Monday, Nov. 21, 2022

Gainesville LGBTQ community mourns transgender lives lost

Event persisted despite Colorado Springs shooting

By Malori Malone Alligator Staff Writer

Sofia Clementina Noriega. Matthew Angelo Spampinato. Za’niyah Williams. Ke’Yahonna Stone.

Those were just four of the chosen names in a list of more than 340 murdered transgender women named during a Gainesville event meant to commemorate Transgender Day of Rememberance, a vigil for those who have been impacted by transgender violence.

More than 60 members of the Gainesville community raised lit candles and umbrellas outside the steps of Gainesville City Hall in honor of the transgender lives lost to violence and hate Sunday evening. The list of names read out — which included transgender women who were murdered in the past two years — came from countries around the world including Brazil, France and the U.S.

This solemn night served as a reminder to many in the Gainesville community of the violence and hatred transgender people have experienced, organizer Kane Barr said.

“Our lives are important,” Barr said. “The deaths of transgender women — they need to be investigated just as equally;

UF student raped in residential hall, alert says

Suspect hasn’t yet been identified

By Omar Ateyah Alligator Staff Writer

UF alerted the campus com munity Nov.19 regarding a re ported rape that occurred at a residential hall Nov. 16.

The notice didn’t mention which hall the rape occurred in but stated the crime allegedly took place between midnight and 12:30 a.m. The alert stated the University Police Department is actively investigating the inci dent.

The victim claimed she was raped after she returned to her dorm room with the suspect after departing from “a local drinking establishment,” according to the report.

The suspect is a white/Hispan ic male between the ages of 18 to 20, according to UF’s description. It describes him as 5-foot-6 and weighing about 160 pounds. He was last seen, according to the warning, leaving the scene of the sexual assault on the east side of campus wearing shorts and a baseball cap.

The suspect hasn’t yet been identified, but UFPD will increase its patrols, according to the alert.

The alert was issued as a timely warning, which UF uses to remain in compliance with the Clery Act, which requires univer sities to inform their communi ties about active threats to their

pg. 11

they're equally as important as anybody else's death.”

Barr, a 34-year-old Gainesville resident who identifies as a transgender man, said the event was started to raise public awareness of violence against transgender people, as well as to mourn and honor the lives of those who might have otherwise been forgotten.

The night before the event, five people were killed at a LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado. But that didn’t stop Cheryl Kaplan, a 70-year-old board member of Gainesville’s chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, from showing up in support of her daughter, who identifies as lesbian.

Kaplan believes the support of TDOR is needed now more than ever, she said.

“People called me and said, ‘Are we still on?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely. We're still on,’” Kaplan said. “This is so important. People need to know about the problems that transgender and LGBTQ+ folks have. We have to call attention to it.”

The first TDOR was held in 1999 in the Castro district of San Francisco to honor the memories of Rita Hester — a transgender

Stop WOKE Act temporarily blocked: UF’s perspective moving forward

FEDERAL COURT ISSUES TEMPORARY INJUNCTION TO HOUSE BILL 7

By Peyton Harris Alligator Staff Writer

A Florida judge’s decision to temporarily block parts of House Bill 7, also known as the Stop W.O.K.E. Act, Nov. 17 has UF students and faculty once again reflecting on the future of aca demic freedom.

The Stop W.O.K.E. Act was put in place in July. UF, the state’s flagship university, was the first to issue guidance to faculty, according to the United Faculty of Florida. It also has the most to lose financially from violations of the law because the university receives the most state funding.

Tallahassee U.S. District Judge Mark Walker issued the temporary injunction against HB-7 likening the act to some thing out of an Orwellian novel.

If professors aren’t permitted to discuss challenging ideas, de mocracy will die in darkness, he said.

“The First Amendment does not permit the State of Florida to muzzle its university profes sors, impose its own orthodoxy of viewpoints and cast us all into the dark,” Walker wrote in his decision.

UF spokesperson Cynthia Roldan said the university doesn’t have anything to add about the decision.

The act prohibits public K-12 and university educators from teaching concepts such as one race being superior to another,

that one should feel guilty for racism by their ancestors and races can be inherently privi leged or marginalized.

Gov. Ron DeSantis champi oned the law as creating space for academic freedom within col leges, saying no student should be indoctrinated by ideas such as critical race theory — an ac ademic concept that discusses systemic racism in the United States. His press secretary, Bryan Griffin, said they would appeal Nov. 17’s ruling.

Sarah Fishkin, a 19-year-old UF criminology junior, said after a teaching assistant wrote “criti cal race theory” on a whiteboard, her professor erased it without explanation, even though the topic was from a previous cur

Published by Campus Communications, Inc. of Gainesville, Florida

Gators quarterback recruit’s scholarship revoked Marcus Stokes announced the withdrawal of his scholarship after a video of him saying a racial slur surfaced, pg. 3 Explaining Gainesville’s financial controversies

city has been under fire for international trips, the city auditor’s resignation and late financial reports, pg. 5

Florida freshman uses relationship with brother to guide him

Jonah Braswell’s older brother plays tennis at Texas. Read more on

Caleb Ross // Alligator Contributing Photographer

Oscar Santiago-Perez holds a candle during a Transgender Day of Remembrance ceremony on the steps of Gainesville City Hall to honor those lost from violence toward the transgender community Sunday, Nov. 20, 2022.

Today’s Weather

Driver hits, kills pedestrian on West University Avenue

Witness saw body covered in white cloth

By Mickenzie Hannon Alligator Staff Writer

A male pedestrian died after being hit by a vehicle outside the Seagle Building Nov. 18, police said.

A vehicle traveling east on West University Avenue struck a pedestrian who was crossing the road without using a crosswalk around 10:47 p.m., Gainesville Police Department evening shift commander Lonnie Scott Jr. said.

The victim wasn’t a student, UF spokesperson Cynthia Roldan said.

Police haven’t arrested the driver as officers continue to investigate as of Nov. 19, Scott said.

Laila Fakhoury, a Gainesville resident and co-founder of nearby store The How Bazar, said she saw the aftermath of the accident — a body covered in white cloth

and a vehicle pulled off of the road on the sidewalk in front of a tree.

West University Avenue has seen repeated accidents and pedestrian injuries in the past few years.

For instance, UF student Mackenzie Mullen was hit on her scooter near University Park Arboretum March 17.

Another crash killed one UF student — Sophia Lambert — and injured four others who stood on a sidewalk near West University Avenue Jan. 16, 2020.

A month earlier, Maggie Paxton died in a hit-and-run crash after crossing 2000 W. University Ave., the intersection between Ben Hill Griffin Stadium and Emerson Alumni Hall.

The collisions are a result of Gainesville’s inadequate walkability measures, Fakhoury said.

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“The city making the area as walkable as possible, especially in a downtown area, is just extremely necessary,” Fakhoury said.

Additional lighting and wider sidewalks, she said, would keep pedestrians on the street and make it easier for drivers to see them.

GPD Traffic Homicide Investigators are investigating the incident.

Aidan Bush contributed to this report.

@MickenzieHannon mhannon@alligator.org

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The Seagle Building at 408 W. University Ave. is pictured Sunday, Nov. 20, 2022.

Future of Gainesville police K-9 unit unclear after commission meeting

By Omar Ateyah Alligator Staff Writer

After an emotional and contentious special meeting of the Gainesville City Commission Nov. 16, the future of the Gainesville po lice K-9 unit and its role in law enforcement remains uncertain.

