50 Fun Facts About University of Florida

Which sports drink did a University of Florida research team led by Robert Cade create for its football players in 1965?

Gatorade was tried out on ten Florida football players in practices and games that season, and the tests were judged a success.

Florida Gators football's home, Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, got which nickname from the team's head coach in 1992?

The Swamp was chosen because swamps are where alligators live. The stadium had opened in 1930 as plain Florida Field.

Which Florida Gators quarterback became the first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy, college football's top award?

Tim Tebow took the 2007 award after becoming the first major-college player to both run and pass for at least 20 touchdowns in one season.

Which Gainesville-born rock star's song have Florida Gators crowds sung at every home game since his death in 2017?

Tom Petty died in October 2017, and five days later the stadium first played I Won't Back Down, which now follows the third quarter at each home game.

Florida Gators bands accompany the Gator Chomp arm gesture with the theme from which film?

Jaws supplies the two-note motif, played while fans clap outstretched arms together like an alligator's mouth. The university band began the gesture in 1981.

Which Florida Gators running back left for the Dallas Cowboys and became the NFL's all-time leading rusher?

Emmitt Smith ran for 18,355 NFL yards, passing Walter Payton's record in 2002. He went back to Florida in his off-seasons and finished his degree in 1996.

The University of Florida's Florida Museum of Natural History keeps the global database of attacks by which animals?

Sharks are the subject of the museum's International Shark Attack File, which grew out of a research panel the U.S. Navy set up in 1958.

Which school did the Florida Gators beat in both the football and men's basketball national championship games of 2007?

Ohio State lost 41–14 in football that January and 84–75 in basketball in April, making Florida the first Division I school to hold both titles at once.

Which Florida city has hosted the Florida–Georgia football rivalry game in almost every season since 1933?

Jacksonville became the game's regular neutral site in 1933. The rivalry left town in 1994 and 1995 while the old Gator Bowl stadium was demolished and replaced.

Which two colors do University of Florida teams wear, a pairing thought to blend the colors of two predecessor schools?

Orange and blue probably combine the orange and black of the East Florida Seminary with the blue and white of Florida Agricultural College.

Before its 1906 move to Gainesville, the college then called the University of Florida stood in which town?

Lake City lost a head-to-head contest with Gainesville to host the newly merged university, and classes opened on the new campus in September 1906.

Which 1905 Florida statute merged the state's colleges into three schools, creating the modern University of Florida?

The Buckman Act took its name from legislator Henry Holland Buckman, who is also remembered by Buckman Hall, one of the first two buildings finished on the Gainesville campus.

The 1905 shake-up that made the University of Florida a men's school put the state's women's college in which city?

Tallahassee's Florida Female College later became the Florida State College for Women and, eventually, Florida State University.

Which University of Florida landmark, begun in 1953 for a founding anniversary, holds a carillon of 61 bells?

Century Tower had no money for real bells when it was finished in 1956, so an electronic system chimed instead until student fees bought the first cast set in 1976.

Which University of Florida campus wildlife area lets visitors watch alligators from the shore?

Lake Alice nearly lost part of its shore in the late 1960s, when planners wanted a cross-campus road and a 2,000-car parking lot there. Campaigners led by Marjorie Harris Carr defeated the plan.

The University of Florida campus is home to the world's largest occupied houses built for which animals?

Bats, an estimated 450,000 to 500,000 of them, live in the two houses, and visitors gather every evening to watch the colony pour out at dusk.

The University of Florida's McGuire Center holds one of the world's largest research collections of which creatures?

Butterflies and moths fill the center's drawers in a collection that rivals the Natural History Museum's in London, and live ones fly in its Butterfly Rainforest.

Which architectural style did William A. Edwards choose for many of the University of Florida's original buildings?

Collegiate Gothic halls form the heart of the campus historic district, which joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

Which name did the Florida Gators give the live alligator that first appeared at football games in 1957?

Albert was a real reptile on the sidelines until 1970, when a costumed version took over the job. A partner, Alberta, joined him later.

Ben Hill Griffin Jr., whose name is on the Florida Gators' football stadium, made his fortune in which industry?

Citrus magnate Griffin was an alumnus and major benefactor, and the university put his name on the stadium in 1989 after nearly six decades as Florida Field.

Which 1966 Heisman Trophy winner returned to coach the Florida Gators to six league titles and a national title?

Steve Spurrier, nicknamed the Head Ball Coach, took the job in December 1989 and became the winningest coach in the program's history.

Which quarterback won the 1996 Heisman Trophy while leading the Florida Gators to their first national title?

Danny Wuerffel threw a nation-leading 39 touchdown passes that season, and also took the Draddy Trophy as college football's top scholar-athlete.

Which head coach led the Florida Gators to football national championships in both the 2006 and 2008 seasons?

Urban Meyer came to Gainesville from the Utah Utes in 2005, and later joined the short list of coaches to win major national titles at two universities.

Which coach led Florida Gators men's basketball to back-to-back national championships in 2006 and 2007?

Billy Donovan kept his whole starting five for the second run: all of them chose to return to Gainesville instead of leaving early for the NBA draft.

Which Florida Gators center, son of a French Open tennis champion, was Most Outstanding Player of the 2006 Final Four?

Joakim Noah, whose father Yannick won the 1983 French Open, led the 73–57 win over UCLA that gave the school its first basketball title.

