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mm from Gainesville, Florida Hello, I'm Mike Annan. And this is conversation. As a matter of fact, this is the first program of my ninth season on the air. It seems like a long time eight seasons behind me now of chatting with members of our university faculty, outstanding members of the university staff, visiting scholars, distinguished visitors to our campus.

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It's been a great eight years, and it's been a great education for me. It's been a real joy to sit down and talk with so many interesting people, and I hope that you have enjoyed it, too. And it's become a tradition these more recent years to begin each season of conversation with a chat about the upcoming football season and for that happy purpose.

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I have the honor of having is my guest this evening, head football coach Charlie Pell. And we'll be into what the new season portends in just a few moments. But before that, I want to say something about a change of time. For some years now, conversation has been on Monday evenings at 7 30 old habits are hard to change.

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But along with you, I'm going to have to be here in the studio next Monday night at seven o'clock and every Monday night thereafter. That's our new time conversation Monday nights at seven instead of 7 30. I suppose the station decided that since I had swamped people's court and family feud, they ought to put me up head to head against, uh, some other stiffer competition.

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So look out Green Acres and look out PM magazine and look out all you other programs in the seven o'clock slot. Here comes conversation. We're on a roll and I'll be back in a moment with my guest. Charlie Pill five Live presents Conversation from the University of Florida, a discussion of social, political, scientific and religious issues of the day.

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Your host is Dr Michael V. Gannon professor of history and ethics, an assistant dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida. My guest on this initial program of the 1983 84 season is head football coach Charlie Pell, in his fifth season as mentor of the Fighting Gators and Charlie, welcome back to conversation.

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It's good to be back, Mike. Thanks for having me back for the 83 opener Well, it's been quite a year for you so far. Let me talk about some things that you've had to struggle with first the N C double a investigation, then secondly, uh, the rumors that proved to be unfounded rumors that you were trying to get out of your Florida coaching contract and then, thirdly, the investigative reporting of the ST Petersburg Times.

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Let's take these in order first the N C double A investigation. What can you say publicly about it? Well, Mike is proceeding and they're doing a thorough job. We're learning a great deal from it from what we've learned, and I think it's going to be real helpful to us.

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I think it's going to be really important that everyone realizes that with the growth of the will become complicity of the rules and the Constitution as as it comes, there are so many things that can go wrong without anyone's knowledge, and I foresee in the near future that most schools will experience the same thing.

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I think that's gonna be a I think it's going to become a very common occurrence. I would not be surprised to see other schools in the South go through the same scrutiny. It has to be because a large number of investigators that the N C double has retained there their investigative staff has doubled and they're not going to sit on their hands out there in Kansas City or Shawnee Mission.

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I think it's I think it's the mark of the time. I think it's an effort on everyone's part two to make sure that it's done. And, uh, some things are reasonable and there are many other things that are questionable at the point. But I think it's a matter of growth.

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I think it's just a matter of of change, and it's a matter of the difference. Is with 100 less than 100 schools in the way this Division one which people call major college football. There are 600 other members, so what they're doing is they're looking at less than 100 members on rules at 700 people voted on, and I think that I think that we'll see we'll see more changes.

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I think it's gonna continue to change. I think it's something we'll just have to change with. Most of the problems seem to be associated with recruiting and occasionally one reads about violations of the N. C double A rules on recruiting not by the coaching staff but by alumni.

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Is there any way of controlling alumni in the context that they make with potential recruits? We think so, And I think the when a school is looked at, uh, it can be an innocent thing that can turn into an allegation. And it could be an honest intent because under the technical sense of the rule, if if a person happened to go by football practice or a football game and said Hello, you know, we'd sure like to see you at Florida, that's you know that's a violation and that could be perfectly innocent.

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Mhm. But it could come out as a violation. So it's that technical and it gets that pinpointed, Uh, but that's not their thrust. That's not what they're after, naturally, And I think it's important that all of us realize that they're not out to stop the the nickel and that other schools must have reported Florida.

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So for the first time in my coaching career, I'll be reporting other schools. I've never done it. You've never done that. We've never never since I've been coaching, but I intend to start. In other words, you're satisfied that much of what has happened recently is the result of charges made against Florida by the coaches of other schools in the conference.

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No question about it. Not necessarily the conference, but the area but the area. No question about it. Was your recruiting this year adversely affected by the investigation? Yes, we've already been penalized. We've been penalized immensely already. And had it not been for that, we would have had probably the the knockout punch of the whole, you know, because other schools could tell potential recruits.