The Nov. 16 meeting, which was called by Commissioner Desmon Duncan-Walker and saw dozens of community members speaking both for and against the unit, was a culmination of months-long public outrage over the mauling of Terrell Bradley by a GPD K-9 in July.

About 100 community members were in attendance at the meet ing’s peak, with many calling for the abolition of the unit. However, the future direction of law enforcement policy on the matter isn’t as clear.

One public commenter at the meeting noted the problem with the K-9 unit is systemic and serves officers rather than the public.

“They feel safe using these weapons against us because it means that they don’t have to do any of the work,” he said. “They can just go out to these communities that are underserved, Black, Hispanic and enact violence.”

At the meeting, Duncan-Walker stated the perspectives of commu nity members are vital to the discussion.

“Understand that your voices are critical to this conversation,” she said. “I know I for one will take into account everything that you have to say, because, at the end of the day, this is all about you.”

Duncan-Walker proposed a motion, which passed, to examine what local law enforcement would look like in the absence of a K-9 unit and how other localities deal with the issue. The motion also seeks a cultural audit of the K-9 unit.

A former Black officer on the unit, Edward Ratliff, alleged a racist culture in a federal lawsuit against the city last year. The case is set to proceed to a jury trial in April 2023.

Duncan-Walker didn’t respond to The Alligator’s requests for com ment.

Ed Book, an incoming member of the commission, was hesitant to provide a definitive stance on the issue because he won’t be a sitting city official until January. However, he expressed faith in Gainesville’s law enforcement leadership.

“I have confidence in both Chief Scott and before him Chief Jones, and they would not allow systemic problems to occur,” he said, refer ring to the current police chief Lonnie Scott and his predecessor, Tony Jones.

Much of the opposition to the K-9 unit comes from the public not fully understanding the difficult circumstances police officers often

face, Scott said.

“They don’t have to go into places that we have to go in,” he said. “They don’t have to encounter people that we have to encounter.”

Much of the public attention should be redirected toward stopping gun violence, he said, and K-9s were a necessary tool for law enforce ment in dangerous situations. He also argued injuries of citizens at the hands of law enforcement could largely be avoided if citizens simply cooperated with police officers.

He objected to allegations of a racist culture at the department by pointing out the department’s leadership over the last decade.

“The chief that’s been there since 2010 was African-American. Last time I checked, I’m African-American,” he said. “Who thinks that we’re going to stand by [and] allow that to happen?”

Scott also expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of diversity in the K-9 unit and promised to address the problem.

“I can guarantee you that we will increase our diversity in that unit,” he said. “We shouldn’t have a unit, particularly one that deals with encounters that are so sensitive, particularly dealing with K-9s, that is not diverse.”

@OAteyah oateyah@alligator.org

Timely warning

safety.

The last time UF issued a timely warn ing regarding a sexual offense was Dec. 4, 2021. A man allegedly exposed his geni tals at the Reitz Union on that day.

The last rape-specific warning issued by the university came in September of last year with the alert of the assaults al legedly committed by Antwine Johnson in areas near campus. Johnson allegedly bat tered a woman and forced her into his car on Southwest 23rd Street and raped an other at Gainesville Place Apartments on Southwest 35th Place.

UF spokesperson Cynthia Roldan re iterated that patrols were increased to enhance students’ sense of safety and the timely warning’s call for people with knowledge to come forward.

“We also encourage anyone who is a victim of violence to report it immediately and seek support,” she wrote in a state ment.

The incident wasn’t reported to police until Nov. 19 despite it happening Nov. 16, Roldan said. Roldan couldn’t name which residence hall the rape occurred in or which bar the victim had departed from.

UPD is asking anyone with information about the suspect to contact them. The de partment can be reached at 352-392-1111 or through its Silent Witness link. For ano nymity, those with tips can also reach out to Crime Stoppers by calling 352-372-7867.

@OAteyah oateyah@alligator.org

Florida withdraws scholarship from football commit for video with racial slur Marcus Stokes announced UF withdrew its offer

By Topher Adams Alligator Staff Writer

Florida withdrew a scholarship offer for 2023 quarterback prospect Marcus Stokes, the former Gator commit announced on Twitter Sunday. The move comes after a video surfaced on social media Nov. 18 of Stokes using a racial slur.

“My intention was never to

hurt anybody, and I recognize that even when going along with a song, my words still carry a lot of weight,” Stokes said in a statement.

In the video, Stokes was listening to a song in a car and said the slur while rapping the lyrics.

Stokes is a four-star quarterback prospect from Nease High School in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. He

committed to UF July 7 and for most of the season was the Gators’ only quarterback in the 2023 class.

Rick Hurtado, UF director of football communications, said the program is unable to comment on the situation. NCAA rules prohibit schools from commenting on recruits before they sign.

Florida commit Roderick Kearney sent out a statement on Twitter about Florida rescinding

Stokes’ offer.

“Great kid with a lot of heart,” Kearney said. “As young men in this society we must be careful with the things we do, say, or post. Everything is under a microscope.”

Kirk Mowl, a 19-year-old UF international business junior, said it’s unfortunate Stokes lost his offer, but it makes sense in the current climate.

“When you are in a position of importance, you just have to

be more aware of what you say and how it affects others and the implications it has,” Mowl said.

Florida landed a commitment from high four-star quarterback Jaden Rashada Nov. 10, putting Stokes’ position in the Gators’ recruiting class in question. Rashada, formerly committed to Miami, is the highest-rated player in UF’s 2023 class per the 247Sports Composite rankings.

Stokes is the 23rd ranked quarterback and 392nd player in the composite rankings.

@Topher_Adams tadams@alligator.org

Ryan Friedenberg // Alligator Staff Keyon Young speaks during special commission meeting Wednesday, Nov 16, 2022.

'I can't do my job'

STOP WOKE, from pg. 1

riculum.

“It was just weird we couldn’t talk about it,” she said. “I’m glad the judge recognized that this act was taking away rights reserved to the schools and the peo ple.”

UF history professor Jeffery Adler said the law subjected UF to ridicule within higher education, given it restricted fac ulty from discussing a number of topics in the classroom.

A senior administrator in the history department told Adler and his colleagues not to use the phrase “social justice” in their classes, Adler said.

“To be frank, I can't do my job,” he said. “I literally cannot teach the history of race relations and the history of police brutality without talking about things that HB-7 prohibits.”

The state will fail UF graduates if the decision is reversed and HB-7 is enforced, Adler said, and UF students will be se verely unprepared for post-collegiate edu cation.

Academic freedom has been a contin ued issue the university has grappled with — most notably when three UF profes sors were barred from testifying in a vot ing rights lawsuit. UF eventually reversed its decision and prompted the university to change its conflicts of interest review policy, President Kent Fuchs told The Al ligator.

UF President-elect Ben Sasse, who once taught history at the university level, ad dressed academic freedom and HB-7 at his Oct. 10 forum for faculty, sharing Adler’s sentiment.

Differing points of view and debates are essential to a well-rounded education, Sasse said.

“People who are opposed to indoctrina tion shouldn't be afraid of the fact that we want vigorous debate in our classrooms,” Sasse said.

It does a significant disservice to my students and places them at a disadvan

tage as they're launching their careers, he said.

