Former Gators linebacker Gerold Dickens during the 40-year celebration of Florida's 1984 SEC Championship in 2024 at The Swamp. (Photo: Maddie Washburn/UAA Communications)
Carter's Corner: Remembering Gators Gerold Dickens and Willie Wilder
Saturday, August 1, 2026 | Football, Scott Carter
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By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Over the years, whenever an occasional story appeared on former Gators linebacker Gerold Dickens, it would often include details about his office.
It didn't matter where Dickens was working when a reporter stopped by to chat. He had an array of jobs after a brief NFL career with the New England Patriots ended due to a knee injury in the late 1980s.
Dickens spent time as a probation and parole officer, a private investigator for the public defender's office in Tampa, and as president of the Plant City Colts, the same youth football organization he grew up in. Dickens later spent time as an assistant football coach at Tampa Bay Tech, head coach at Strawberry Crest High in the Tampa area, and in recent years, as head of the Next Level Sports Academy and ProActive College Recruiting. Gerold Dickens during his UF playing career. (Photo: UAA archives)
Wherever he went, Dickens used memorabilia from his playing career to decorate his office and inspire the young people he spent much of his professional life trying to help. Many of the players and students came from broken homes with fractured connections to their parents.
"When 13- and 14-year-olds think their lives are over, the most gratifying thing is to see their faces light up and see there's hope,'' Dickens once told the Tampa Tribune. "The hardest thing is they have so much rage and animosity built up toward their parents. Why aren't they like other kids with moms and dads? Why are they in foster care? I get them refocused on what they can accomplish.
"I stir up dreams in them because I'm a dreamer. I've always been a dreamer."
Dickens' pursuit of the possibilities life has to offer took him from Plant City, where he was a star football player, to the University of Florida. He spent five seasons at UF (1983-87) and was part of the 1984 Gators team that won the program's first Southeastern Conference championship. He returned to Florida Field in 2024 with his teammates to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the on-field championship, a celebration that Dickens helped organize.
Dickens finished his career with one of his most memorable moments, intercepting UCLA quarterback Troy Aikman in the 1987 Aloha Bowl.
After a redshirt season in 1986 because of a toe injury, Dickens turned in his best season as a fifth-year senior in 1987, starting alongside Pat Moorer at inside linebacker.
"Gerold Dickens has been our best inside linebacker performer of the year,'' then-Gators coach Galen Hall said that season. "We thought he had the ability to play the way he has. He's been a big plus for our defense."
He earned a degree in criminology and a minor in business at UF, paving the way for his future. In the end, Dickens' life had much greater meaning after football. All you need to do is search his name on Facebook since his death at age 61 on July 23.
"I can only think of good things when this man's name was associated with it! Very impactful and cared deeply about his fellow man!" — Former UF receivers coach Dwayne Dixon
"tho [sic] we only knew you for a few years, you touched the life of my son more than you will ever know ... you were loved and will be missed so much by so many." — Chasity Rademacher
"Gerold, you changed the lives of so many young men and women with your love, compassion, and commitment to help, nurture and direct their passions to be the best at who they were and what they wanted to be in this life. You will be missed by so many! It was an honor to have played in the Swamp with you 40-plus years ago." — Former UF player Ron Moten
Gerold Devan Dickens was born Nov. 19, 1964. He lived out many of his dreams before taking his final breath. A celebration of life for Dickens is scheduled Saturday, Aug. 8, at Greater New Hope Anointed Ministries, 2104 Mud Lake Road in Plant City.
More than a decade after his playing career ended, with his first NFL contract on the wall of his office with his name misspelled as "Gerald" Dickens, the former football star was at peace in doing whatever he could to help the dream of others come true.
"I can't complain about the way my life has been,'' he said. "The way it's shaped me. I've been able to influence kids for the better. I get a lot of fulfillment by helping the kids."
*****
A decade before Dickens arrived in Gainesville from Plant City, Willie Wilder blazed his trail from Polk County to UF. Wilder, from the small community of Loughton, made a name for himself as a football and track star at Haines City High School in the early 1970s.
People in that neck of the woods still refer to those glory days for the Hornets as the "Willie Wilder Years." In a reader's poll in 2007 to commemorate 100 years of high school football in Polk County, the 1973 Hornets were voted as the Team of the Century. Former UF running back Willie Wilder. (Photo: UAA archives)
Wilder was the star, a lightning-quick running back/receiver whose 73-yard catch-and-run score in the 1973 state championship game accounted for the game's only score in a 7-0 win over Delray Beach Atlantic. The Hornets finished 13-0 and outscored opponents 370-31 in the regular season. He capped a sensational senior season by winning the 100-yard dash state title with a record time of 9.6 seconds, which stood for 11 years.
When it was time for college, then-Gators coach Doug Dickey was thrilled to add Wilder to a team built around speed.
"If Willie gets some daylight and even a half-a-step, he is long gone,'' Dickey said. "You get him headed north-and-south and hope it becomes a footrace. It's no contest."
Wilder made headlines in track for the Gators before football. He also made the New York Times when he set a then-world record in the indoor 60-yard dash, upsetting Reggie Jones, the NCAA 220‐yard champion from Tennessee, and Ivory Crockett, co-holder of the world record for 100 yards, at the Northeast Ohio Knights of Columbus Games in February 1976.
"This is the biggest win of my career,'' Wilder said.
Wilder emerged as a dangerous threat for UF's offense as a sophomore and led the team with 654 yards rushing as a junior in 1976. He reeled off a 91-yard touchdown run in a win over Mississippi State – the longest run by a Gator since Herb McAnly had a 91-yard run in 1932 – and led the Gators with 102 yards rushing in the infamous loss to Georgia in 1976. The Gators led 27-20 when Dickey went for it from UF's 29 on fourth-and-1 midway into the third quarter. Earl Carr was stopped short of the first down, and the Bulldogs went on to win 41-27.
Meanwhile, Wilder continued to run and finished his career with 1,451 yards and 14 scores from 1974-77. The Green Bay Packers selected Wilder in the fifth round of the 1978 draft, but he was never able to crack the rotation. He bounced around professional football for a few years, with stints in the Canadian Football League, American Football Association, and later camp tryouts with the Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Bucs.
Willie Wilder with family and friends in later years. (Photo: Courtesy of Wilder's family via Facebook).
Working as a security guard at Disney World in 1983, he got a final shot at professional football from the Tampa Bay Bandits and made the team with several other former UF players. The Bandits head coach, of course, was Steve Spurrier.
Willie B. Wilder, born Sept. 19, 1955, died on July 3. He was 70 and spent his final years living in the Atlanta area. A memorial service was held in Orlando on July 18.
