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The 1902 East Florida Seminary football team represented the East Florida Seminary in Gainesville, Florida in the sport of American football during the 1902 college football season.
The 1903 East Florida Seminary football team represented the East Florida Seminary in Gainesville, Florida in the sport of American football during the 1903 college football season. This was not the modern Florida Gators of the University of Florida, which began in 1906, but one of its four predecessor institutions. The team split two games with the University of Florida at Lake City, defeated in-state rivals Florida State College and Stetson by identical scores of 16 to 0, then wrapped up the campaign with a tie and a loss to an amateur squad from Tampa.
The history of Florida Gators football began in 1906, when the newly established "University of the State of Florida" fielded a football team during its first full academic year of existence. The school's name was shortened to the University of Florida in 1908, and the football team gained the nickname "Gators" in 1911. The program started small, usually playing six to eight games per season against small colleges and local athletic club teams in north Florida and south Georgia. The Orange and Blue developed early rivalries with the Stetson Hatters from nearby Deland and Mercer Bears from Macon. During the 1910s, Florida began playing a wider range of opponents from more established football programs across the southeastern United States and faced off against several future rivals - such as Georgia, Georgia Tech, South Carolina, and Auburn - for the first time.
The East Florida Seminary was an institution of higher learning established by the State of Florida in 1853, and absorbed into the newly established University of Florida in 1905. The school operated in Ocala from 1853 until 1861. After being closed during the Civil War, the school re-opened in Gainesville, Florida in 1866.
References
- 1 2 "Polk's First Football Game". Lakeland Ledger. November 24, 2002.
- ↑ Armstrong, Orland K. (1928). The life and work of Dr. A.A. Murphree. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida. p. 41. Retrieved 20 April 2019.
- ↑ "Clipped from the Tampa Tribune". The Tampa Tribune. 19 November 1904. p. 1.
- ↑ America's Lost Colleges