The James E. Horner Hitting Facility at Florida Ballpark provides Gators baseball players a state-of-the-art resource to work on their approach at the plate. (Photo: UAA Boosters, Inc.)
Horner's Ties To Florida Ballpark Stretch Far Beyond Hitting Facility
Tuesday, March 1, 2022 | Baseball, Scott Carter
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By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida Ballpark is the gleaming new home of the Gators baseball team, still being broken in like a fresh glove. James E. Horner – his friends and acquaintances call him Jimmy – has been one of the regulars in the ballpark's brief existence.
"I went to almost every game last year even with the reduced capacity,'' he said recently. "It's beautiful. I love it."
When Horner looks around, he sees the green grass, the golden dirt of the diamond, the palm trees swaying in the wind. But Horner has a deeper appreciation of the surroundings than the casual fan.
The retired former global leader for International Donor Organizations at Deloitte Consulting is an avid baseball fan. A UF graduate, Horner is a longtime Gators season-ticket holder, and as his career took him to different parts of the country, Horner owned season tickets for the Braves, Red Sox and Nationals. He was in Houston in 2019 when the Nationals defeated the Astros in Game 7 to win the World Series, the franchise's first world championship and the first World Series victory for a team from the nation's capital since the Senators and Hall of Fame pitcher Walter Johnson won a title in 1924.
James E. Horner was a regular at Florida Ballpark during the reduced-capacity inaugural season in 2021. (Photo: Courtesy of Horner)
Still, Horner's attachment to Florida's baseball program and its home carries beyond the playing field and box scores. Horner spent much of his childhood on the patch of land where Florida Ballpark resides, a plot where vegetables and fruit were once grown and studied by IFAS, UF's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.
His father, late UF agronomy professor Earl S. Horner, grew cross-bred hybrid corn and alfalfa crops to be studied on plots currently occupied by the ballpark's footprint.
"Where the overflow parking lot is, that was his cornfield,'' Horner said. "I spent my young years out there helping him move irrigation pipes because we pulled water out of Lake Alice."
While IFAS maintains gardens adjacent to the stadium – they are located off Ballpark Way and Citrus Drive – Horner's deep roots to the location recently added a permanent identity: the James E. Horner Hitting Facility. Horner has contributed financially to the University Athletic Association for many years, and has served on the Gator Boosters Board of Directors. Horner contributed in a big way to Florida Ballpark with a naming gift.
First, he wanted to help financially with the new ballpark, and second, he donated a naming gift with a vision.
"The baseball stadium really excited me as well, not only because it was going to be a brand-new facility and I love the sport, but also how together, with the reorganization of the football operating center, I thought that made a lot of sense,'' Horner said. "The hitting facility, which I toured when it was first built, is just an impressive product, and it's sort of a standalone building and out of the way. That's where we landed on that opportunity."
A look inside the James E. Horner Hitting Facility at Florida Ballpark. (Photo: Tim Casey/UAA Communications)
Considering Horner's long affinity for the game, his name attached to the hitting facility makes sense, too.
His two childhood sports idols knew a thing or two about hitting: Mickey Mantle and Hank Aaron.
One of Horner's favorite baseball memories is the time he got to meet Mantle at UF. In the early years after George Steinbrenner bought the New York Yankees in 1973, they would make a stop on the UF campus for an exhibition game against the Gators before heading to Yankee Stadium for the summer.
Then retired, Mantle attended one of the games, and Horner, who tagged along with his father to countless Gators baseball games at old Perry Field, visited with "The Mick."
"I was able to meet him and get his autograph,'' Horner said. "It wouldn't have happened if it wasn't at the University of Florida."
Horner was born in Gainesville and attended P.K. Yonge, UF's developmental research school, from kindergarten through high school. He played baseball as a senior but spent much of his high school years preparing for his business career. UF graduate James E. Horner has been a long-time contributor to Gator Boosters, Inc. (Photo: Courtesy of Horner)
He started a landscape business when he was 12, and by the time he was 16, Horner was subcontracting some of the work.
"That helped me understand that I wanted to get a business degree,'' he said.
When it was time for college, Horner applied to only one school. He graduated from UF with a business degree. He started his career as a banking supervisor and regulatory policy specialist for the Office of the Comptroller of Currency (a branch of the U.S. Treasury) in Atlanta.
Horner later moved into the private sector, eventually landing at Deloitte in a career that has taken him worldwide. Horner said he has visited 173 countries, about half of those for work.
While he has traveled the world and has retired with homes in Gainesville, Jacksonville Beach, and West Virginia's mountains, sitting in the stands at Florida Ballpark remains one of his favorite places.
When he's there, Horner recalls days of attending former Gators baseball coach Dave Fuller's camps as a kid, taking in games with his father or memorable games as a fan.
"I got started at a young age,'' he said.
Earl S. Horner passed away a few years ago at age 99. He earned his undergraduate degree at Washington State, his master's at Michigan State, and his doctorate at Cornell, where he met Jimmy's late mother, Martha. After the couple married in 1948, Earl's career brought him to Gainesville.
More than 70 years later, his son James E. Horner carries on the family's longstanding ties to UF.
"He grew up in the Great Depression, born on a farm homestead in Western Colorado that did not survive the tough financial times of the day," Horner said. "He had older brothers and sisters who made sure he had a place to live and got through school."