Graduate Assistant United President Bryn Taylor said the act violated the First Amendment and endangered graduate as sistants, who often assist with or lead cer tain academic courses. GAU sent teaching guides to graduate assistants to avoid vio lations or lawsuits.

“We’re happy that graduate assistants can now simply teach their classes with out having to worry about being sued for simply sharing academic information,” she said.

Some students believe the state should have a say in Florida’s public universities, however.

Matt Turner, a 21-year-old UF music and economics senior, said some sections of the law, such as issuing restraints on

private businesses, may go too far. But the law’s approach to public university cur riculum is fair, he said.

“It makes sense that the state should be allowed to say certain things that they would like to be seen done because they receive funding from public universities,” he said.

The issues within the law can be ad dressed objectively without violating it, Turner said, and the only problem lies in teaching any ideology as truth.

The temporary injunction is a victory, UF history professor Paul Ortiz said, and he’s confident it will be upheld through an appeal. Ortiz thinks the act disenfran chises current students by reducing their post-graduate opportunities, he said.

“I don't think legislators in Tallahas see really care about that because they've already made their careers,” he said. “They're not thinking about the demands of the job market. They're not thinking about the competitive nature of getting into law or med school in the 21st cen

tury.”

Students at competing universities had an advantage over UF students because they have access to material UF students were barred from, Ortiz added.

Amanda Hiatt, a 19-year-old UF po litical science and women’s studies fresh man, said her classes would be impossible to take without the inclusion of prohibited language under the law. The law is dan gerous, she said, especially under Sasse, given his background in the Republican Party.

“Honestly, in this political economy, it's terrifying,” she said. “It’s a genuine fear I have – having to switch paths entire ly because of a bill that’s meant to silence a population of students who should be able to have their own thought processes.”

Christian Casale contributed to this report.

@peytonlharris pharris@alligator.org

In the face of violence

into the violence and deaths of transgender people, Barr said.

towards the LGBTQ community,” Barr said. “We also have to balance between the harm that's being committed and the negativity in the community, but also the positivity that's occurring.”

woman of color — who was killed in November 1998, Barr said.

Nearly half of respondents were sexually assaulted at some point in their lifetime and one in 10 were sexually assaulted in the past year, according to almost 30,000 transgender individuals in a 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. In communities of color, these numbers are higher: 53% of Black respondents were sexually assaulted in their lifetime and 13% were sexually assaulted in the last year.

The Human Rights Campaign tracked a record number of violent fatal incidents against transgender and gender nonconforming people in 2020. A total of 44 fatalities were tracked by HRC, marking 2020 as the most violent year on record since HRC began tracking those crimes in 2013.

There needs to be more investigation

Regina Livingston, a 50-year-old Black transgender woman who spoke at the vigil, said she came to the event to show support to members of her community.

Livingston called for heightened advocacy and protection of people within the trans and LGBTQ community to prevent further death and violence. Government officials shouldn’t ignore acts of hatred against trans people, she said.

“This is the land of the free and the home of the brave,” Livingston said. “They should be in place to protect us. And they're not protecting us. That's why this is going on.”

Even in times of tragedy, Barr said celebration is also in need for the LGBTQ community. There’s a lot of good in the community, which shouldn’t be forgotten, he said.

“It is very important to be very mindful of these really horrible acts of violence

Having more open conversions about shared experiences with transgender people to help break down social barriers and conflict is another necessary step, Barr said.

“It’s really important to focus on what we can do and what is within our power,” he said. “And so, in our power, we have the ability to have open conversations with our friends and family.”

“We're all human,” Barr said. “The Gainesville community, thankfully, is very, in general, you know, welcome and warm and friendly. There's always going to be someone who is coming from a place of fear. And we need to highlight more love than fear.”

Marzella Flowers, a 21-year-old Latina transgender woman who attended the vigil, said she came out to show her support as a woman of transgender experience. It’s particularly important to commemorate

their lives with the chosen names of transgender people, rather than their names assigned at birth, to immortalize them as they’d liked to be remembered, Flowers said.

“It's important that the people who can stand and do stand alive at the end of the day, carry on the names of those who came before,” Flowers said. “Because without the names of those people, there will be no names in the future to carry on the legacy of this community.”

Flowers is grateful to live in a community where she can be proud of her trans identity, she said.

“Being directly in the queer community, loud in the queer community and public in the queer community is so openly accepted and celebrated in Gainesville,” Flowers said. “That is something that is fought to be protected so publicly by everyone — not just those who are affected by these policies — but the people around them who can genuinely empathize.”

Emma Hayakawa // Alligator Staff

UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences to build AI manufacturing hub

CENTER PREDICTED TO BE COMPLETED IN 2 TO 3 YEARS

By Anushka Dakshit Alligator Staff Writer

In an effort to become the coun try’s preeminent “AI university,” UF has its sights on a new development in the field.

In the next year, the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences plans to build a 19,000-square-foot AI hub at the Gulf Coast Research and Education Center in Tampa. The hub will be used to manufacture AI technology with around a $23 million budget.

The center will have spaces such as a mechanic shop with automated equipment for producing AI, said Jack Rechcigl, center director and professor. The automated equipment would help produce parts and put to gether the AI, he said.

“The center will be able to help everybody in all areas of agricul ture,” Rechcigl said. “Anybody work ing this area of artificial intelligence, they’ll be able to come here and part ner with the group of scientists that we have here.”

Along with using the mechanic shop for its own purposes, IFAS is planning to work with private com panies to finance the operation, and in exchange, they will have access to the mechanic shop.

The plan is to have large open spaces and shareable computers to encourage teamwork across the uni versity’s scientists, graduate students

and undergraduate students, he said.

“We’re trying to encourage a team approach,” Rechcigl said. “It’s more like an interdisciplinary approach to solving a problem.”

Right now, IFAS has 12 research and education centers across the state of Florida. It’s common to work across the state because IFAS’s part ners grow fruits and vegetables all across Florida, Rechcigl said.

The center’s purpose is to provide a space where AI will benefit many disciplines like plant pathology and entomology, Rechcigl said. AI tech nology can detect diseases or para sites in crops, which can help protect crops from being damaged, he added.

“It doesn’t help the whole state of Florida if we’re just focusing on one commodity,” Rechcigl said. “Then you have different scientists with dif

ferent expertise contributing in differ ent ways.”

The center will be working across agricultural and economic sectors; for example, the center can create UF patents to sell to private companies like John Deere, Rechcigl said. In or der to help the agriculture industry thrive, the center-developed technol ogy must be practical and relevant to growers and farmers, which means making it cost-effective and easily ac cessible, he said.

The center wants to help stake holders and growers save money on producing their crops, he said, as well as come up with new varieties of fruits and vegetables.

AI can improve agricultural effi ciency, said Bob Spencer, a tomato grower at West Coast Tomato. It can help determine the best way to lay

out fields so growers can get more crop production, he said, and it may also decide which varieties of crops can withstand pests and diseases bet ter.

As a grower, Spencer oversees the farmers who work on the fields and the production aspect of the packing facility in Palmetto, Florida.

“I can see it [AI] becoming more important and a major portion down the road as scientists give us more information and ways to utilize it,” Spencer said.

IFAS got the idea for the center about a year-and-a-half ago, when NVIDIA, an American multinational technology company, donated $500 million to UF.

