Hi Mstgr,
Lol, I strongly doubt that the Professor made a deal with Gator to come and get his visitors! I can only think of two possibilities – the popup was of the slow loading kind and you actually picked it up earlier when surfing, and it just happened to pop up here, Or they are actually targeting this site with ads for themselves and think they are funny.
In the second scenario you would have to be infested.
Try going to this address http://www.spywareguide.com/txt_detect.php
to see if you are infected withy something. And/or go here http://www.mailermailer.com/rd?http://spybot.safer-networking.de/index.php?lang=en&page=news to download a free program that will get rid of all your spyware. Usually this program http://www.mailermailer.com/rd?http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/ is enough though, a smaller program that catches most types of spyware.
Let me know if you found anything you were infected with!