Interview with William Corpew O'Neal 20
February 22, 1996



C: Now do these guys get together in Gainesville or different places?

0: The same place every year. Crystal River.

C: Oh, in Crystal River. I can understand how you got involved but you became more
 involved than just knowing these guys. You've helped a lot of them in their pro days, did you not? Helped them with their contracts or their negotiations? What was it
 exactly?

0: Well, in those days you had pro contracts. I represented them. The reason I got started
 doing that was that the agents for the professional football players in those days operated on a ten percent contract basis. They had him signed up to a contract that made them their agent for any activities connected with the profession of football, so that they could go in ten years and be an announcer in television, or something like that, and the guy gets ten percent of that contract. They endorse clothing or something like that, and that didn't set too well with me, so I just started representing them for free. It was right costly at
 times. I know one year I had more than $4,000 in telephone calls.

C: I imagine. But it was a labor of love. You were very fond of all those boys and they
 were fond of you and Katie, too. You about gave them a home away from home for a lot
 of them.
0: Yes, they were nice boys.

C: And you and Katie did a lot of traveling at that time, and you traveled to most of the
 games, wherever they happened to be.

0: Well, we enjoyed going and we got to go to a lot of them "on the house."

C: A lot of fun. Ray Graves was a fine man.

0: Surely.

C: Still is, and he's a good friend of yours. And after his era was over, did you continue to
 do things for the football team to a degree?

0: Lesser degree. During the Graves era, I always went to the dressing room after the
 games. The guys would grab me and throw me into the shower and mess around, horse around. After the first game after Doug Dickey took over, he sent me word that he
 didn't want me in the dressing room, so I never went back.

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