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Look, if you go to Florida, you may not be able to play in a bowl. Game may not be able to play on television like that's part of recruiting, and it gets vicious. And you can imagine, you know, I can imagine how skeptical that makes people feel.

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We were in great position, for example, on five players, and what they are ironic things about it is that as the schools in the area and begin to try to take advantage of the situation, not a single one of them got the prospect they all went out of state Michigan, Ohio State, Pittsburgh.

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So in an effort, maybe to have a mm, some kind of kind of a backdoor gain. They ended up losing to in our entire state, ended up losing. But I've talked with more with you about this. Then I have I even wore my wife. Uh, our job is to cooperate, to learn from it, to gain strength.

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And the other thing is our job primaries. To make sure our football team is coached and prepared to play for the 1983 seasons. So it has not taken away from our workday. I will admit it has added some hours to our work day. Yes, but it has not.

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But it has not taken away something I would allow that, I'm sure. But something else that certainly took away some hours of repose was the set of rumors that came out last winter to the effect that you were trying to get out of your contract. Do you have any idea how those rumors began?

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Now, uh, they came from that great authority. Undisclosed sources, You know, that's an unimpeachable source. Uh, I worried about it for a while. and I had I had one person come to me and tell me. He said, You know, you'll have to. Don't worry about three of them.

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There are only two because I was one. I found out I was one. Didn't know I was. You were one of the three sources? No. He came to me and said that he was He was one of the 30 I say and he had talked with the sports editor and it was kind of funny because we're we're close, really close friends.

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And and so it was down to two. And then I began to think and find room to laugh about it. And I feel sorry for the sports editor because I think in his effort to do something, I think he was very, very, very unfair to someone who had been very honest with him for over four years.

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I know that you have been very open with the newspapers and particularly with the writer of whom you're speaking, uh, allowing him to all of the practices and and all of the other courtesies that you have extended over the years. Well, I can't be critical. I'm not being critical.

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I'm just saying you asked me that, and I have no animosity. I have no bad feelings about it. In fact, I can laugh about it more now, and, uh uhh. It's a maybe. It's one of the most healthy things to be in this type of profession.

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Might, because with the amount of work we have to do, we have a great great opportunity to immerse ourselves and our challenge, and we can laugh about the other things. I just hate for unknowing people to be confused or misled by the people they depend on for truth.

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Mm. Uh, and undisclosed sources. You know, they're so they're so they're so reliable. Charlie, can you also laugh about the ST Petersburg Times and its series of articles? Out of pity? Out of pity? Why do you say that? Well, I think there's a place for investigative journalism, Mike, you know, as a citizen, and I am a citizen, even though coach, so there's certainly a place for it.

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But I think this has gone far beyond what you know. What people have said to me is investigative journalism, because in the written responses that has been made by the University. They have pointed less than 5% of the university's response. And I always thought investigative journalism or any kind of journalism was both sides, and it almost seems like that they somewhere somebody has made a decision.

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And they've staff of investigative reporters working since December to prove that point. It almost seems that way to me, and they're not interested in the credible side. They've talked to every player whose ever been disciplined, who's ever quit the squad, who's ever been a who's ever been dismissed because of drugs because of cheating because of stealing are because of not attending practices are not living by any of the team rules.

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They will talk to that source and whatever he says is right. And the innocent person out, depending on the journalist to tell him the truth are both sides is the one who's really getting deprived. And, to be quite frank with you, Mike, I, uh, I will not talk to the same people reporter.

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I wouldn't talk to one as long as I live because I don't think they're being fair. Not just to Florida, but there's hundreds of thousands of people who read what they write that are depending on them for truth. Now, if they if they violate that obligation that I think they're putting shame on the word journalist, do they have a source in the person of a dismissed employee?

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The athletic Association? I don't know about that. I have no way of knowing where all their sources are. I just know that in the questions that they have asked us, and some of them, most recently happened to be a youngster, was dismissed for involvement in drugs and stealing missing practices.

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He was dismissed from the squad. Absolutely no character, absolutely none. But his statements cared as much weight as Mike Gannon's would. And I don't think that's quite a journalist somewhere. There's got to be a judgment on that thing because if a person reads what a journalist writes, he's got to depend on him for truth, because the journalists can.

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He can write what he wants to write, or what anyone says. When I read it, I would like to know that what he's writing has some credibility and that there at least two sides. All right, let's talk about something else, namely the athlete. As student there have been a lot of questions raised recently, not just at Florida, but all around the country, about the proper mix that ought to prevail between athletics and academics.

