G8RB8R
VIP Member
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4we7HbU4QfI"]YouTube - 1940 University of Florida Season Highlights[/ame]
1940 University of Florida Football Highlights
Highlights of the 1940 University of Florida homecoming game and of the Florida vs Ga Tech game played in Atlanta. Most notable about this game is that it was the first time UF had beaten both Georgia and Georgia Tech in the same season.
1940
Season overview
The 1940 college football season was the first for Thomas J. "Tom" Lieb as the head coach of the Florida Gators football team. Lieb was the former coach of the Loyola Lions, and had previously served as Knute Rockne's primary assistant and on-the-field replacement while Rockne was in the hospital during most of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish's 1930 national championship season. The highlights of the Gators' 1940 season included victories over the Maryland Terrapins (19--0), the Georgia Bulldogs (18--13), the Miami Hurricanes (46--6) and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (16--7). Lieb's 1940 Florida Gators finished with a 5--5 overall record and a 2--3 record in the Southeastern Conference (SEC), placing eighth among thirteen SEC teams.
Fergie Ferguson Award
The award takes its name from Forest King "Fergie" Ferguson, one of the University of Florida's greatest all-around athletes. He entered the university in the fall of 1938, after having been a star end for the Stuart High School in Stuart, Florida. Ferguson was a three-year starter at offensive end and defensive end, "playing both ways," from 1939 to 1941. His school pass-receiving records remained unbroken until the 1960s, when quarterbacks Steve Spurrier and John Reaves began to throw passes to star receivers Charles Casey, Richard Trapp, and All-American Carlos Alvarez in pro passing schemes.
Ferguson was a first-team All-American in football in 1941. The following year, he was the State of Florida collegiate boxing champion and won the National AAU javelin throw with a distance of 203 feet, 6 and 1/2 inches. He graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor's degree in education in 1942.
Several months after the United States entered World War II, Ferguson joined the U.S. Army as a second lieutenant in 1942. On June 6, 1944, he led an infantry platoon of the 29th Infantry Division in the Allies' D-Day landings on Omaha Beach in Nazi-occupied Normandy, France. Ferguson and his men were pinned down on the beach by heavy rifle, machine gun and artillery fire from the German defenders, and their advance was blocked by extensive barbed wire and other enemy obstacles. Ferguson rose under fire, cleared a passage through the enemy obstacles with a Bangalore torpedo, and was gravely wounded in leading his men in a direct frontal assault against the enemy. Ferguson was awarded the U.S. Army's Distinguished Service Cross, the nation's second highest medal for gallantry in combat, for his service on June 6, 1944. He never recovered from his wounds, and died ten years later.
1940 University of Florida Football Highlights
Highlights of the 1940 University of Florida homecoming game and of the Florida vs Ga Tech game played in Atlanta. Most notable about this game is that it was the first time UF had beaten both Georgia and Georgia Tech in the same season.
1940
Season overview
The 1940 college football season was the first for Thomas J. "Tom" Lieb as the head coach of the Florida Gators football team. Lieb was the former coach of the Loyola Lions, and had previously served as Knute Rockne's primary assistant and on-the-field replacement while Rockne was in the hospital during most of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish's 1930 national championship season. The highlights of the Gators' 1940 season included victories over the Maryland Terrapins (19--0), the Georgia Bulldogs (18--13), the Miami Hurricanes (46--6) and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (16--7). Lieb's 1940 Florida Gators finished with a 5--5 overall record and a 2--3 record in the Southeastern Conference (SEC), placing eighth among thirteen SEC teams.
Fergie Ferguson Award
The award takes its name from Forest King "Fergie" Ferguson, one of the University of Florida's greatest all-around athletes. He entered the university in the fall of 1938, after having been a star end for the Stuart High School in Stuart, Florida. Ferguson was a three-year starter at offensive end and defensive end, "playing both ways," from 1939 to 1941. His school pass-receiving records remained unbroken until the 1960s, when quarterbacks Steve Spurrier and John Reaves began to throw passes to star receivers Charles Casey, Richard Trapp, and All-American Carlos Alvarez in pro passing schemes.
Ferguson was a first-team All-American in football in 1941. The following year, he was the State of Florida collegiate boxing champion and won the National AAU javelin throw with a distance of 203 feet, 6 and 1/2 inches. He graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor's degree in education in 1942.
Several months after the United States entered World War II, Ferguson joined the U.S. Army as a second lieutenant in 1942. On June 6, 1944, he led an infantry platoon of the 29th Infantry Division in the Allies' D-Day landings on Omaha Beach in Nazi-occupied Normandy, France. Ferguson and his men were pinned down on the beach by heavy rifle, machine gun and artillery fire from the German defenders, and their advance was blocked by extensive barbed wire and other enemy obstacles. Ferguson rose under fire, cleared a passage through the enemy obstacles with a Bangalore torpedo, and was gravely wounded in leading his men in a direct frontal assault against the enemy. Ferguson was awarded the U.S. Army's Distinguished Service Cross, the nation's second highest medal for gallantry in combat, for his service on June 6, 1944. He never recovered from his wounds, and died ten years later.
