It’s Homecoming Week at the University of Florida, when Gainesville’s town-and-gown line disappears. It’s when University Avenue shuts down for the parade. And locals who hardly ever set foot on campus turn out to watch the procession.
It also means that it’s time once again for Gator Growl, a one-night entertainment spectacular this Friday at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center that has been billed as the largest student-run pep rally in the nation.
This year’s headliner is comedian and performer Nikki Glaser, and while the show is expected to last about two hours, planning for this entertainment event took nearly ten months.
Gator Growl and Homecoming Week is a volunteer operation. Students negotiate talent contracts, draft run-of-show documents, manage vendors and coordinate with police and university officials. They build production schedules, timed down to the second. And they manage a sizable budget. When asked about the budget figure, it could not be disclosed.
Students do this while they are also balancing classes, extracurriculars and life itself. Few of them will be named onstage, and most of the crowd will never know they existed.
For Mason Silverstein, a senior at the Warrington College of Business and this year’s Gator Growl producer, that work started last fall. He spent his first weeks closing out the previous year’s books and paying outstanding invoices. Then came the biggest task of all: finding this year’s headliner.
There is no outside agent to book Gator Growl’s talent lineup. Instead, Silverstein made calls, contacted talent agencies, extended offers and negotiated final contracts. The 21-year-old student estimates he has spent a couple hundred hours on talent alone, weighing not only cost, but the reputation of each act and their fit for the university.
“If there’s an issue with the person and the contract is already signed, that could cause a massive problem,” Silverstein said. “Especially at a university, you have to be really careful.”
This year, Silverstein brought Gator Growl back to its roots with comedian Nikki Glaser as the headliner. Glaser’s touring team told him something he’s heard more than once this year: They had never worked with a 21-year-old before.
Behind him, a staff of more than 100 students labored on the show, part of the Homecoming and Gator Growl organization of more than 200 members. In a single day, Silverstein might meet with his show executives, faculty advisers, the university police department and his finance team, speak to an alumni association board and then spend five hours that night writing skit scripts — all alongside his homework.
“A lot of people think it’s just another leadership position, but we’re running a full production, a show that people are paying for,” he said. “This is something grown-ups do as a full-time job, and we’re all full-time students taking 12-plus credits.”
Another student bringing this year’s production to life is Gabby Zreibi, who also has a paying job at the Bike Shop in the Reitz Union. When the 19-year-old UF junior isn’t working toward his veterinary medicine degree, he directs and performs with the Florida Players. When he saw the casting call for skits during this year’s Gator Growl, Zreibi said he knew he had to audition.
He landed multiple roles in the Gator Growl student skits in September, and ever since, he has been working on his lines and comedic timing.
“The material can be funny, but if the actor’s not, then it falls flat, and it looks like the writing isn’t good,” Zreibi said. “But if you play it up, you can make anything funny, and that’s how I like to act.”
Zreibi enjoys being able to be a part of a production where the writers are fellow students.
“It’s a new thing for me, performing something that the director writes,” he said. “It’s cool to see that you can ask, ‘What does this mean?’ or ‘How should I say this?’ and they’ll know exactly what it is.”
Silverstein researched university archives to understand Growl’s history so he could better understand the direction the production could go. He found footage of crowds of 50,000 packed in the football stadium watching live comedy skits, and headliners for whom Growl was one of the biggest stages in comedy. Some notable historical performances include Robin Williams, Jerry Seinfeld, Bob Hope, Jay Leno, Billy Crystal and Howie Mandel. That research shaped his vision for this year: A return to a comedy headliner and live skits, which he said haven’t been part of the show in more than 20 years.
Regardless of the past success of Growl’s comedy productions, live skits make an already precise show harder to run. During Growl, Silverstein plans to stand to stage right with a headset and iPad, logging times against a schedule built around the headliner’s set. If one segment runs long, everything after it must shift.
The return to tradition also comes during a year of new leadership at UF. It is the first Homecoming under university President Stuart Bell, and the Gators have a new football coach, Jon Sumrall.
“I think the energy is different this year,” Silverstein said. “I think there’s something special about bringing back the old traditions that Gators loved so much.”
Sean Harkins, Florida Blue Key president and a third-year law student in UF’s Levin College of Law, said the return to comedy has drawn back alumni who haven’t attended Gator Growl in years. For him, that connection is the entire reason for the event.
“You meet a Gator somewhere across the country and you’re able to talk about, ‘Did you go to Gator Growl when you were a student at UF? Who was your performer?’' I think that’s what ties Gator students and Gator alumni together," Harkins said.
Silverstein said that student production is what sets UF’s Homecoming apart from others. At most universities, homecoming events are run by primarily administrators. At UF, it’s all students.
For many students, Growl is also preparing them for their future careers. Silverstein plans to attend law school and is in the middle of the application process. But working on Growl opened a door for him he didn’t expect — the potential of pursuing entertainment industry law.
Florida Blue Key, one of UF’s oldest leadership organizations, has run Gator Growl since its first celebration in 1923. Harkins said alumni often point to the experience as a launching pad in their careers.
“One of the biggest things I’ve learned from event planning is you could have so many things prepared, so many things lined up,” Harkin said, “and something goes wrong and you have to pivot and be able to adjust on the fly.”
On the day of Gator Growl, Silverstein expects to arrive at the O’Connell Center at 7 a.m. and leave only to ride in the parade. His goal for the final stretch is to stay present and trust the work his team has done. When the show ends, so does his tenure, and he’ll pass the baton to the next producer.
Recognition is scarce in this kind of work, so Silverstein is building it into the show. His team quietly wrote him into one of the returning skits, and he is working in shout-outs for his team members throughout the night.
“The biggest thing,” Silverstein said, “is recognizing all of the people around you who have worked so hard.”