GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Florida coach Todd Golden already has a spot picked out for the Final Four net he cut down in San Antonio.
On Saturday, though, it felt right at home around his neck.
Golden and the Gators were revered in another national championship celebration, this one in front of nearly 60,000 fans at Florida Field during an extended halftime of the annual football spring game. The hoops team has one more get-together on tap: at the White House, presumably this summer.
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“It’s just absurd,” Golden said. “Today was awesome. … Our guys, especially our older guys, are going to be moving on to go train for the draft. You don’t know if they’re going to be around.
“To be able to put something like this together on kind of short notice and do a great job honoring our players in front of our fans, which to me is the most important thing. People that have been supporting us really all year got to see these guys together again one last time. It was special.”
Golden wore the remnants of one of the nets from the Alamodome; center Micah Handlogten wore the other. Walter Clayton Jr., Alijah Martin and Will Richard carried trophies into the Swamp.
Highlights from Florida’s six NCAA Tournament victories flashed on the stadium replay boards as players and coaches were introduced one by one. Clayton, named most outstanding player of the Final Four, and Golden — hardly surprisingly — received the loudest ovations.
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Gainesville Mayor Harvey Ward presented Golden with a key to the city “so you’ll always know where home is.”
Golden might not be going anywhere anytime soon. The coach said he and athletic director Scott Stricklin are close to a contract extension. Four of the past five national championship-winning coaches at Florida — J.C. Deacon (men’s golf), Mike Holloway (track and field), Kevin O’Sullivan (baseball) and Tim Walton (softball) — signed 10-year deals in the wake of their titles. Could Golden be next?
“My family and I love being here,” said Golden, who made $3.6 million this season and ranks 12th in the Southeastern Conference in annual salary. “In three short years, we’ve been able to meet a lot of great people and get comfortable. Florida’s a place that we can win national championships, as we just proved. Yeah, we love being here.
“Scott and I have been talking a lot. I feel like we’re very close to putting something together that will keep the Goldens in Gainesville for quite a while. I think in the next week or two, we’ll get to the finish line on that.”
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Golden unveiled a working poster of the program’s third championship banner, which will be hung in the O’Connell Center to open next season. He also took time to thank fans and several key boosters, one of whom donated $1 million to the program this week. The Gators also have an $8 million renovation to their practice facility on tap this summer.
“At this point in college athletics, it’s the lifeblood,” he said. “And the reality of it is we need a lot more. We need a lot more to retain our players. We have a good problem right now. We have a lot of great players in our program that we need to support and retain, and we need to get a couple guys.”
Clayton, Martin and Richard have exhausted their eligibility and will moving on, and Golden said big man Alex Condon will go through the NBA’s pre-draft testing process to see whether he turns pro or returns to school.
“If we’re fortunate enough to get Alex back, I think we’ll have one of the strongest front lines in America,” Golden said. “We’re deep there. We’re athletic now. We’re very accomplished. Guys have played a lot of minutes on a really good team.”
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The Gators finished 36-4 and won their final 12 games. They won four of six in the tournament by rallying late: “Beat the odds to say the least,” Golden quipped.
The 39-year-old Golden became the youngest coach since North Carolina State’s Jim Valvano in 1983 to win it all. Golden flung what was left of the net around his neck Monday night and still had it on when the team returned home Tuesday afternoon.
He insisted Saturday he hasn’t slept in it or even thought much about it since.
“But I wanted to bust it out for today,” he said. “This will be, along with some other important mementos over the last month, in my office at home. … This is a little more important and a little more impactful on the trophy shelf now.”
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