RIP, Norm Carlson — a Gators legend who represented a better day in sports journalism | Commentary

The legendary Norm Calson helped tell the story of Florida Gators football in an era before mega-million-dollar head coaches and mega-billion-dollar TV contracts.

I don’t know who or what I miss more.

Norm Carlson …  or the era of sports journalism he represented.

Carlson — or Mr. C,  as he was known by some of us then-student journalists at the University of Florida — was the most media-friendly sports publicist I ever encountered and once upon a time gave us Gainesville sports writers and broadcasters unlimited access to the inner sanctum of Gators football.

Norm invited us to eat lunch with the head coach of the Gators every Tuesday and granted us exclusive one-on-one interviews with UF players every day after practice. He invited the professional journalists to a “press social” at the house of the head coach every Saturday night after home games where reporters would have a couple of beers with the coach and get the real story of what happened at the game a few hours earlier.

Those days died long ago.

Norm Carlson died on Friday.

He was 91.

You probably didn’t know Norm, but you should have. He is a UF legend who helped tell the story of Gators football in a bygone era before mega-million-dollar head coaches and mega-billion-dollar TV contracts.

Florida icon Steve Spurrier used to jokingly tell audiences on the Gator Club speaking tour that “when the University of Florida was moved from Lake City to Gainesville in 1906, Norm Carlson was driving the lead wagon.”

Actually, Norm didn’t begin working at his alma mater until 1963 and spent more than 40 years as the sports information director and assistant athletic director for communications. He attended nearly 500 consecutive UF games and more than 5,000 training sessions, where he would sit with the local media on the grass underneath an old oak tree and watch the Gators practice.

“I’m gonna miss Uncle Norm,” Spurrier said Friday night upon learning of Carlson’s death. “Everybody loved Norm. He built relationships with the media throughout the country.”

In fact, it was Norm who was largely responsible for helping Spurrier win the state’s first Heisman Trophy in 1966. Carlson worked the telephones every Monday, calling influential sports writers and Heisman voters from coast to coast to tell them of Spurrier’s exploits. He would also ship film of Spurrier’s highlights to TV stations across the nation.

Spurrier clinched the trophy in the seventh game that season when — even though he wasn’t the team’s regular kicker — he persuaded coach Ray Graves to let him attempt what was then considered an exceptionally long 40-yard field goal in the closing minutes against Auburn. Spurrier’s game-winning kick beat Auburn 30-27 in a game witnessed by many members of the national media whom Carlson persuaded to attend the game.

Atlanta Constitution writer John Logue famously wrote after the game: “Facing a firing squad — blindfolded with his back to the wall and his hands tied behind him — Steve Spurrier would be a two-point favorite at his own execution.”

Norm was also partly responsible for Spurrier giving UF’s football stadium the iconic nickname of “The Swamp.” When Spurrier was looking for a name that epitomized the intimidating nature of the stadium, Carlson pointed to a plaque he had hanging in his office. On the plaque was the inscription: “When you are up to your ass in alligators, it’s difficult to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.”

And, thus, the Swamp was born.

Speaking of Carlson’s office, the door was literally always open. When I first started in the business, the Gators had a tiny media room on the third floor of the stadium, and Norm’s office was right down the hall.

Often as a young writer, I’d be sitting there in that media room struggling to craft an article and I’d walk unannounced through Norm’s open door to ask a historical question about UF or college football in general. Norm would automatically know the answer, and while you were talking to him, he might even give you a good angle for the story you were writing.

Recalls retired Gainesville Sun writer Robbie Andreu: “When I was a student, I started out as a part-time stringer covering the Gators for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. My first day on the job, Norm brought me up to his office and said, ‘Here’s some typing paper; there’s a typewriter down the hall and when you’re done with your story, we’ll send it [via the telecopier] for you.’ Norm didn’t know me at all, but he took care of me. He always took care of the local media.”

Norm, FSU’s Wayne Hogan and other college sports information directors of that era understood that the local writers and broadcasters were simply conduits to the fans and season-ticket holders. The more they helped the media tell the story of the team, the more interest it built among the fan base.

Joel Glass, the Orlando Magic’s chief communications officer, got his start in sports publicity while working underneath Carlson at UF. I consider Glass to be one of the best in the business because he often reaches out to the local media with what he thinks might be a good human-interest story about a Magic player or coach. Too many PR people think that sending out sanitized press releases or putting an athlete on a podium for a mass interview is the extent of their job.

“Mr. C taught us how to be storytellers,” Glass says. “He taught us that it wasn’t just the facts or the stats that people are going to remember, it’s the stories.”

Says John Heisler, who himself became a sports information legend at Notre Dame before recently wrapping up his career at UCF: “Back in the days before websites and cell phones, our whole job was media relations and helping the media figure out what to write about and what to talk about. … Norm Carlson was a pillar of the profession.”

When hearkening back to that era, Spurrier, too, seems a little wistful.

“Back in those days, we treated the local media like friends,” Spurrier says. “We invited them to practice and let ‘em interview any player they wanted to. I don’t know why it changed. Now it seems like everything has been shut down and coaches try to hide everything and are so guarded about what they say.”

There are still some college coaches like FSU’s Mike Norvell who  open up their practices and programs to the local media, but most don’t.  And, quite frankly, college programs don’t really need the local media anymore. They now have their own team websites where they can get their positive message out to the fans and accentuate the good news while burying the bad.

Colleges now understandably cater to the networks that pay them billions and not the local reporters who cover them daily.

I get it.

I’m not complaining.

Just reminiscing.

I miss “Breakfast with Bobby” when the media who covered FSU would show up at a local hotel every Sunday morning after a Saturday home game and share bacon and eggs with Bobby Bowden, who would fill our notebooks with quips and quotes and anecdotes.

I miss sitting with my sports-writing buddies and having lunch with Spurrier every Tuesday afternoon.

I miss sitting in the sun underneath the shade of an old oak tree and watching football practice.

But, sadly, that sun set long ago.

We not only mourn the loss of a man today but the passing a better era of sports journalism when Mr. C stood as a bespectacled beacon of openness and accessibility.

Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on X (formerly Twitter) @BianchiWrites and listen to my Open Mike radio show every weekday from 6 to 9:30 a.m. on FM 96.9, AM 740 and 969TheGame.com/listen