IFAS’s advisory council, pushed leadership to invest in an AI center, Rechcigl said.

Spencer played his part in send ing the advisory council letters talk ing about the importance of AI, he said, and he and other growers in the industry were fortunate that Dr. Scott Angle, UF’s senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources and leader of UF/IFAS, saw the potential in building the hub.

“AI is a Swiss Army knife of tech nology that can be used to address nearly any agricultural challenge,” Angle wrote in an email. “The center will create a fertile environment for that innovation.”

With aspirations of expanding beyond agriculture, the center will al low anybody working in AI to come and partner with the hub’s scientists, Rechcigl said.

Another purpose of the AI cen

Gainesville’s city audit controversy, explained

OFFICIALS SAY IT’S MORE COINCIDENCE THAN CORRUPTION

By Aidan Bush Alligator Staff Writer

After delayed financial reports to the state, the Gainesville city auditor’s resignation and planned international commission trips, some local residents are worried about their tax dol lars.

Four successive issues led to local concern: a formal letter from the state about late city fi nancial reports, three city commissioners trav eling to Israel off public funds, the city auditor’s resignation and budget changes made Nov. 17.

Gainesville’s upcoming fiscal budget is around $445 million, with about $14 million of general fund debt made up of bonds and other obligations.

Juli Aitch, Gainesville resident, said recent decisions were irresponsible given the situa tion.

“They are robbing the citizens of Gainesville,” Aitch said.

However, Gainesville city officials say the series of financial controversies were both ex pected and planned for.

Commissioners’ trip to Israel

City Commissioners David Arreola and Adrian Hayes-Santos, as well as Mayor Lau ren Poe will travel to Israel for MuniWorld, an international city government conference. The three will leave Dec. 2, just over a month be fore they all exit office after reaching their term limit.

MuniWorld is a three-day convention for cities across the globe. Participants will see Je rusalem’s tech startup projects, connect with other municipalities and watch lectures on lo cal government practices.

The attendance fee is $200 per person and accommodations are $600, according to its

website.

City Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut first expressed concern over the trip, calling it a waste of money given the city’s financial cir cumstances.

“This international trip taken by commis sioners with expenses paid by public funds is disingenuous to all our constituents,” Chestnut wrote in an email to them.

For each fiscal year, commissioners receive a $5,000 stipend for travel. The 2023 fiscal year began Oct. 1. Chestnut also said the trip would take travel funding away from oncoming com missioners, though Arreola and Hayes-Santos said that was inaccurate.

“When the new commission is sworn in, they will have their own budgets,” Arreola said.

Commissioners expect to pay between $1,500 and $2,000 per person between travel and hotel stays in Israel, Arreola added. While there, the commissioners will also visit two sis ter cities; Kfar Saba, Israel, and Qalqilya, Pal estine.

The programs are valuable as it allows mu tual economic development and promotes cul tural exchange on the local level, Poe said.

“This is really consistent with the relation ship Gainesville has been cultivating going back a few decades,” Poe said.

State audit letter

Florida’s joint-legislative auditing commit tee sent a letter to Gainesville Nov. 4, stating the city’s 2020-2021 financial report was late.

Annual financial report audits list the total number of city employees, compensations for them and every major expenditure and rev enue gained by Gainesville during its financial year.

If not sent in by Dec. 19, Gainesville could lose state funding.

The delays were a result of understaffing, Poe said, with four charter officers being in the interim and a software change for financial re

porting midway through the year. As a result, city staff had to pull records from two different software.

“It just created complications that were both unanticipated and created a lot of time,” Poe said.

Gainesville informed the state it would be late in advance, he added.

The city manager handles external finan cial audits. Cynthia Curry currently serves as interim city manager while the city looks for potential candidates in the coming months.

Gainesville is one of 42 other municipali ties that are yet to submit their audit, accord ing to a Gainesville Sun report. The city’s audit committee is expected to have an update at its meeting Dec. 13.

“It’s been our goal and all of our efforts to make sure we reach that goal,” Poe said.

City auditor resigns

Just days after the state letter, City Auditor Ginger Bigbie resigned from her position Nov. 8.

Bigbie declined to comment, but said she left Election Day to prevent voter sway dur ing campaign efforts. She also thanked the Gainesville City Commission for her time.

“I will continue to champion strong gover nance as the City strives to achieve its objec tives and instill public trust,” her resignation letter read.

Bigbie resigned so she could focus more on spending time with her family, she said.

Despite its title, the city auditor actually isn’t involved in the state audit, but rather checks internal processes within the city. Internal au dits can include performance and equity evalu ations, while an external one like the state’s only concerns financial reports.

Bigbie will still serve until Jan. 13, when an interim or temporary city auditor will replace her.

Her resignation marks the most recent of a string of vacancies the city has experienced

ter is to confront the challenges of migrant labor shortages and com petition with Mexico’s agricultural sector. The American agriculture in dustry experienced a 7% decline in hired labor in 2018, according to ag ricultural financial lender AgAmerica Lending.

“It’s important for us to find ways to mechanize everything to help re duce the need for manual labor,” Re chcigl said.

Instead of manual labor, AI cre ates more of a demand for skilled la bor, Rechcigl said. More people with computer science or engineering de grees will be hired to help build, use and fix the machinery.

After it became more difficult to depend on production overseas, Spencer said many Americans real ized the importance of domestic ag riculture.

Figuring out ways to make agri culture more productive and envi ronmentally sensitive is going to be much more important as the industry grows, Spencer said.

“A lot of the things that will be researched in the AI department at IFAS are things we’re not think ing about right now,” Spencer said. “But it will be discovered and will be beneficial to help future generations of farmers survive and thrive in the state of Florida.”

Rechcigl sees the center being completed in the next two to three years, he said.

@anushkadak adakshit@alligator.org

over the past two years. The city manager resigned Sept. 13, 2021, following gender dis crimination allegations and the city clerk and attorney sent resignation letters Sept. 8, 2021.

The City Commission also fired the Gainesville Regional Utilities manager Jan 27.

The city expects to implement a program to search for candidates for office in a future meeting, though, as of Sunday afternoon, no date is scheduled.

Recent budget changes

The Gainesville City Commission approved budget changes to the current fiscal year in a 6-0 vote Nov. 17, with Reina Saco absent.

The budget is an over $750,000 net increase across multiple city budgets, looking to raise funding for fire rescue, law enforcement and natural park development plans.

Fire rescue saw an additional $1.42 million in funding, police increased by $767,000 and $179,782 will be spread across three nature parks.

Funding comes in part from the one-cent Wild Spaces Public Places tax, which passed Nov. 8.

The Wild Spaces Public Places is a one-cent tax across the county on non-essential goods. Gainesville is expected to receive over $17.4 million in annual revenue from the tax, which it will dedicate to environmental issues, afford able housing efforts and road repair.

Strategy, Planning and Development of fices and the Parks and Recreation department among others saw significant budget cuts.

The Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs Department will receive $1 million less in funding. The city’s Strategy, Planning and In novation Department is reduced by $805,000. Transportation will also be given a $704,000 deduction.

The budget increases were routine efforts, with no specific instance pressuring the chang es, Hayes-Santos said.

“It’s just normal budget changes that we do,” Hayes-Santos said.

