In the Interim, Darnell Has Fun

Being a licensed pilot, Gary Darnell quickly got over his fear of flying as emergency head coach for Florida’s embattled football team.

“It’s like being up there in the X-15 every day,” Darnell says. “We fly as fast and as high and as hard as we can. It’s great when you’ve got all the systems going. You flick your wrist a little bit the wrong way and it could blow up.”

But that’s part of the job, part of the thrill.

“It’s been fun flying in the left seat,” he says.

Too bad about the ejector button on the console that’s about to be pushed.

As he heads into Saturday’s Freedom Bowl, Darnell has to feel a little like William Shatner in that “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” episode from “The Twilight Zone.” What’s that out on the wing? Oh my God, it’s . . . Steve Spurrier.

Spurrier is out there, all right, and that means Darnell may soon be out of there. Florida already has offered its head coaching job to Spurrier, the Gators’ 1966 Heisman Trophy winner, a hero from better bygone days coming home to clean up the current mess.

Spurrier, who currently coaches at Duke, has told some of his players and coaches that he won’t be back next season--and Darnell doesn’t have to be told what that means.

See ya later, interim Gator.

“Yeah, that’s the assumption,” Darnell said Thursday at a Freedom Bowl media luncheon at the Disneyland Hotel. “I don’t have any reason to think differently.”

And that doesn’t bother Darnell?

“I didn’t go to the University of Florida to be a head coach,” he said. “I pretty much assumed I’d be one sometime, someplace.

“Then, all this happened this year and it became a matter of responsibility. Someone had to move in and take charge and pull things together.”

Darnell was just another assistant coach, specializing in inside linebackers and down-home yarns, when, on Oct. 8, Galen Hall was forced to resign amid allegations of making illegal payments to players and coaches. Threats of NCAA probation loomed over the Gators’ heads. Florida needed someone to start bailing and Darnell was the one handed the bucket.

Darnell finished out the season, coaching the InvestiGators to a 3-3 record in their last six games. The losses? To No. 5-ranked Florida State (24-17), to No. 9 Auburn (10-7) and to Georgia (17-10).

Not bad, considering that in the interim, Darnell lost his starting quarterback (charge: betting on college football games) and his starting defensive tackle (charge: sexual assault) to various crimes and misdemeanors.

At Florida, as Darnell has learned, there’s always something.

“Besides being a head coach here, you have to deal with so many other things,” he said. “There’s a uniqueness about Florida. You’re never handling a situation that’s routine. And if there was ever an interview under fire (that had to be done), I did it.”

If the Gators are unique, and that’s one way of putting it, Darnell was the right man for the job.

Reared in the nooks and crannies of Oklahoma and Arkansas, the 40-year-old most definitely has his own way of looking at things.

When the heat was first starting to come down on Florida, first with the loss of Hall and then with the suspension of quarterback Kyle Morris, Darnell studied the facts and drawled, “Daddy got drunk and went to jail. . . . Now it’s time for the family to pull together and help each other out.”

When the Florida athletic department announced it was beginning a national search for Hall’s replacement, Darnell said he was glad. “The best thing about that is, I’m in the nation,” he mused.

Darnell also has these theories.

For one, he believes his Florida players are biologically different than the Washington Huskies that will line up against them Saturday.

“It’s because of our heat factor,” he says. “Because we’re constantly exposed to the heat, our bodies’ compositions are different.

“If you’re in a cooler climate, the body naturally pads itself against it. We played in 110 degrees against the University of Miami. If it gets below 50 (degrees), our players get worried.”

He also believes that intense football, really intense football, can be played for only short periods of time.

“It’s like Atlas,” he said, referring to the mythological titan who was assigned to supporting the planet Earth on his shoulders. “You hold that thing that long, you’re gonna get tired.”

Darnell knows about intensity. In his words, Gator football attracts “the most intense media scrutiny in the state of Florida. We have the second-highest request for press credentials in the country. Notre Dame is No. 1. . . . We’re the largest sporting event in Florida, bigger than the Dolphins, bigger than Tampa Bay. No one gets the exposure we get.”

Getting used to it was more difficult than getting to the Freedom Bowl.

But Darnell’s a quick study. Still publicly undecided about his starting quarterback this weekend, Darnell squirmed free from several questions about the matter before someone Thursday asked him, “OK, who’s going to be your backup quarterback?”

Darnell grinned across the dais and said, “See what I mean? I get this five days a week.”

Then, without missing another beat, Darnell playfully shot back his answer: “The guy who I don’t decide to start.”

It could be worse, Darnell reckons.

“I’ve been treated really good,” he says. “The media, the fans, the administrations--they’ve almost been too kind. If I was the regular guy and I lost to Georgia, I’d be blistered. But I wasn’t. There’s a small amount of compassion allowed for that.”

As a coach, Darnell describes himself as “just a good organizer.” And as a pilot?

“Oh,” he says with a smile, “you wouldn’t want to get in an airplane with me.”

Funny, but with Darnell at the controls, the flight at Florida has been about as smooth as it ever gets down there.