The University of Florida announced this week that it will be doing away with one of its most popular chants at sporting events, and the former player who started the chant is not pleased with the decision.
University of Florida president W. Kent Fuchs said in a letter to the UF community on Thursday that the Florida band will no longer be leading the “Gator Bait” chant at sporting events. While Fuchs said he does not believe the cheer is racist in nature, he said it has “horrific historic racist imagery” associated with it.
The “Gator Bait” chant originated in 1995, when former Florida defensive back Lawrence Wright famously said “if you ain’t a Gator, ya Gator bait, baby” following a win over rival Florida State. Wright told Pat Dooley of GatorSports.com that he was planning to launch a line of merchandise featuring the phrase, and he is extremely bothered by Fuchs banning the chant.
“The Gator Nation is a culture, too,” Wright said. “It’s not about what happened way back in the past. How about our culture? Me and the president need to sit down and talk about this.”
The argument against the “Gator Bait” cheer is that it is associated with historical imagery of black babies being used to catch alligators. Wright, who is black, says one thing has nothing to do with the other.
“I’m not going for it,” Wright added. “I created something for us. It’s a college football thing. It’s not a racist thing, It’s about us, the Gator Nation. And I’m black.”
Wright helped lead the Gators to a national championship in 1996. He won the Jim Thorpe Award that year as the nation’s best defensive back. You can see a video of the “Gator Bait” chant here.
Fuchs only said that the UF band would no longer be leading the “Gator Bait” cheer, so it’s unclear if the university still plans to allow fans to use it at games.