Courtesy to The Alligator

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2022 www.alligator.org/section/the_avenue

Rosewood descendant ‘Miss Lizzie’ shares her story with next generation

JENKINS WILL PUBLISH CHILDREN’S BOOK

EARLY NEXT YEAR

By Averi Kremposky Avenue Staff Writer

As Lizzie Robinson Jenkins reached across the room for the frayed and discolored copy of “Through the Green Gate,” a decades-old hand-me-down book from her childhood, she slowly pulled the cover back until the delicate typography revealed an important phrase.

The children’s book published in 1939 begins the same way Jenkins signs off all her messages today: “Miss Lizzie.”

While Jenkins slowly thumbed through the copy, her eyes painstakingly took in the illustrations of white children before sighing.

“If I had an opportunity when I was a kid to get a book with Black children in it, it would have made all the difference in the world to me,” she said.

Now, the 84-year-old founder and president of the Real Rosewood Foundation, Inc. is passing on the opportunity for representation to a new generation with her upcoming children’s book titled “Lizzie’s Rosewood Race.” The book’s publication is scheduled for early 2023 to align with the centennial of the Rosewood massacre.

The publication of Jenkins’ book follows statewide debates on book banning, age-appropriate class materials and race-related instruction in classrooms. In April, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law banning educators from teaching critical race theory, an academic concept that addresses systemic racism.

The book centers on Jenkins and her own coming of age, which she said was marked by a calling to keep the story of Rosewood alive.

Rosewood was a small, predominantly Black town an hour west of Gainesville that developed in the mid-1800s as people migrated through Cedar Key from other southern states. It remained a haven for Black locals through the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras, and, like Tulsa, Oklahoma, it was thriving.

Still, the charged racial violence that marks American history knew

no boundaries. On Jan. 1, 1923, a mob of white Sumner KKK members ravaged the quaint town, killing six known Black residents and inflicting lifelong physical and emotional agony on the rest of the community.

One of those surviving community members was Jenkins’ aunt, Mahulda Gussie Brown Carrier — a schoolteacher in Rosewood.

On a cold night when Jenkins was only five years old, her mother, Theresa Brown Robinson, sat her and her older siblings across the couch in front of the fireplace.

“Mama’s gonna tell you a story about Rosewood and sister,” Jenkins recalled her mother saying.

Jenkins could tell by the tone in her mother’s voice this story wasn’t like the fairytales other kids heard before bed, she said.

As the youngest sibling, Jenkins was stunned to find her brothers asleep and her sister overcome with disinterest as her mother’s story drew to a close. But there was something about Rosewood that kept her awake and clinging to her mother’s every word, she said.

Jenkins’ mother told her she was ordained from birth to tell this story

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— to bear the burden of history.

But spending her life fulfilling her mother’s wish by sharing Rosewood’s history isn’t always easy, Jenkins said.

“It’s difficult to tell it — but people want to hear it,” Jenkins said. “She said, ‘Preserve history to make sure it doesn’t repeat.’”

Jenkins took the story of Rosewood to school with her the next day, she said — and then all the days after that. She went on to found the Real Rosewood Foundation in 2003, which focuses on researching, documenting and preserving the story of the Rosewood massacre for future generations.

Rob Murphy, a 69-year-old poet, artist and historical activist from Utah, first visited Cedar Key to help a friend with travel. His obligatory internet search of the area eventually led him to the Real Rosewood Foundation.

Murphy was captivated by Jenkins and the story of Rosewood, he said. He immediately wrote an 18-line poem about the dark story — but had no indication that Rosewood would eventually trigger his permanent move to Florida in December.

Jenkins and Murphy exchanged stories, sentiments and tears for months before the idea of writing a book was born. When Murphy first became adamant about sharing Jenkins’ story, he knew it couldn’t be a standard biography.

Instead, he imagined Jenkins’ heartwrenching life manifesting as encounters with butterflies, birds and other animals. The simple and playful nature of the storybook allows readers of all ages to digest sometimes threatening messages on prejudice and racism, he said.

“The beauty of her story is that it gives people a chance to talk about race differences and things of our past that we’re not proud of in a format that is non-threatening,” Murphy said.

The book draws inspiration from the dirt road where Jenkins used to walk three miles to and from school every day, carrying the weight of the Rosewood story along with her. As the reader turns each page, young Jenkins makes her way down the same dirt road, encountering nature that portrays lessons on beauty, uniqueness and inclusion.

The young girl and protagonist’s first encounter is with a black

Florida women’s basketball lands five-star recruit

Laila Reynolds is the No. 19 recruit in the nation. Read more on pg. 11 . Scan

butterfly. She says she’s never seen one before.

“This butterfly tells her ‘I’m Black, I’m beautiful, I’m unique and so are you,’” Murphy said.

The story of Rosewood is inherently violent and distressing, but Jenkins and Murphy both agreed “Lizzie’s Rosewood Race” would be an agreeable way to start conversations between students, parents and teachers about Florida’s dark history that were safe, ageappropriate and focused on a real character.

While campaigning for the midterm elections, Jenkins had the opportunity to show her book to a 2-year-old Black girl and her grandmother. The little girl’s curious finger landed on the depiction of young Lizzie before saying one word that validated Jenkins’ newest writing project: “Me.”

“I could have fallen out of my chair,” Jenkins said.

After the book’s publication, copies will be available for purchase on the Real Rosewood Foundation’s website, but Jenkins is passionate about personally bringing her story to different classrooms around north Florida. She plans on doing a book tour next year, she said.

A former teacher herself, Jenkins said she understands the way children learn and process diversity. When school members in Archer were concerned about racial disparities in office visits and behavior infractions, Jenkins knew she could help.

“They need to see a Black face,” she said. “They need to see a presence they don’t see. It’s not because the kid is being disrespectful — you just don’t understand how to meet their needs.”

Telling the story of Rosewood will always be hard, Jenkins said. But her mother told her to keep the story alive, and that’s what she is aiming to do with “Lizzie’s Rosewood Race.”

“If we start with children — especially in a volatile political climate where it’s controversial to talk about Black history and race — it would be a wonderful introduction to the larger picture of Rosewood,” Murphy said.

Rae Riiska // Alligator Staff

Lizzie Jenkins reads a small excerpt from her new children’s book “Lizzie’s Rosewood Race” Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022.

Gainesville residents, professors spotlight Alachua County’s Indigenous history

INDIGENOUS TRIBES’ INFLUENCE EVIDENT ACROSS COUNTY

By Naomi Volcy Avenue Staff Writer

The push for Indigenous history visibility stretches across north central Florida — a conversation sparked by a community-wide lack of awareness.

Alachua County is heavily influenced by its Indigenous history — particularly the Potano, Timucua and Alachua Seminole tribes. Despite this centuries-old legacy, the history and contributions of these Indigenous groups remain relatively unknown.

November marks Native American Heritage Month and is an opportunity to celebrate Indigneous people, their histories and contributions.

In celebration of Native American Heritage Month, local residents and academics are making efforts to highlight this rich Indigenous history and encourage education of Indigenous peoples’ contributions to our community.

Nicole Nesberg, an adjunct history professor at Santa Fe College and member of the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians — an Indigenous group clustered in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula — is one Alachua County resident leading the charge for community awareness.

“We are starting to backtrack where we’ve gone through Florida history and remembering the African American history that is here,” Nesberg said. “Now, we are doing the next step where we are remembering the Indigneous history that is here.”

