Florida Boosters Fly High After Touching Down In Tampa

By KAREN HAYMON LONG The Tampa Tribune

Published: Jan 10, 2007

TAMPA - Decked out in orange and blue, Florida Gators fans streamed off airplanes at Tampa International Airport on Tuesday armed with a national football championship and T-shirts to prove it.

"We never went to bed. We stayed at the stadium until they made us leave, and then we went to breakfast," said Jayne Herndon, 46, returning from Phoenix with her sister, Janis Wood, 54.

The two, both Plant City interior decorators, showed off 15 Gators championship T-shirts they bought for family and friends.

"They were all sad-faced," Herndon said of Ohio State fans Tuesday morning after the 41-14 swamping by the Gators. "And we were all smiling. They said they had 18 seconds of fame, and that was the kickoff."

Danielle Mattioli, 22, who recently graduated from the University of South Florida, came home sporting a Gators T-shirt and a big grin.

"It was crazy. It was awesome," she said. "I was sitting with a lot of Ohio State fans. By the end of the game, a third of them had left. We stayed all the way to the end of the presentations and then some, until 1:30 a.m. Phoenix time."

Newlyweds Kristina and Todd Quinzi stood out in the crowd. She wore a red long-sleeved Ohio State T-shirt. He wore the Gators' orange and blue.

"On the way out there, I was worried the Gators were going to be crushed," said Todd Quinzi, 43, who owns Domino's Pizza restaurants in Tampa. "She was a happy camper."

All that changed when the Gators took the lead and never looked back.

"I was excited for about the first minute," said Kristina Quinzi, 40, a program manager for Bausch & Lomb. "Then it was a long night."

Her husband of two months hasn't ribbed her too much, she said, grinning at him. "He's been a good sport - I'm sure better than I would have been."

Yes, he said, "we got through our first test."

Reporter Karen Haymon Long can be reached at (813) 259-7618.