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"That's my home. That's my field," said Ling, who on game days shuttled between the south end-zone
bleachers reserved for visiting recruits and the Gator Room, where the Gators held pregame and postgame
receptions for recruits and their parents. "I know more about the stadium probably than I know about my
house."

The Link

Today, Ling will begin her first year outside the Florida football program since 1979, when she met Kines at
a booster function in Atlanta, where her husband, Frank, was finishing his master's degree at Georgia Tech.
Ling asked Kines how she might get a job in the football office, and he told her that if she ever moved to
Gainesville, she should apply at the University Athletic Association.

"He probably said that to everybody," Ling said.

A few months later, the Lings moved to Gainesville. Betty applied for five jobs. She was offered four. The
only place that turned her down was Florida's athletic department.

Ling took a job at Sun Bank (now SunTrust), but before long she noticed a help-wanted ad posted by
McGraw, the Gators assistant in charge of recruiting. She applied, and despite knowing nothing about
football recruiting, she got the job.

Ling knew she loved the Gators. She would have attended Plant High had she not dropped out at 15 to get
married. Her younger siblings attended newly built Robinson High. There, she watched future Gators John
Reaves, Larry Smith and Steve Ely. She adored Spurrier so much that she named her firstborn Steve. Her
younger sons, Tim and Kenny, worked the Gator Room for free on game days as teenagers.

Pell asked Ling to handle the administrative side of recruiting, but more importantly, he asked her to provide
a personal touch. She typed each letter sent to recruits. During recruiting season, Pell's assistants were
required to call Ling every morning and give her their schedule for the day and a list of phone numbers
where they could be reached. Years before cell phones and text messaging, Ling linked prospects, their
parents and their high school coaches with Florida's coaches.

Pell also never wanted a prospect or a high school coach to call and simply leave a message. Even after
Pell's firing in 1984, Ling followed his advice. Longtime Chamberlain High coach Billy Turner recalled calling
Florida's football office a few years ago. Ling answered, and before Turner could identify himself, she'd
already said, "Hi, Coach Turner."

"Man, that lady, she's really great," Turner remembered thinking. Then he considered the fact that Ling
probably had discerned his identity with caller ID.

"I never had caller ID," Ling said after hearing Turner's story.

Players Loved Ling

If a prospect called for a coach and that coach wasn't available, Ling kept the player on the phone and
mined as much information as she could. She would later use that information during official visits. She also
never stopped dreaming up ways to wow recruits. First, she put their names on the scoreboard. When the
athletic department installed video boards, she requested a jazzier production.

More importantly, Ling always listened to the prospects and their parents. Those players grew to love her.
Marshall, perhaps Florida's best defensive player ever, visited Ling the day before each game because
talking to her calmed his nerves. Ling said Marshall even called her on the morning of his first Super Bowl.

Ling also gave tours to prospects who stopped by the office, even if Florida wasn't actually recruiting the
player.

"Anytime a kid came in - it didn't matter if he was 4-foot-6 - if he came in and he wanted to see the Gators, I
took him," Ling said. "Rex was just one of those guys."

That's Rex as in Rex Grossman, the former Florida quarterback who now starts for the Chicago Bears.
Grossman and his father, Daniel, visited Gainesville on a rainy day in the summer of 1997. Ling told them
she'd show them the stadium and the campus, and as she searched for working umbrellas for her visitors,
Spurrier walked past. Ling introduced the Grossmans, and the Gators head ball coach said he could meet
with them in an hour.

After the meeting, Spurrier began recruiting a player who would become one of the greatest quarterbacks in
Florida history. He can thank Ling for that.

"I don't think anybody in the whole athletic department had a deeper love for the university," said Daniel
Grossman, a Bloomington, Ind., ophthalmologist. "She was truly a great ambassador."

Sometimes, Ling's job required her to be a bit more firm. On game days, she guarded the recruits in those
south end-zone bleachers to avoid potential NCAA violations and to keep opponents from chatting up
Florida's recruits. She once chased Heisman Trophy winner George Rogers back to the South Carolina
sideline, and a few years ago, she turned away a group of well-dressed men who couldn't find their game
credentials.