The history of Indigenous groups and UF are also intertwined, as the university itself is built on Indigenous land. Thus, the campus contains several documented sites with archaeological remains affiliated with Native American tribes.

These sites include the Levin School of Law, the eastern margin of Graham Woods and areas south of the intersection of Archer Road and Southwest 13th Street and east of UF Health Shands Hospital, according to an April report by the presidential task force on African American and Native American history.

Remembering and representing forgotten history is a process, she said. But Alachua County communities are slowly accounting for the histories of Native people in Florida.

Organizations across Gainesville have already begun this process through educational events centered around sharing the county’s Indigenous history.

The Matheson History Museum hosted a lecture presentation Nov. 13 led by Nesberg — drawing a crowd of around 30 local residents.

Nesberg’s presentation discussed the lives of the Potano, Timucua and Alachua Seminole tribes, focusing on the impact of their interactions with the various European colonial powers that later colonized north central Florida. Using artwork, statistics, maps and archaeology, she educated audiences on Indigenous history and its persisting impact on modern-day Alachua County.

There are several reasons why Indigenous history has been underrepresented, Nesberg said. They include a trend of history being rewritten to position colonial powers as the discoverers of Indigenous lands, as well as there being a relatively small existing Indigenous population in Alachua County, she said.

“[After] The Seminole War, there were hardly any Indigneous living here,” Nesberg said. “You forget the history of a people once you push them off their land and rewrite history as you being the survivors and the real first people to get here.”

People can honor Indigenous communities through acts of intentional remembrance, Nesberg said. That can be as simple as considering the origins of the ingredients in the food we eat, such as the three sister crops — corn, beans and squash, she said.

Another way Nesberg suggested the community emphasize the influential contributions of Indigenous people is by placing informational plaques at historically Indigenous sites across Alachua County. For example, San Felasco Hammock Preserve State Park, a series of nature trails in northwest Gainesville, traces its origins to the Potano tribe.

Names of community locations can also be changed to commemorate their Timucua and Seminole language origins, Nesberg said — for instance, permanently renaming Lake George, a lake located on the St. Johns River, to Lake Welaka.

If people are exposed to these changes, Nesberg said, they will become curious about the historical origins of places and names in the community, then take on the responsibility of educating themselves.

“It changes your perspective when you remember there were people here for hundreds of thousands of years,” she said.

Liz Hauck, a 37-year-old Alachua County resident, is one of several whose own understanding of her hometown’s Indigenous history was altered by

Nesberg’s presentation.

Hauck occasionally attends events hosted by the Matheson History Museum, she said, and found the Native American Heritage Month event insightful — especially in gaining an awareness of the tribes like the Potano.

“I feel I learned a lot about the Indigenous people who populated this land before colonizers and settlers arrived,” she said. “I did not know a lot about the history before the Alachua Seminoles.”

Displays that represent the Potano, Timucua and Alachua Seminole tribes are available at the Matheson, said Kaitlyn Hof-Mahoney, the museum’s executive director. However, Nesberg’s lecture offered a more accessible, interactive opportunity for visitors to learn about Indigenous history.

The museum’s exhibits about Indigenous culture prompted the community’s desire for education, Hof-Mahoney said. Follow-up surveys given to visitors after observing the exhibits and programs, she said, revealed several requests to learn more about Gainesville’s local Indigenous history.

After attending Nesberberg’s presentation, Hauck said, she planned to use her newfound knowledge to educate others.

“I am going to take this knowledge home to my children,” she said. “Make sure they honor and understand the generations of people that came before us and some of the loss and trauma that informed that history.”

Kali Blount, a 66-year-old Gainesville resident who also attended the Matheson event, arrived with a preexisting interest in Indigenous history and its overlap with the history of African runaway slaves.

Blount appreciated that Nesberg discussed the relationship between Indigenous groups and African enslaved people in her lecture presentation, he said, as well as their rebellions against European colonial powers.

“To respect and reveal resistance is

really important,” Blount said. “It is our humanity.”

Kenneth Sassaman, a UF archeology professor who contributed research to the UF Presidential Task Force on African American and Native American history and the University of Florida, said he believes Indigenous history is underrepresented in UF curriculum due to the university’s limited Indigenous student population. In Fall 2020, 0.14% of UF’s undergraduate class was American Indian or Alaska Native, according to a report by UF Institutional Planning and Research.

“If we were at the University of Oklahoma, there would be dozens of classes every semester on Native American culture because they have a large contingency of Native American faculty and students,” Sassaman said. “We just don’t.”

In order to encourage UF to create a Native American studies program, there needs to be a push from Native American students on campus, Sassaman said. If this demographic petitioned for the program, it might grab the attention of university administration, he said.

“The president might notice, the provost might notice and [they] might say ‘This is a good idea. Let’s do that,’” he said.

Due to the low population of Native American students, Sassaman said, he believes people that aren’t of Native ancestry — such as himself — can still do their part to educate others on Indigenous history.

Next November, he said, he hopes to plan an event with other faculty interested in Native American studies to showcase Indigenous culture through music, food, dance and more.

“Once you build an interest and intensity, maybe you can create some programs that will last and grow,” Sassaman said.

@volcyn_ nvolcy@alligator.org

Sophia Abolfathi // Alligator Staff

Nicole Nesberg presents a lecture about the lives of Native Americans in North Florida at the Matheson History Museum Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022.

www.alligator.org/section/opinions

Finishing where I began

In my first semester as UF president in Spring 2015, I visited The Independent Florida Alligator to introduce myself and to ask two questions.

I asked the editors if they would show me how to use Twitter and if they would allow me to write a monthly column. With their help, I posted my first Tweet and they gave me a deadline of 5 p.m. Friday and a 500-word limit for the column.

My August 2015 column reflected on being a freshman at UF, as president and as a student.

Although it took eight years, I’m now a graduating senior and expect this will be my final column. My last day as president will be Feb. 5, 2023. For the past eight

years, there are two words from my August 2015 Alligator column I have worked to remember.

First, the opportunity we all have to experience joy in our years at UF, and second, the privilege we have to be members of the UF community. As I said in 2015, Linda and I live on campus and get to experience all aspects of the university, from the excitement of the start of the academic year to the fun of homecoming weekend to the shared joy and celebration of our Spring, Fall and winter commencements.

I’ve loved taking selfies with students at Turlington Plaza, attending Gator athletic events, attending student gatherings in the Reitz Union and so many more aspects of UF

life. The beauty of our historical campus and community, combined with broad excellence in academics and athletics, creates an environment where students enjoy working hard in their studies and learn to excel personally and professionally — all while having a lot of fun.

Also, as I shared in 2015, it’s a privilege to be part of an institution that isn’t complacent about its position as one of the world’s greatest universities. It’s been amazing to watch so many faculty, staff and students embrace new opportunities and become even more exceptional at what they do, both in their own work and in raising the stature of the university.

This is a university whose degrees will be even more valuable in the future than

they are today. With that privilege comes great responsibility, the responsibility we have to live lives for a purpose greater than simply for ourselves.

I look forward to serving as an electrical and computer engineering faculty member with President-elect Sasse as our university’s leader. I wish for him and his family — and for all of us — great joy as we experience the privilege of being Florida Gators.