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And what are we really doing with scholarship athletes? Are we bringing them along to the point in which they truly have, uh, constructive credentials and skills to enable them to live after football to earn a living and make something out of their lives? There was a recent article.

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Well, as a matter of fact, it's in the current issue of The Atlantic Monthly. Dr Harry Edwards, professor of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley. He says that the college experience quote has been a treadmill to oblivion rather than the escalator to wealth and glory.

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It was believed to be by many athletes, the athlete who blindly sets out to fill the shoes of Dr J. Reggie Jay Magic J. Talking about he's talking about Dr Edwards, uh, not only had was published there, but he has written other articles I've read and and and he does have case in point.

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But on the same token, and not being in taking an opposite side. Ah, I think he could just about prove the other side by the numbers who have been extremely successful the right way through opportunities gained through athletics. And let's make sure we make a point.

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You're right about this attention that student athletes, competitive athletics, college athletics, high school athletics, professional athletics, athletics and athletes has been getting, and I think that's important. I think that's good, because I think it makes us all think. But I want to make sure that everyone listening understands that graduation percent of the student athlete is much higher than a normal student body, much higher the graduation percentage.

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Those that will stick to it stick and stay in there to graduate is a higher percentage than the normal student body. I know that's true. Our freshman class of 1979 by this December, hopefully, well, graduate 80% of those youngsters. I think that's, uh, anything less than 100% is going to be not gonna be good, but I think the attention they're focusing is right.

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I personally, I'm extremely pleased with the Rays bill that was passed in legislation this summer. I think it's important my son will soon be entering high school I think it's important to demand more them from them at the early age because once they're 18 and 19 years of age, if they don't have an academic background, that's where the problem is.

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And for athletes, the new rule 48 of the instrument is yes. Well, for anybody or anybody, you mean you know, the the students, the young people who come to that point in life when they're high school, graduate and have no education and have no opportunity and have no motivation, they're not.

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They're not established in an academic, uh, with an academic appetite. Now they're going to either go into, uh uh, the unemployment line. Are there going into the pushing drugs to make a living? Are there going in to find the easy way out because they don't have many choices for the most part now, for student athlete goes on and tries to get an education.

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That's where it's all focusing. So I think the Rays Bill has gone back to the sophomore year in high school, and I like, you know, I think people should be saluted. George Kirkpatrick worked very hard for that John meals, and it puts that pressure. Are they back into that younger age?

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Yeah, We don't want anybody in college that doesn't want a degree. I don't want even coach anybody that doesn't want to agree. I don't want to warn them around because their whole focus is wrong. There's no sense in them being in college if they're not here to gain a degree, whether they play football or whether they're a member of my my fraternity or an 80 oh fraternity brothers.

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If they're not here to get a degree, they don't belong in college. Even if they're good athletes, even if they're good athletes are great fraternity brothers or, uh, a good old guy. It doesn't make any difference. Well, that's a strong statement, and I know and I believe it.

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I know that you believe it. That's an outstanding philosophy, and it's one I'm sure that would impress a great number of people who, as I say have exhibited, is concerned about the mix that ought to prevail. Let's turn to football pure and simple, the game on the field.

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Let me just ask you some rapid fire football questions here. Do you think the best SC team of 10 years ago could beat the average SEC team of today. Yes, why? Because the best team of 10 years ago I would have to have a great defense on a great kicking game.

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Mhm. And they'd have to have the intangibles that it takes to be a champion. And so, despite the increase in weight and speed that we have seen in football players over the last decade, it is still possible for a great football team with less speed and less weight to play great football and beat well.

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I think today I think 10 years ago, I think the weight of the average weight of the team would probably be maybe 10 to £12 per man. Heavier, really, To be an average team in SEC today is not that much because there are a lot of good team.

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A champion has something different than size, speed and ability. Size, speed and ability doesn't win championships. And when you mentioned the best of 10 years ago, that's what you mean. That's where they are interpreted. That means they're a champion. It means that they can take those two or three Saturdays where normal people can't perform and they can find a way to get it done when normal people can't get the job done.

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And yes, I think they could beat an average team of 1983 and not because of talent, but because of spirit because of those other things things that the intangibles, things that make people different. Well, Florida is a team that has to have a lot of intangibles going for it, because it's about the only team I know with four natural rivals.

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Historically, they are Georgia, Auburn, Miami and, most recently, FSU. You have to play those four teams every year. You've managed to separate out two of them, playing Miami for openers and FSU at the close. But you still have to play Auburn and Georgia back to back every year.

