away to celebrate.

Two days later, as he exited the locker room following the win over Richmond, Williams appeared calm as he went to check on his wife and newborn daughter.

“I reckon a load has been taken off my mind,” he told a reporter.

An All-SEC second-team selection in 1969 in the final season for UF head coach Ray Graves, Williams was a steady presence on the offensive line during Dickey’s first season to help the Gators finish 7-4, including a 24-17 win over Georgia. Williams grew up in Lake City and signed with the Gators out of Columbia High. When he finished college, Williams returned to his hometown and became a successful contractor, owning Donny Williams Construction.

Williams and Sandra had two more children after Tonya, Travis and Tara. They remained married until Williams’ death last month.

Donald Earnest Williams was 76.

 

WAGNER A WINNER
 
Former Gators golfer Samantha Wagner arrived at UF in 2015 as an accomplished player, having been part of three state championship teams in high school at Windermere Prep (2011, 2012) and Circle Christian School (2014). She played her way onto the All-SEC Freshman Team in 2016.

Eight years after turning pro in 2017, Wagner broke through for her first career victory last weekend on the Epson Tour at the FireKeepers Casino Hotel Championship in Battle Creek, Mich. Wagner shot a final-round 65 and a three-day total of 13-under par, overcoming a two-shot deficit when the third round started.

“It’s finally sinking in. This is awesome,” Wagner said after her win. “I think for me, a lot of it was taking a step back and really trying not to think about winning and just really focusing on my process. I’ve been told by many people that if I keep doing that, eventually, it’ll pay off, so I really just had to lean in and trust that. It’s been a long time, so it’s nice to see that finally come through. It just feels great moving forward.”

Wagner’s best finish for the Gators was in her second collegiate tournament when she placed third at the 2016 Mercedes-Benz Collegiate.

 

CHARLTON WATCH

The Gators men’s and women’s track teams are at the NCAA Championships in Eugene, Ore., starting today. If there is one athlete I’m particularly keeping an eye on, it’s junior sprinter Anthaya Charlton, a transfer from Kentucky who is from Nassau, Bahamas.

 

Charlton competes Thursday in the 4×100-meter relay, 100-meter semifinals and the women’s long jump finals. Charlton helped the Gators finish third in the SEC Outdoor Championships last month by winning the long jump.

She has continued to improve during the postseason, setting a school record in the 100-meter dash (11.05) at the NCAA Outdoor East Preliminaries, and bettered that mark with an 11.01 in the quarterfinals.

The UF women are ranked No. 3 in the latest FloTrack.org national rankings. Charlton’s quest for a national title in the 100 will be a challenge. She is currently ranked eighth nationally, with TCU’s Indya Mayberry and LSU’s Tima Godbless (10.91) sharing the No. 1 spot.

 

MOTIVATED MULLEN
 
Former Gators coach Dan Mullen received the profile treatment by ESPN.com this week. After three years of working for ESPN as a college football analyst – and I will say, I thought he was terrific on TV – Mullen is back on the sideline at UNLV.

Running the Rebels is a 180 from his time in Gainesville.

“What I’m learning [is] if you win here, they love you. You are it,” Mullen said. “If you lose, they just don’t really care because there’s a bunch of other things for them to go do.”

Mullen said his interest to return to coaching was sparked by two events last year: a reunion of his 2014 Mississippi State team that reached No. 1 in the rankings and a speech by former Utah and NFL quarterback Alex Smith, who thanked Mullen for the impact he had on him.

Those connections awakened something in Mullen that prompted him to take the UNLV job. And he didn’t want his coaching career to end on the sour note that concluded his UF tenure.

“I don’t like how it finished at Florida,” he said. “I didn’t want that to be the last page of my book. However, I had to be in the right space for me to continue the story.”

You can read the entire story from Harry Lyles Jr. at this link.

   

SPROAT NEXT?

If you follow me on X (formerly Twitter), you’ve likely seen that I’ve been keeping a close eye on former Gators slugger Jac Caglianone in his first week in the majors. Caglianone has the kind of star power that makes fans buy the MLB Live package.

 

Meanwhile, with Caglianone, the latest former UF player to make his debut in the majors, who might be the next?

My prediction is right-hander Brandon Sproat, who is pitching for Triple-A Syracuse in the Mets’ farm system. Sproat tossed six shutout innings in his last start Friday against Buffalo and is 3-4 with a 5.33 ERA in 12 starts. He has pitched 52 1/3 innings, struck out 38 strikeouts and 24 walks.

The 24-year-old Sproat was New York’s second-round pick in 2023 after helping the Gators to the College World Series.

While the Mets are in first place in the National League East and have a solid five-man starting rotation with Clay Holmes, David Peterson, Kodai Senga, Taylor Megill and Griffin Canning, you can never have enough pitching in the playoffs, and Sproat has the kind of arm that could bolster their bullpen or make a spot start later in the season.

 

EXTRA! EXTRA!

Former UF slugger Pete Alonso, in his seventh season with the New York Mets, leads the majors with 62 RBI entering Wednesday night’s home game against the Nationals. Alonso (.300, 17 HR, 62 RBI) now has 243 career homes, nine shy of matching Darryl Strawberry for the franchise record. Alonso has 23 career multi-homer games after hitting a pair of two-run homers Sunday at Colorado, surpassing Strawberry’s record of 22 … In ESPN.com‘s latest NBA mock draft, the website projects Gators guard Walter Clayton Jr. to go either to the Celtics at No. 28 overall or the Suns at 29th overall. The NBA Draft is June 25-26 … Norm Roberts spent just one of his 37 seasons as a college basketball coach at Florida. In the mind’s eye, I can still see the slim and fit Roberts walking around campus for exercise. Former Gators coach Billy Donovan hired Roberts in 2011, and in his only season as one of Donovan’s assistants, the Gators advanced to the Elite Eight before losing to Louisville in Phoenix. That season happened to be future NBA All-Star Bradley Beal‘s only season with the Gators as well. We mention Roberts because he retired last month after spending the final 14 seasons of his career as an assistant at Kansas. Roberts had no previous connection to the Gators, but he and Donovan had gone back to the 1980s when both were young point guards growing up in New York. Congrats to Roberts on a career that landed him in the STEP UP Assistant Coaches Hall of Fame.