As we prepare for final exams, I encourage everyone to join me in joyful fun for the Lighting of The Holiday Gator at Century Tower on Thursday, Dec. 1, at 5 p.m. There will be wonderful holiday music, food and drink, as the Holiday Gator appears again. I extend to you my very best wishes for a strong finish to the Fall semester.

Fuchs is the president of the University of Florida.

Gators don’t bite. An update from Change Caucus

We, the Change Caucus, would like to update the readership of The Independent Florida Alligator on recent news from the UF Student Senate. On Nov. 13, the UF Senate Judiciary Committee moved to indefinitely postpone the Change Cau cus-authored articles of impeachment against Student Body President Lauren Lemasters.

“Postponing indefinitely” is a trick used by the Judiciary Committee, the committee entrusted to review all legislation, to circumvent having to fail legislation on its own merits. This meant the impeachment wasn’t to be voted on Tuesday, Nov. 15, on the Senate floor. As of now, the committee is composed solely of Gator Party-elected officials, eight of whom were present Nov. 13.

Faith Corbett Minority Party Leader Change Caucus

Change Caucus senators pushed forward because we believe strongly in our articles of impeachment, especially after a condemnation written by Change Caucus was passed unanimously in the Senate less than a month ago. This meant every single Judiciary member present voted in support of the legislation.

As co-equal branches of government, Change Caucus believes it’s the Senate’s duty to hold the student body president accountable for their actions, especially when those actions are as consequential as appointing someone as unqualified and problematic as Sen. Ben Sasse to the highest position at UF.

And so Nov. 15, in light of this Gator blockade, we used our increased presence in the chamber, thanks to you, the voters, to force impeachment onto the Senate floor.

During debate, the Judiciary Committee alluded to their legislative recommendations should be held to high regard, and not be reconsidered. The insinuation that senators should blindly follow the recommendations of committees is undemocratic, authoritarian and mirrors the core issue that caused Change Caucus to write the articles of impeachment in the first place.

But of course, the real message behind the committee’s sentiment is they have been historically afraid to hold the Student Body President, elected with their own party, accountable for their decisions.

Senate President Olivia Green shut down corrective motions from Change senators. She claimed we were disrespectful by asking clarifying questions and threatened to give us a warning. Warnings are disciplinary offenses that are granted to senators. After three, you are ruled absent. This indisputable tool of the majority party-elected leadership is a dangerous method of discipline that has previously been used against minority parties to force members to give up their seat.

If student leaders cannot be held accountable by their peers, if attempts to create checks and balances are struck down, the student body is left with nothing but an illusion of representation.

At this point, we don’t know who we are most uncomfortable with; the student

Column The views expressed here aren’t necessarily those of The

The

body president who selfishly projected her personal bias, the cowardice of the Judiciary Committee for their failure to put their top five campus over their party or the leadership of a Senate President who would rather be a barrier to democratic procedures than humbly accept correction.

As Change Party-elected senators continued to take the first steps in accountability measures, we saw Gator Party-elected Senators get more and more uncomfortable showing their teeth. Their inability to allow the impeachment on the floor is appalling. Their eagerness to save face as they provide toothless apologies and condemnations of Lemasters to the student body shows when defending this campus by holding their own accountable, Gator’s biggest fear is to bite.

P.O.

Respectfully, Change Caucus

Kent

Alan Halaly // Alligator Staff

Lauren Lemasters, UF student body president, listens to public comment at the Board of Trustees meeting discussing Ben Sasse’s candidacy Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2022.

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16 Health Services

by Fifi Rodriguez

1. TELEVISION: At which popular restaurant does Penny work in "The Big Bang Theory"?

1. MEASUREMENTS: How many inches are in a mile?

2. ASTRONOMY: Which one of Jupiter's moons has active volcanos?

2. ASTRONOMY: What does the acronym SETI mean to the scientific community?

3. GEOGRAPHY: The Tiber River flows through which famous capital city?

3. LANGUAGE: What does the Lat in prefix “sub-” mean in English?

4. U.S. PRESIDENTS: Who was the only president to serve two noncon secutive terms?

4. LITERATURE: Who wrote the novel "The Martian Chronicles"?

5. LITERATURE: Which 20th-cen tury movie star penned the autobiogra phy “Me: Stories of My Life”?

5. U.S. STATES: Which river forms the eastern border of Iowa?

6. HISTORY: What was the first National Monument proclaimed in the United States?

6. U.S. PRESIDENTS: Who was the first presi dent to give a televised address from the White House?

7. GENERAL KNOWLEDGE: What image on Canada's flag is a recognizable symbol of the country?

7. GEOGRAPHY: Where is the island of Luzon located? 8. MOVIES: Which sci-fi movie has the tagline, “Reality is a thing of the past”? 9. GENERAL KNOWLEDGE: What was the name of the United States’ first nuclear-powered submarine?

GAMES: What are the four rail road properties in Monopoly?

8. MEASUREMENTS: Which ancient civiliza tion used palms, digits and cubits to measure length?

9. MOVIES: Who voices the character Princess Anna in "Frozen"?

10. ANIMAL KINGDOM: An elephant has the most muscles in which part of its body?

answers below

1. Who are the only father-son duo in Major League Baseball history to both hit at least 50 home runs in a single season?

1. Tommie Aaron, brother of Hank, hit how many home runs in his seven-sea son Major League Baseball career?

2. Bill Chadwick, the NHL’s first U.S.-born referee and later a broad caster for the New York Rangers, went by what nickname?

2. Stamford Bridge is the home stadium of what English Premier League football club?

3. The name for the Albuquerque Isotopes Minor League Baseball club was inspired by a fictional team from what TV comedy series?

3. Between brothers Terry and Bobby La bonte, which had more career NASCAR Cup Series race victories?

4. Jim Covert and Ed Sprinkle, two members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2020, spent their entire playing careers with what NFL fran chise?

4. What Pro Football Hall of Famer served as head coach of the Los Angeles/Oakland Raiders from 1989-94 and again in 2006?

5. What traditional Japanese martial art is literally translated as “the way of the sword”?

5. The Webb Ellis Cup is the trophy awarded to the winner of what quadrennial sports tournament?

6. Floyd Mayweather Jr. defeated what mixed martial arts superstar in a 2017 boxing megafight in Las Vegas?

7. What Croatia-born basketball player won three NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls from 1996-98 and was the 1996 NBA Sixth Man of the Year?

6. Name the South African boxer, nicknamed "The Bionic Hand," who was the first Africanborn boxer to fight for and win a heavyweight title.

Answers

1. 13. He hit eight of them in his 1962 rookie season.

2. The Big Whistle.

3. The Simpsons. 4. The Chicago Bears. 5. Kendo. 6. Conor McGregor. 7. Toni Kukoc. © 2020 King Features Syndicate, Inc.

7. What marathon, held annually in London from 1909 to 1996, was the first to be run at the 26.219-mile distance?

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2022 www.alligator.org/section/sports

WOMEN'S BASKETBALL

Gators women’s basketball land elite 2023 guard

LAILA REYNOLDS RANKS NO. 19 IN COUNTRY

By Jackson Reyes Sports Writer

Five-star 2023 women’s bas ketball prospect Laila Reynolds is ready to compete for cham pionships and bring a winning mentality to Gainesville.

“[I] always play hard every time I step on the floor,” Reyn olds said.