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Why can't you make a separation between those two? The conference schedule was established some 10 12 years ago, maybe 15 years ago, and at that time, Bob Woodruff for Tennessee and Joe leaves at Georgia and the Coach Bryant at Alabama. And and at that time, they were the power structure in the league.

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And I honestly believe this, and I've talked to my coaching friends. Yep, Mississippi State in Kentucky, and I think when they made the conference round robin schedule the way they want it, they let the rest of us take what was left and and and and arranged it so that Georgia and Alabama did not have to play each other.

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Somebody made that arrangement down the line. Well, the power structure at that time, of course, I think Joe Leaves was a great leader for our conference. He's now retired. And of course, we've lost Coach Bryant. And, uh, of course, Bob Woodruff, who used to be at Florida.

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I think he's one of the great administrators in our league. He's one of the great leaders, and uh huh, I see that happening 10, 15 years ago. Now Bill Car is doing a good job, and we have tried to wedge again and there between Auburn and and Georgia.

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But don't you know? They know they know. Yeah, they know that Florida has not beaten Auburn and Georgia back to back with three times in the history of the whole school, so they know they've got us at a disadvantage, so they're not gonna let us up on that.

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And I think that's one of the reasons we have failed in years past at Florida. I'm going back a lot of years. I'm going back to the great teams of the sixties and raised them and raised great teams. When Steve was a quarterback, they couldn't win the championship, had a great team, had a great team, but they couldn't win that championship and schedule has something to do with it.

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You know, you're talking about charting, you know, sailing, unchartered waters. That's what we're talking about. For 1983 we're talking about going in the wilderness, and no one's ever traveled before. As far as getting into the destination. Now we've got a well worn trail for about eight Saturdays.

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We warn that trail out, but from that point on, it gets to be mysterious. And I think if we can find an intangible that I referred to earlier, if we could get every Florida person too, demanding that from everything Florida player he saw on campus at home on the street and just demand that because I care we might be able to bust through that old, dense jungle and find that path on those other three games, you've got two great challenges for openers in Miami in Southern Cow, You're playing the Miami here, Southern Cal there in a couple of minutes, we have remaining a thumbnail sketch of those two teams.

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What do you have to face? Mom has got the best thing they've had since we've been here. Southern Cal's got a new coach. We will have not seen Southern Cal play when we go out there. They were their opener. Miami will probably as difficult and a tougher team to beat as anybody we play.

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I really believe that. And I think Southern Cal because they have the mystique of the new coats and the pro offense, and we have not seen them play. We'll be preparing totally in the dark. They will be going into both weekends, Uh, with with A with a real real danger and we've got to be better than we can be in those first two weeks.

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Sometime during the year. Mike, we play some people who want we won't have to do that. We're gonna have to do that first two weeks. Miami has been a great passing team of late, and Southern Cal is famous for its running backs or do you expect to see those two strengths this year to Southern Cal is going more to the pro game.

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Their new coach, who will begin this year, is the passing type coach. He was an offensive coach at Brigham Young University who's renowned for their throwing at San Diego State, which they were renowned for their throwing. And the best we can tell from people who've worked with him in the past feel like he's more like the his offense, if they can.

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Now, is more like what the Washington Redskins ran last year. Two tight ends, two wives and one back. But they'll throw the football they love to throw it, and they really talked about it in the newspaper about throwing a football. So I think we'll be at a disadvantage.

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They're not having seen them play. And, of course, they will see us play Miami. Who does throw the ball well so we won't be able to dream up many tricks between the third of September and the 10th of September when we go to L. A. So I think the first two weeks again, uh, I'd said this all last year.

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We climbed that mountain we got up there, we we just couldn't. We couldn't. We didn't handle it. Well, well, I've got to accept the blame for that. Because But I got in my head coast, but and, uh, we did that three games and we lost a couple of players and our confidence began to get a little shake.

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And we didn't play the same way there for a couple of games, and we struggle. So I think the 83 seasons even tougher than that. I think our schedules tougher simply because we're on the road, right? Yes, you're on the road. As a matter of fact, we don't get to see you too much at Florida Field, but in any event will be listening on the radio.

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Some of us will go to the out of town games. We'll be pulling for you all the way. Charlie, thank you very much for being with me on conversation. And let me give this one final word to our viewers. Beginning next Monday night. We'll be on at seven o'clock and we hope to see you then.

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Thanks for being with me on conversation. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah,