Dear Coach McElwain and Gators football team,
I’m a proud Gator (graduate of 2009) displaced from the Swamp, now living in a cold tundra known as “Michigan.”
Regrettably, I live a mere 45 minutes away from Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan. As you can imagine, I’m surrounded by Wolverine fans, and even more “Wal-Mart Wolverines” (a term detractors call crazy Wolverine fans who never graduated from U of M).
All my wife’s family and friends are staunch Wolverine fans, which means I’m constantly berated at family gatherings, church events, and even in my own home, simply because the last three times the Gator football team played Michigan (2003, 2008 & 2016), they lost.
My dignity as a loyal Gator fan (earned during my undergraduate coursework when the Gator football team won not one, BUT TWO national championships) is slowly being dismantled. Even my dear wife, who has for years respected my loyalty to UF, has succumbed to the peer pressure. She now dresses my innocent one-year-old daughter, Lily, in that disgusting maize and blue. Sadly, if things keep going the way they are, she may very well grow up to become a Jim Harbaugh idol worshiper like the rest of southeast Michigan.
As a fellow Gator, and as a proud father, I’m encouraging you…even begging you…please defeat the Wolverines on Saturday. If you won’t do it for me, then please do it for Lily. Like her name, she is indeed a gentle flower, who can either blossom into a beautiful Gator, or wither into a degraded Wolverine. Her future depends on you!
Your loyal fan, win or lose, Daniel.
Lily, the daughter of tormented Gator fan Daniel Stone, offers an uncomfortable expression while wearing Michigan apparel.
