Florida Gators
Lady Buckeye Day Two
Embedded With the Gators: Foley's vision is Foley's reality
Thursday, March 22, 2012 | Men's Basketball, Women's Golf, Chris Harry
PHOENIX -- Jeremy Foley was up early this morning and getting his workout in at the health club adjacent to the team hotel.
The Florida athletics director had wrapped up his run and lift and was on his way out when he walked past Gators assistant coach John Pelphrey jogging on a treadmill.
Foley broke into a handclap.
“All right, let's go,” Foley yelled. “This is why we do what we do.”
To play in big games. To compete for championships.
That was Foley's vision, of course, for UF basketball when he went looking for a coach in 1996 after Lon Kruger, who guided the Gators to the only Final Four in school history, bolted Gainesville for Illinois.
Kruger never saw Florida as a program that could not sustain long-term success. Foley, though, saw one with a lack of long-term success that was confounding. The Gators were good in everything else, if not great. Why not basketball?
In fact, at the time, Foley gladly would have traded that one Final Four, precious as it was, for eight or nine trips in a row to the NCAA, results be damned. Those pockets of success were nice, but Foley was after a constant basketball buzz, with fans talking about seeding and potential sites in February.That was his vision.
Hello Billy Donovan.
Now, on the day of the program's sixth Sweet 16 date since 1999 -- and the 12th “March Madness” run in the last 14 seasons -- that vision is reality.
“Loved every one of them,” Foley said. “This time of year, winning never gets old.”