The University of Florida was one of thirteen charter members that formed which college sports league in 1932?

The Southeastern Conference was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, when thirteen Southern Conference schools west and south of the Appalachians broke away together.

Which Florida Gators forward spent his entire 20-year NBA playing career with his hometown Miami Heat?

Udonis Haslem went undrafted in 2002 and played a season in France before signing with Miami, where he won three NBA championships.

Which former Florida Gators quarterback starred on The Bachelor in 2004 and became the show's permanent host in 2021?

Jesse Palmer was the first professional athlete to lead the dating series and, as a Canadian, its first non-American star.

The Florida Gators clinched their first football national title by winning which postseason game after the 1996 season?

The Sugar Bowl was a rematch: Florida won 52–20 over the only team that had beaten it during the regular season.

Which team did the Florida Gators edge 65–63 to win the 2025 men's basketball national championship under Todd Golden?

Houston's narrow defeat capped a 36–4 Florida season and delivered the program's third national title, its first in 18 years.

Which future U.S. national team striker helped the Florida Gators win their first NCAA women's soccer championship?

Abby Wambach played in Gainesville from 1998 to 2001, then scored 184 goals in 255 appearances for the United States.

Which former Florida Gators swimmer won five gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics, held in 2021?

Caeleb Dressel had announced himself in Gainesville years earlier, winning an NCAA sprint title as an 18-year-old freshman in 2015.

Which Florida Gators swimmer became the first American swimmer to compete in five Olympic Games, the last at age 41?

Dara Torres won at least one medal at every one of those Games, and also lettered in volleyball at Florida once her swimming eligibility ran out.

Which former Florida Gators first baseman hit 53 home runs in 2019, setting Major League Baseball's rookie record?

Pete Alonso did it with the New York Mets, who had drafted him out of Gainesville in 2016, and was named National League Rookie of the Year.

Which sportscaster danced with the Florida Gators Dazzlers as a student and later co-hosted Dancing with the Stars?

Erin Andrews graduated in 2000 with a telecommunications degree, and placed third as a contestant on the dance show before co-hosting it from 2014 to 2019.

Which home-improvement host studied journalism at the University of Florida before fronting This Old House from 1979?

Bob Vila was hired after his restoration of a Victorian house in Newton, Massachusetts, won a Better Homes and Gardens award.

Which 2016 Republican presidential candidate earned a political science degree from the University of Florida in 1993?

Marco Rubio took a winding route: he transferred to Gainesville before graduating, then earned his Juris Doctor at the University of Miami.

University of Florida graduate Darrell Hammond impersonated which politician in 87 sketches on Saturday Night Live?

Bill Clinton was Hammond's way onto the show: a producer spotted his impression in 1995, after two failed auditions.

Which novelist behind Strip Tease and Hoot wrote for the student paper as a University of Florida undergraduate?

Carl Hiaasen transferred to Gainesville in 1972, and his first book for younger readers, Hoot, was named a Newbery Medal honor book.

Which future voice of the Brooklyn Dodgers began broadcasting in 1930 at the University of Florida's station WRUF?

Red Barber was a student working as a janitor when a professor missed his radio slot, and he was called in at the last minute to read the paper on air.

Which University of Florida zoology graduate shared the 1968 Nobel Prize in Medicine for breaking the genetic code?

Marshall Nirenberg showed in 1961 that a run of three uracil bases spells the amino acid phenylalanine, the first word of the code ever read.

Which 1925 University of Florida graduate is credited with inventing the first electronic digital computer?

John Atanasoff devised the special-purpose machine in the late 1930s at Iowa State College, where it is remembered as the Atanasoff–Berry Computer.

Which student-run University of Florida pep rally caps Homecoming Week before the Gators' homecoming football game?

Gator Growl grew out of Dad's Day, when fathers of the then all-male student body were invited to visit the new campus.

Which nickname did fan George Edmondson earn by leading a crowd cheer at Florida Gators football games from 1949?

Mr. Two Bits began on impulse at the 1949 opener against The Citadel, when home fans were booing their own team before kickoff.

Which first president of the modern University of Florida had resigned from Emory College over a 1902 magazine article?

Andrew Sledd had condemned lynching in The Atlantic Monthly, and the uproar cost him his Latin professorship. He led the new university from 1905 to 1909.

Which team did the Florida Gators sweep in 2017 to win their first College World Series baseball title?

LSU fell two games to none in the championship series, ending a long wait: it was the Gators' eleventh trip to the College World Series.

George Starke became the University of Florida's first Black student in 1958 when he enrolled to study which subject?

Law opened the door a year before Daphne Duval Williams became the university's first Black woman student, entering the College of Education in 1959.

Which Florida Gators defensive end played the 1979 NFL playoffs and Super Bowl XIV on a fractured leg?

Jack Youngblood missed only one game in 14 seasons with the Rams, and is enshrined in both the college and pro football halls of fame.

The first NCAA team championship won by any University of Florida program came in 1968 in which men's sport?

Golf delivered it when a six-man Gators team edged the defending national champions by just two shots.

The Florida Gators nickname likely dates to 1908, when a Gainesville merchant put an alligator on which items?

Pennants sold in Phillip Miller's Gainesville store carried the reptile, chosen because it is native to Florida and no other school had claimed it.