Amanda Butler walked into the postgame media area with orange-and-blue Gators flip-flops flip-flopping with her.
She took a seat a few feet away from me and then-women's basketball beat writer Phil Kegler as we typed away on our laptops. Butler chatted away with other University Athletic Association workers about other teams' chances in the NCAA Tournament and the games from that night.
I asked Phil if this was a normal occurrence and typical wardrobe selection for Butler. It was.
That was the scene after UF's 60-55 second-round Women's National Invitation Tournament win against Florida Gulf Coast last year.
That setting, however, wasn't typical. Most coaches will head for the exits, their firmly pressed suits and shined shoes going with them. They definitely don't come back to the boring media area showcasing the latest Gators flip-flops.
Amanda Butler is one of us. A lot smarter and wittier than most of us, but other than that, no different than you or me.
She'll be in Publix buying the same Fruity Pebbles you are. She'll be just as excited to see the latest sales at Target as you are. She'll be the same person loading up on collard greens next to you in the buffet line.
"You want to be around her," Senior Associate Athletic Director of Women's Sports Lynda Tealer said. "What you see is what you get - without a doubt. If you watch her on the sidelines, all that passion and all that - that's who she is. There is no hidden Amanda Butler."
Former Gators coach Carolyn Peck is a wonderful person. I respect her for her always-sunshine-and-rainbows attitude. She was prim and proper at all times. Maybe too prim and proper.
Butler, in just her second year here in Gainesville, has the same smarts as Peck and a refreshingly commonplace attitude as a complimentary side dish.
That's a big part of the reason why this team will make the NCAA Tournament. Two years ago, this team did an impression of a Division II team.
Now, Butler has instilled a level of confidence that shows glimpses of a program which expects to contend on the national scene every year.
"A lot of that credit goes to the team and the individuals on the team - there's no question about that," Butler said. "As a coach, you can have this method of getting better or all these different motivational techniques and all these different ideas, but ultimately the team has to decide, 'Hey, we're good and we can do this. We can win ballgames. We can win under these circumstances.'"
Oh, and she's too modest, too. Let me say this: The Gators have had talented players. Sha Brooks and Marshae Dotson - two recruits from the Peck era - are two of the better players in the Southeastern Conference. They're a big reason why the Gators are 17-2 and were off to the best start in program history when they were 16-1.
So, what Butler said has some truth. But there's a reason there has been no legitimate success in the roller-coaster four years in which they've gone from the NCAA Tournament in their first year to SEC laughingstock the next. They've missed someone who relates to them, someone who expects them to take every day more seriously.
"We want to work so hard every single day that by the time we get to the ballgame, we feel like we've earned that win," Butler said.
That's the attitude you expect from a former point guard who had just as many floor burns, bumps and bruises as assists, steals and 3-pointers.
There is one category that will soon eclipse the number of floor burns she acquired, though: wins.
"We talk very positively about ourselves in the locker room," Butler said. "We're not afraid about talking about how good we are and how good we can be. We're not worried about jinxing things. It's pretty straight talk."
Here's some straight talk: The Gators will become one of the top, most consistent programs in the country because of Butler. She'll start to land some of these five-star recruits who used to want to visit Gainesville about as much as Bobby Bowden does. UF won't be considered one of the "other" teams in the SEC after Tennessee and LSU.
And it's likely she won't be planning for any of that. She didn't have a plan when she was hired. All she knew was she wanted this job so bad that nobody else could have wanted it more.
"She is passionate in a way about Florida being successful that really no one else can be," Tealer said. "She wears that. It is hard not to get behind her. … She was going to will this thing forward."
I'm just hoping Butler doesn't get the will to go into sports reporting. If that happens, I'll never get a job.
