TYPEWRITERS DROPPING FROM THE SKY

Last night, after the Gators, in their Lucky Blue Uniforms, with 21 points from Joakim Noah, crushed Villanova to become the Minneapolis Regional Champions in the NCAA Tournament, I checked out USA Today's basketball page on the internet. They already had the story of the Gator Triumph, the most decisive win of the Elite Eight games, within ten minutes of the final buzzer, FOR THE WHOLE WORLD TO SEE.

Communications really have changed in the computer age. Thanks to Algore's invention of the World Wide Web , Vast quantities of knowledge are literally at our fingertips.

It reminds me of my days as a Freshman at UF.

I covered the Gator Football games from the pressbox high aboave Florida Field for the Clearwater Sun. I was seventeen years old, and it was heady stuff watching Steve Spurrier play quarterback from what seemed like Mount Olympus.

We wrote our stories on our personal portable manual typewriters, during the game. Reporters from various State newpapaers and newspapers from the visiting team's staterubbed shoulders with yours truly...The typewriters sat on a ledge, open to the world. One nudge and a typewriter could go hurling onto the hapless fans in the seats below us. I always worried about that, but as far as I know, it never happened.

We were provided with Stats at the half and the end of the game, mineographed, as well as play-by-play descriptions. We had our stories written by the time the game ended with the exception of the opening 'graph. Then we turned them in to a kindly old colored gentleman, who saw to it that Western Union got them. The home games usually started at 2:00 p.m and were over by five or so, so there was plenty of time to meet a 10:00 p..m. deadline for Sunday's morning addition, so fans could read all about it twelve hours later.

For my mid week column, I would walk from campus to the Western Union Office and send a nite letter...

Quite a difference today, eh?

GO GATORS!!

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