The second chorus of “We Are the Boys from Old Florida,” the song sang at the end of every third quarter, contains the line that everybody knows and loves: “In all kinds of weather, we’ll all stick together.” This line is a staple in UF households, so it’s easy to take for granted, I suppose. Recently, The Swamp has become a hostile environment, and I don’t mean toward other teams. Actual Florida fans have begun to boo our quarterback, Feleipe Franks. While some plays may not transpire the way we envisioned, we do not, as students, fans, classmates and decent human beings, have the right to belittle someone as a person.
It’s easy being an armchair quarterback. Judging the way certain plays were handled is acceptable, but it’s important to keep in mind that being on the field with thousands of eyes on you is stressful, and mistakes can be made under pressure. It’s OK to make critiques or acknowledge mistakes. Even I make critiques, and I’m not a major football fan. But critiques are not jokes. Rooting against a member of the team whose school you attend certainly is not a joke. It’s mean.
Swampy UF Memes for Top Ten Public Teens, the UF meme page on Facebook, has been laden with anti-Franks jokes as of late. I even saw someone post recently “Not My Quarterback.” As bystanders, this may seem to be a lighthearted quip. However, being the butt of relentless jokes cannot be fun.
I saw some pushback on Facebook with people claiming they did not appreciate Franks hushing the crowd. Maybe, instead of thinking about how getting hushed makes you feel, consider thinking about how booing the quarterback of your own team makes him feel. Personally, I believe Franks has every right to hush hecklers from his own school. Booing the opposing team is rude enough, but your own team? Come on! It’s supposed to be great to be a Florida Gator.
At times the football team seems distant, almost as if the team is a separate entity from the university. The players seem like celebrities, or at least they did when I was little and would come all the way to The Swamp from Tampa. I now realize that they’re just people, just classmates. In fact, I’ve had multiple classes with gymnasts, and baseball and football players. Imagine coming to class Monday knowing that some of your classmates were booing you Saturday. Athletes are not emotionless robots who ignore harassment, they’re just fellow classmates who are far better at sports than the rest of us.
Coming to class every morning knowing that fellow students root against you would cause a feeling of displacement. UF is supposed to feel like a home to everyone — not just the Tim Tebows of the world. One cannot only cheer on the team members whom they prefer — school spirit encompasses everyone, hence the term school spirit.
As I said before, it’s easy to take for granted that in all kinds of weather we’ll all stick together. We’ll ALL stick together. Not just some of us, and we definitely won’t band against each other. Maybe next time we sing “We Are the Boys from Old Florida” at the end of the third quarter, right before we pay homage to Gainesville’s own Tom Petty, we should pay more attention to the lyrics. Speaking of Petty, some schools have decided that their band has the right to play over the third quarter Petty tribute, as the stadium sings along to “I Won’t Back Down.” The utter disrespect! Now, that’s a topic for next week.
Hannah Whitaker is a UF English sophomore. Her column appears on Mondays.
