GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Tim Paulk was the kind of player others tried to avoid when he had his helmet and pads on.
“When Tim hits people, it sounds like lightning,” his former Gators teammate, Ephesians Bartley, once told the Tampa Tribune. “He’s scary, because he doesn’t just try to run into guys. He tries to run through people.”
A 6-foot-1, 229-pound linebacker from Miami’s Carol City High, “take-it-easy” was not an expression in Paulk’s personal vocabulary.
“Tim Paulk is a very intense player who is in his own little world out there,” former Gators linebacker Carlton Miles told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in 1991, Paulk’s final season at Florida. “Sometimes he loses control.”
Paulk was a key member of Florida’s defense in head coach Steve Spurrier‘s first two seasons as UF head coach, earning first-team All-Southeastern Conference honors in 1990 (UPI) and 1991 (SEC coaches). Paulk was more than a tackling machine, though.
He had a knack for making splash plays and was a semifinalist for the Butkus Award — honoring the nation’s top linebacker — his senior season.
According to then-Gators defensive coordinator Ron Zook during Paulk’s senior season, Paulk was involved in more than 20 turnovers in his career. He had six career interceptions, averaged 25.3 yards per return and returned two of them for a touchdown. Paulk racked up 257 tackles in 42 career games, including 19 1/2 tackles for loss.
“Tim’s such a big-play guy,” Zook said at the time. “With his size and speed, I tell you, there’s not a lot of them like Tim.”
Paulk was a seventh-round pick of the Atlanta Falcons in the 1992 NFL Draft but never stuck in the NFL. He later spent a short stint in preseason camp with the Bears and another brief fling with the Falcons. However, Paulk never played in an NFL regular-season game, his best days on the field coming with the Gators.
Paulk’s reputation as an aggressive, fearless player was not by accident.
“I love to hit people,” he said in 1991. “That’s what keeps me playing this game. If a play goes by where I don’t hit somebody, I get angry.”
Paulk’s time at Florida was shared by teammate, roommate and good friend Godfrey Myles. Paulk wore No. 99. Myles wore No. 98. The two met in eighth grade and were teammates at Carol City and then at Florida.
Myles was a third-round pick by the Dallas Cowboys in 1991 and won three Super Bowl rings. He roomed with Paulk in college and the two remained friends until Myles’ untimely death from a stroke in 2011.
Ten years later, Paulk’s family shared the news of his death from leukemia on social media. Tim Paulk was 53 and one of the hardest hitters to pull on a Gators uniform.