Posted on 09/07/2026 1:54:00 AM PDT by srmanuel
Pardon a bit of self-indulgence, I wanted to brag about my Alma Mater, The University of Florida, who back in 2020 at the height of the BLM hysteria was led by a DEI President who banned the "Gator Bait" cheer that had been a part of UF Sporting Events for at least since the 1990s. Now at the beginning of a new football season, with a new Head Coach and new President who appreciates college football traditions decided to allow the cheer to come back. Saturday night in the first quarter the cheer returned to an overwhelmingly positive response hopefully this small return to sanity takes hold and never returns.
A short video from 2020 when the cheer was banned, ironically the cheer was popularized by a black football from Miami named Lawrence Wright.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP9CweR9dLQ
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If you ain’t a gator, you must be gator bait.
I, too, am thrilled to see that the “Gator Bait!” traditional chant is back! My brother and nephews were at the game. Had a great time!
I suspect it's BS and just junk urban legend.
“horrific historic racist imagery” ?! How so? I don’t get it
The link I posted is a video about the cheer and its supposed connection to slavery, it also is about the player, Lawrence Wright who popularized the cheer, “ if you ain’t a Gator, you must be Gator bait”, Wright happens to be a black player from the 90s who is from Miami.
I know, that's where I got the info about the black slave children
The “gator bait” claim is pure bunkum.
How exactly do you “ban” a cheer?
What, kick everybody that does it out of the stadium?
libs always want to ruin anything that people enjoy. SMH
Amos Moses, anyone?
Only he was a Cajun.
Amos Moses - Jerry Reed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7GyLr7Cz2g
I used to have a 45 of this. I wonder if I still do.
Now Amos Moses was a Cajun he lived by himself in the swamp
He hunted alligators for a livin’ he’d just knock ‘em in the head with a stump
The Louisiana law’s gonna get ya Amos
It ain’t legal huntin’ alligators down in the swamp boy
Now everybody blames his old man for makin’ him mean as a snake
When Amos Moses was a boy his daddy would use him for alligator bait
Tie a rope around his waist and throw him in the swamp ha ha ha
Alligator bait in the Louisiana bayou
The cheer had been around a lot longer than that. David Stirt started Gator Bait magazine in 1980. Several older fans I’ve talked to say they remember doing it in the 1960s and some have traced it back to the 1930s.
Regardless, it had utterly nothing whatsoever to do with racism. There was no outcry to ban it. Nobody was offended by it. We just had an idiotic leftist virtue signalling president who thought he could score some leftist kudos by banning it. Screw him. School presidents are just hired mercenaries. Its not their place to screw with longstanding traditions (and yes, I still REFUSE to call it anything other than the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party).
Getting the Band to play the music that goes along with the cheer was banned, without the music playing along, the cheer sort of died out and was never done for about 6 years.
Great song. Love it.
DEI balls?
Well, there's bound to be some extra, after they cut them off ...
It took them six years to grow a pair.
That’s not something to brag about.
I obviously left out the work player as in black football player from Miami.
His name was Lawrence Wright, he was far from a DEI player, he was a multi-year starter for the Gators, who won 4 SEC championships in a row while he was there and won their first National Title while he was there.
In the case of a major public institution who is infested with liberals, in an otherwise conservative state, it’s a fairly significant move and wins the new President of the University a lot of goodwill with the fans and Alumni.
BTW, the new President came from the University of Alabama and knows about the traditions and history of SEC football so that played a large roll in getting the cheer back.
I understand that the institution has been corrupted.
The fans have zero excuse.
If they’d wanted to do the chant, if they’d all channeled their inner Spartacus, what was the uni gonna do?
Ban them all?!
The uni could try.
But tv coverage of seats going begging would have ended that ban real quick.
So now the uni pres says they have his permission/blessing??
The fans could always do it.
Gutless wonders all.
Didn’t Amos Moses play wide receiver for LSU against Florida a few years ago?
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