If the answer to the title question of this post is a resounding "HELL YES!", then take note: you'll need $12,000 dollars a year and, like seemingly anyone in Florida with substantial amounts of money, no remaining sanity. Remember: poor people are "dirty and crazy," while rich people exhibiting signs of mental illness are "eccentric."
If a Florida blogger sounds like we do, you know a booster would look like this.
Back in the Swamp I am confronted by a battle-ax-wielding man wearing a horned helmet and a fur-lined cape: "I am Hjalmar, son of John! I am a Gator Viking ready to beat Auburn!" As Hjalma Johnson breaks into a belly laugh and shakes my hand, I try to imagine him on stage accepting the presidency of the Florida Bankers Association in this very costume, as he did in 1983.
Hjalma is, of course, a very wealthy lunatic with a past in investment banking and very, very good seats to the game. The most intriguing bit about the brief profile of the cash-pissing loons who make Florida's football money machine hum: according to many, you can trace its real beginnings as a behemoth to Charley Pell, not Steve Spurrier. Per the piece, Pell was the one who got boosters "too excited," thus bringing in tides of money, and the requisite probation along with it.
And yes, we're going to attempt to do shots with Hjalma next time we're out of the game, and drink the beer chaser from the horned helmet. And then, we will unsuccessfully badger him for tickets as security removes us from his plush luxury box. Look for the man in plastic zip-cuffs and a bucket hat being thrown from the mezzanine level into the crowd.
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