Reynolds hails from PG Coun ty, Maryland. She’s the No.19 re cruit in the country as of Nov. 20, according to ESPN. The 6-foot-1 guard has been touted for her ability to score at all three levels of the game by Shane Laflin of Premier Basketball Report.

She averaged 11.2 points, 6.2 rebounds and two assists per game in her junior season, when she helped lead her high school, Shabach Christian Academy, to the GEICO National Champion ship game.

Reynolds chose Florida over UCLA, Georgia and Mississippi State. Her decision came down to who she thought could best nurture her as a player on and off the court, Reynolds said.

She sees Florida head coach

Kelly Rae Finley as a mentor whose style best fit what she needed from the person she’d be playing under for four seasons. Finley is someone players want to be around, Reynolds said, describing her as a “player’s coach.”

Reynolds is a competitor and a proven winner, Finley said. In addition, Reynolds’ work ethic, mindset and love for people stood out to Finley.

“As we grew in our relation ship with Laila and her family,

FOOTBALL

it became clearer that our values aligned,” Finley said.

Reynolds’ ability to score, court vision and willingness to defend from baseline to baseline will make her a player Gator fans will remember for years, Finley said.

Read the rest online at alligator.org/section/sports.

@JacksnReyes jacksonreyes@alligator.org

MEN'S TENNIS

Braswell brothers help each other navigate college, futures in tennis

Florida freshman yet to take on brother

By Kyle Bumpers Sports Writer

In his first collegiate event, Flor ida freshman men’s tennis player Jonah Braswell won eight matches in a row and ran into the No. 7 ranked player in the country.

He lost to Virginia junior Chris Rodesch 6-4, 6-1 in the second round of the Intercollegiate Ten nis Association main draw after winning his way through the prequalifying and qualifying rounds. If he had won two more matches, he would have faced his brother, Mi cah Braswell, in his first ever col legiate tournament, but the match didn’t come to fruition.

“We definitely have a chance to play each other in the next couple of years,” Jonah said. “So let's see what happens.”

Micah is a junior at Texas and ranked No. 30 in the country, ac cording to the ITA Division I end of Fall singles rankings. Jonah sits at No. 93 in the same ranking.

At the time, Jonah was too early into his college career to have a ranking. But he was on an unprec edented streak — he would have gone into the match without a loss at the collegiate level — and the possibility was being monitored by the whole family.

The brothers’ father, Ty Bras well, said Micah was proud of Jo nah, but the pressure would have been on Micah as the older brother.

“If I was Micah, I would not have wanted to play Jonah in that

tournament because Jonah was on such a roll,” Ty said.

Jonah has never beaten Micah, even in practice.

All parties thought this could have been Jonah’s time to finally beat his older brother. The two have played hundreds of sets and matches over the years, Jonah said, and he’s still yet to take Mi cah down.

Both Braswells have played ten nis for most of their lives, and Jo nah has always been right behind Micah, Ty said.

“That has been really good for Micah to have Jonah right there be hind him,” he said. “That's made him better.”

Despite their records against each other, Jonah has narrowed the gap in recent years, Ty said. The first tournament Jonah played in, around age 7, he played his old er brother and didn’t win a single game.

“He wasn't nice enough to just give me one,” Jonah joked.

It’s this competitive spirit that has helped the brother develop their games, the family agreed. They both hate losing, Micah said, and they’ve pushed each other to become the players they are today.

“It's kind of just in the nature of how we were raised,” Micah said.

Read the rest online at alligator.org/section/sports.

By Topher Adams Sports Writer

Florida seemed to turn a corner in the second half against Texas A&M. The Gators cruised past the Aggies after a strong second-half display and followed it up by blowing out South Carolina 38-6 on Senior Day.

All that momentum came to a screeching halt in Nashville.

The Vanderbilt Commodores, fresh off their first Southeastern Conference win since before the CO VID-19 pandemic, upset Florida 31-24. The Gators played a sloppy, disjointed game and fell to Clark Lea’s Commodores in one of the most surprising results of the season.

Florida didn’t play like the team that beat Texas A&M and South Carolina. UF committed a season-high seven penalties for 80 yards and turned the ball over twice for the first time since Oct. 8 against Missouri.

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The Gators also dropped several passes and fum bled a punt that was recovered by Vanderbilt for a touchdown.

In addition to unforced mental errors, Florida’s run ning game disappeared. After rushing for nearly 400 yards against the Gamecocks, UF managed 45 yards against the Commodores, a team that entered the game allowing the fifth-most rushing yards per game in the SEC.

The mistakes and lack of a ground game sunk Flori da against Vanderbilt and put a stain on Napier’s debut season in the Swamp.

“There was a lot of Florida beating Florida out there today, and that’s my job, is to have the players ready to play,” Napier said postgame. “We did not do that today.”

Quarterback Anthony Richardson tried to will the

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Courtesy to The Alligator

Five-star guard Laila Reynolds played high school basketball at Shabach Christian Academy in Maryland.

Ryan Friedenberg // Alligator Staff

Freshman Jonah Braswell competes at the Gator Fall Invite Saturday, Nov. 5, 2022.

Music city stunner

to work, that's all.”

Gators to a late victory. The redshirt sophomore finished with 400 pass ing yards and three touchdowns, including two to redshirt freshman Daejon Reynolds, who saw the first significant playing time of his career in Nashville.

“We lost, so I could have done a number of things better,” Rich ardson said postgame. “Made some better reads, better checks for us. Or even been a better leader. [I] just got

The Gators also battled injuries against Vanderbilt, especially at wide receiver. Redshirt sophomore Xzavier Henderson didn’t play Sat urday, and his replacement redshirt freshman Marcus Burke went down injured. Junior wide receiver Ricky Pearsall, who leads Florida in receiv ing touchdowns, also went down with an early injury.

“It’s definitely tough to lose those guys,” Richardson said. “Those guys know they want to play, know they

want to contribute to the team.”

With just a rivalry showdown against Florida State to play, Na pier’s first season at Florida is near ing its conclusion. The Gators’ loss in Nashville served as another re minder of how far the team has to go to return to the precipice of the SEC and college football.

The Gators finished the season with a 3-5 conference record, one game better than the 2-6 mark Flori da reached in Dan Mullen’s final sea son last year.

It’s one step forward and one step back this season for Florida. The Gators two best wins, against No. 7 Utah and South Carolina, were im

mediately followed by losses to Ken tucky and Vanderbilt respectively.

“There’s lots of things that this can teach us,” Napier said. “Ulti mately, that’s what’s important here — that we learn from the experience.

I think our group is well-versed on what winning football looks like. We did not do what is required to win today.”

Florida will have the chance to end a frustrating season on a high note when it travels to Tallahassee to face Florida State. The Seminoles are ranked 16th in the Associated Press top 25 and are in the midst of their best season since 2016.

head coach Mike Norvell’s

team is 8-3 with four straight domi nant victories heading into its rivalry clash against the Gators on Black Friday. If Florida can win its fourthstraight against Florida State — es pecially against a ranked Seminoles team — it’d be an ideal cap to the Gators’ season.

The ESPN Football Power Index favors the Seminoles, giving FSU a 76.9% chance to win as of Nov. 20.

Kickoff from Doak Campbell Sta dium in Tallahassee is set for Nov. 25 at 7:30 p.m. The game will be broadcast on ABC.

@Topher_Adams tadams@alligator.org

FSU