If you’ve ever watched ESPN during the summer, you know that the guys up in Bristol scrape the bottom of the content barrel to fill their one-hour SportsCenter shows every day.
Yeah, summer means baseball season, but ESPN really only cares about New York, Boston and Los Angeles. If you aren’t one of them, you can wait until the postseason to get some coverage.
So after the Heat unfortunately run the table in the NBA postseason and after the NHL crowns a new Stanley Cup champion, ESPN will resort to airing rehashed clips of Johnny Manziel casually throwing footballs during training camp, footage of Jameis Winston stealing those crab legs (for the love of God, I hope it comes out) and those mind-numbingly dumb remixes by DJ Steve Porter.
To ESPN, summer basically serves as the graveyard shift for sports.
But here at alligatorSports, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Summer in Gainesville means sports, sports and more sports.
OK, so football and basketball are in their offseasons. So what? Take a look at the sports schedule for this summer and tell me there’s nothing going on in Florida athletics.
Baseball, softball, lacrosse, tennis, track and golf all enter their postseasons in either May or June. And if you’re one of those Gators fans that only stay tuned when Will Muschamp or Billy Donovan are involved, then I urge you to stay updated with alligatorSports’ coverage of Florida sports throughout the summer.
The women’s tennis team, which owns a UF-record seven national titles, will face Southeastern Conference rival Vanderbilt in the NCAA Tournament Round of 16 on Thursday.
Our own Ian Cohen will keep you updated on the Gators’ quest for an eighth championship.
The softball squad will host its 12th straight NCAA Regional when Florida faces off against Florida A&M on Friday night. That’s not a typo people. I said 12 straight years of hosting the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Check the Gators out at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium this weekend and get all the analysis from Jordan McPherson afterward.
Oh yeah, and there’s that lacrosse program that lost 13 members of its 2010 inaugural class to graduation before the season but still found its way to another Elite Eight appearance.
When Florida takes the field at Donald R. Dizney Stadium on Saturday against Northwestern, Eden Otero will be there to cover the Gators and you should be there to witness the school’s youngest athletic program continue its run of historic success.
Space limits me from mentioning all of our other great writers, but you’ll see their bylines throughout the next few months too.
Richard Johnson, the newest alligatorSports assistant editor, and I will do our best to make sure you don’t miss a second of this summer’s busy sports schedule. Now do your part: Turn off ESPN, support your Gators and stay tuned for one crazy summer.
Follow Jonathan Czupryn on Twitter @jczupryn
