We were talking about the Gator's dual national championships of 2006, first the basketball championship in April, then the football championship in January. I was telling Jonathan how I recalled seeing bumper stickers while at Florida that read "Year of the Gator". They weren't on a lot of cars, just a few cars of the Gator fans with bright hopes that that year would be the year the Gator's won a national championship. Of course we all know, many years went by with no such luck. So I said to Jonathan that I couldn't believe how no one has come out with any good "Year of the Gator" shirts to celebrate this first-ever accomplishment of holding dual national championships in both basketball and football at the same time. Of all years, this truly marks 2006 as the "Year of the Gator" so something had to be done!

So we started talking about what a cool design would be for a shirt that would properly and proudly represent and celebrate this dual national championship. I had the idea of having Albert, the school mascot, holding the two crystal trophies. Jonathan took it a step further and drew a design on paper using markers to illustrate the design. He even added the losing teams mascot under the left foot of Albert to show how badly Florida had crushed Ohio State in the BCS national championship football game. What a kid!

So over a period of a few weeks this idea kept brewing. Finally we realized that we had a great idea for a design and that we could even sell the shirts on the web. So I thought "Hey, why not? I do work for a web hosting company after all."

Jonathan, being the little entreprenuer he is, negotiated with me that he was to earn a share of the proceeds of the t-shirt sales for his design contributions. I felt this was a great idea. What better way to reward a young person that is putting forth the effort? What could be a better way to help fund his UF education? So I agreed.

So we checked to see if the domain was available and guess what.. We got a domain! So I setup a new web site account for TheYearOfTheGator.com at Host Depot (shameless plug) and the web site was born. Then I added the MerchantWizard Shopping Cart software to the site (another shameless plug) and the storefront was up and running.

Eventually the idea for the design was solidified and given to a professional graphic artist to be drawn. Hey, no "half you-know-what-work" done here! We decided that if we were going to do this, that we would do it right. Our motto is "do it right the first time". We wouldn't want any member of the Gator Nation to be caught wearing a poor quality shirt. So I searched the Internet to find one of the finest shirt printing companies to print the shirts. And of course we would only use quality shirts to start with. The design was completed, sent to the shirt printing company and our shirts were born.

So please enjoy our products, support the Gator Nation, and help send a baby Gator to the University of Florida. Also, please send us some feedback and some pictures of you proudly wearing your "Year of the Gator" shirts. We'll be putting the best online. Heck, we'll probably come up with a contest to give the best pic a free iPhone or something! And last but not least, please make Host Depot your vendor of choice for all your hosting needs.