As Florida trailed by 10 points in the Elite Eight on Saturday, it was guard Walter Clayton Jr. that stepped up. Knocking down two consecutive 3s, including one that gave Florida the lead in the final minute, he cemented himself among collegiate basketball’s stars.
With his eight points and an 18-4 run in the final minutes, Florida inched past Texas Tech 84-79 as Florida Gator fans across the country and the state celebrated a milestone the team hadn’t reached in 11 years. Despite the unified goal of a national championship, fans in Orlando, San Francisco and Gainesville, Florida, differed in their methods of watching the game and what advancing past the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight meant.
Driving turnout
Tucked in a corner closest to the doors, an older couple watched UF square off against Maryland. They were less animated than the rest of the patrons, quietly viewing the game without much screaming or hand motions.
Eighty-year-old Bill Swartz, who graduated from the University of Florida in 1966, had converted his wife, 69-year-old Carol, to Gator fandom. For the last 30 years, they tried to make at least one Florida athletic event, usually a football game. Their presence was especially important to Mitchell Lamoriello, the president of the Central Florida Gator Club, who knew Swartz by name.
“I think the beauty about watch parties is that we're all aligned in the same mindset of: hey, we just want to see the Gators win,” said Lamoriello. “Seeing Bill come – and he's come to a ton of events, I've got to know him and his wife very well – it's just a very special thing.”
The turnout of Gator alumni was a source of pride for him, but it’s largely dictated by the success of UF athletics, the 30-year-old said.
“Our participation is really built off of how football and basketball do,” Lamoriello said about winning a national championship. “If basketball and football's success is the avenue to [the club’s viability], then it means more to me than anything from a club perspective. But as a fan, I also just want it so bad.”
Come from Far Away
As the Gators traversed over 2,300 miles to California for the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight, UF supporters descended on the Bay Area en masse. Dotting Fisherman’s Wharf and the Golden Gate Bridge with orange and blue, UF students and alumni arrived in San Francisco from a variety of locations, united by a similar belief.
“We’re so far away from Florida and it never plays out here,” St. Louis Lutheran pastor Rick Serina said. “This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
The 47-year-old, who traveled with his teenage son from Missouri, said that he organized the trip out west when Florida was sorted into the West Region of the NCAA Tournament bracket. He booked the flights and called into his son’s middle school nearly two weeks before the game, he added. Gazing out at Alcatraz, he didn’t regret the decision.
While wandering around clad in a blue Gators hat, Serina had seen a number of others sporting Florida attire in the Bay, something he feels is representative of how well Florida fans travel.
“Our alumni and students are everywhere,” he said. “I mean, we have people around every corner of the globe… and this is just the perfect opportunity to see something that connects us all: the Florida Gators.”
For a 24-year-old broadcast worker living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the chance to go to Florida’s Sweet Sixteen contest came about at the last moment. Ricky Rivera, a 2023 UF media, production management and technology graduate, got tickets to the Maryland game from his boss on Wednesday night and quickly began calling around. After finding a fellow Gator to travel with him, Rivera booked a flight to San Francisco on Thursday morning and immediately set out for the airport.
Six hours later, he stood outside the Chase Center, donning a Florida cape and matching Gator sunglasses. He hadn’t packed anything more, despite the temperature hovering around 50 degrees. Rivera explained that when he heard he might have the chance to travel and support his alma mater, there was never a doubt as to what he would do, even if he hadn’t done laundry.
“This is the farthest [Florida’s] been in my adult life,” the Florida superhero-look-alike said. “This is the closest team that we’ve had to a national championship contender, and I want to see it happen.”
Hometown Crew
Spilling out onto University Avenue, a small line of expectant Gator fans paid $10 to secure a place at Salty Dog Saloon. Sean Doherty, one of the eight bartenders on staff that shift, paced back and forth, passing pitchers of beer to a crowd of about fifty people in his section.
He paused for a few moments to take a glimpse at one of the three television screens hanging on the wall over the rows of liquor lining the wall. Then, someone would flash a credit card or a signed receipt, and Doherty’s work resumed.
“Funnily enough, when the game is actually on, my job is pretty easy because most people are so focused on the games than actually ordering,” Doherty said. “It's always the TV timeouts or the halftimes where everyone rushes to the bar at once because the game is not on.”
The minutes ticked down, and the violent gestures toward the television screens grew. One girl, sitting on a table in the middle of the bar, yelled at Florida’s players to rebound better. Another threw her hands in the air with frustration as the referees called what seemed to be yet another foul against the Gators.
Then, with less than three minutes to go, the team started draining 3-pointers.
“It's pretty insane,” Doherty said. “People were jumping. I had to get some people off the tables because they start[ed] climbing the walls, literally.”
The tide was turning, and it was in the Gators’ favor. The seconds ticked to zero, and the crowd exploded into cheers. The celebration spilled out of the bar and onto University Avenue. From Cantina Añejo to Salty Dog Saloon, the Midtown Gainesville crowds chanted the lyrics to Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.” A firetruck blared its horn as it drove by to the excitement of a few onlookers. One of the crew members stuck their hands out the window and chomped.
For the first time since 2014, the Florida basketball team is heading to the Final Four in San Antonio, Texas, and the streets of Gainesville were full of pandemonium. The Gators will face Auburn in a Saturday SEC rematch as the nation – and Gator fans around the country – await who will make it to the National Championship. Tipoff is at 6:09 p.m. ET.