1974 Gator Flashback

[gatorman001]

3 guys from the Sarasota/Charlotte county area were starters on this team - Tony Green (Sarasota Riverview), Jimmy Dubose (Sarasota HS), Burton Lawless (Charlotte HS) and as a side note Alabama had Buddy Pope from Manatee HS on its team....not bad for an area which at the time had low population density.


Go Canes Go!

 

[Silver King]

That's a good one, I'm going to have to send that to Burton tonight. I never got to see him play once in college. He graduated a year ahead of me, and I headed out to Kansas - I was playing on Saturdays too the entire time. And he played when Freshman couldn’t play on varsity in NCAA. That changed my Freshman year.

I saw him in an All-Star game with another of our teammates, Harold “The Blond Bomber” Mack who I think led the state in rushing that year. He was heading to FSU.

As me and some other teammates (who played at a rival KCAC school) were heading out to Kansas our senior year, we stopped and said hello to him at the Senior Bowl in Mobile. Go to visit for an hour.

Being out West, I did get to see a lot of his Rookie Season when he started for the Cowboys.

Thanks for sharing gm.

 

[gatorman001]

So I was just checking the Tarpons out and saw that Burton was on the OL his Junior year, but was moved to TE his senior year.......(number changed from 75 to 84, but there again your number changed to from 55 to 67?), saw too that you guys only loss during the regular season was to Palmetto 7-6. Palmetto that year only lost to Venice during the regular season, but had a 13-13 tie against Southeast in the season's final regular season game......is that what cost them getting into the playoffs instead of you guys?

Go Canes Go!

 

[Silver King]

You're quite the sleuth. That tie to SE was huge in 69, they were highly touted. Yeah, I started as guard as a soph, wore 55, missed two starts with a broken collarbone (that I didn't know had broken for years). Burton was banged up, so they moved me back to his OT spot so he could concentrate on D (OLB). My junior year, 1970 I moved back to guard - we ran the hell out of that Tarpon Sweep, I had asked to change to 67.

We beat Venice that year (Lawless was a Sr) and the next for the old Coral Coast Conference and District Titles, the first in Charlotte's history. Those Venice games were pretty big deals, biggest crowds we ever played in front of until Regional Final when we upset Tarpon Springs.

I went to college with the guy who played over me that game, and Burton went to the FL with the guy he played over.

We realy underused Burton on offense, we had two 1,000 yard backs and our QB Boo Boo Weaver could run too (He was our All-state MLB, we had the reputation as a toughphysical team in the day that Charlotte has carried as an identity since we usually don't have consistent size and talen't ) Burton did catch a big TD against Venice his Sr year, my Junior. But it was a beautiful thing taking my first step to lead a sweep and seeing him cave that side of the defense in.