"Gentlemen, you're not allowed in this area," Ling remembers telling the men.

"Ma'am, we can come in this area," one man said.

"Not without a pass you can't," Ling shot back.

A tall man in the group volunteered to take the long way around. Only later would Ling realize that the tall
man was Gov. Jeb Bush.

"I work all the time," Ling said. "I don't see these people on television."

The End Of An Era

But after years of 75-100 hour work weeks, Ling wondered if she should keep working. She broached the
idea of retirement with current Gators coach Urban Meyer.

"I said, 'No, you're not allowed to retire,'" Meyer said. "It's a testimony to her that among the high school
coaches in this state, everybody knows Betty. � I respect what she did here."

Ling agreed to come back for the 2006 season, but only after knee replacement surgery following spring
practice. When she returned to work in July, she learned that many of her duties had been handed over to
others. Ling tried to work at the new job, but she missed the daily buzz of Florida's recruiting operation. Hurt,
she opted to retire following the LSU game.

"I'm a gal that's got to earn my pay," Ling said. "I didn't feel like I was earning my pay just sitting there."

Ling and her son, Steve, will attend the national title game as guests of Florida's athletic department. As she
watches the Gators play, she might have to fight tears.

"It's hard, because when I watch these kids, I know them all," Ling said. "I know all their parents and
grandmas and grandpas. It's like leaving your family behind."

Ling now must attend to her own family. Steve, 44, is mentally retarded and requires constant care. Ling's
9-year-old grandson, Brandon, has leukemia, and doctors have said his body can't take more
chemotherapy or radiation treatments. Ling and Brandon have become constant playmates.

"[Brandon] enjoys every minute that she can spend with him," his father, Tim Ling, said.

"He's living by the grace of God," Betty Ling said.

Ling cherishes every second she gets to spend with her grandson, but she sometimes wishes she could
spend a few more days in the football office, mailing bowl diaries to keep recruits up to date on the Gators.
She could be angrier about the way things ended, but her loyalty won't allow it.

Even though she knew nothing about recruiting in 1979, a deep and abiding love for the Gators earned Ling
her dream job. That same love made it nearly impossible to walk away.

"She," Daniel Grossman said, "was the godmother to the Gators."

"Yeah, we can," Fernandez said. "But they can't keep it."

The practice many schools eventually would use to help woo
recruits sprang from the mind of a Port Tampa native who never
even attended high school. What Ling lacked in traditional
education, she more than made up for in imagination, common
sense and a passion for Florida football unmatched by anyone
short of her hero, Steve Spurrier.

In November, Ling, 64, finally got a Gators jersey with her name
on it - and she got to keep it. Athletic Director Jeremy Foley
presented it to the woman who, for 27 years prior to her
retirement in October, served as the bridge between Florida's
coaches and the recruits they hoped would someday wear
orange and blue. Working for six different head coaches, she
helped snare Wilber Marshall, Percy Harvin and every Gator in
between.

The celebration of Ling's career was bittersweet. As she stood on
Florida Field during the Florida-Western Carolina game Nov. 18,
she couldn't escape the sadness.

Gator Football - 1/1/07

'Godmother To The Gators'

The woman who made less than $2 an hour had an idea, and the
University of Florida's football coaches listened.

At a meeting in 1980, Florida coach Charley Pell and assistants
Joe Kines and Sonny McGraw gave their full attention to the
minimum-wage secretary they'd hired the previous year to keep
track of Florida's recruiting efforts. Betty Ling had dreamed up a
new way to impress visiting prospects by imagining what might
sway her to choose Florida over another school.

"I thought, 'Boy, if they had a jersey in the Gator locker room with
my name on it,'" Ling said last week, "'that would blow my mind.'"

So Ling presented the idea to her bosses.

"Can we do that?" she asked Pell.

"Can we do that?" Pell asked equipment manager Bud
Fernandez.