How a podcast community helped restore the controversial 'Gator Bait' chant for Florida football team

For anyone who went through it, 2020 felt like living in a parallel universe.

The year was dominated by the that swept through the world as well as the myriad "cancellings" that took place, and college football in particular felt the effects of both.

Games and traditions alike were severely altered or outright shut down as a result of the pandemic and its accompanying lunacy, and the Florida Gators' football program especially felt the brunt of this.

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Sure, the Gators still played a ten game, All SEC slate, but access to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium was greatly limited, as the stadium which normally seats upwards of 90,000 fans on gameday had its attendance whittled down to less than 20,000.

In the wake of all of this, a tradition known affectionately around campus and throughout the community as .

School officials cited "racial undertones" as the reason for removing the chant, linking back to late 19th and early 20th century depictions of using African-American children as bait for alligators.

The chant, at least in the context of the Florida football team, has much more innocent origins, being popularized in the 1990s by defensive back Lawrence Wright.

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No one is more familiar with "Gator Bait" than James Di Virgilio, the popular podcast host of the "Gator Nation Football Podcast."

Di Virgilio and his co-host, Allen Williams, started the podcast back in 2014 as a break from the monotony and blind homerism that is abundant in the local sports talk radio shows around Gainesville, where the two reside.

Both are Florida graduates, and when they heard the news that "Gator Bait" was being shelved, Di Virgilio was perplexed.

"I think, like any Gator fan, it was surprising at first," said Di Virgilio. "As far as anyone could tell, no one who had ever used the chant at Florida... had any idea there could be any connection to anything other than a gator eating our opponents, so to speak, in a humorous way."

The GNFP host mentions other schools like LSU saying "Tiger Bait" as a rallying cry while receiving little to no backlash.

"I think it was a chant that many Gators (fans), especially those who are maybe 90s or 2000s Gators, have fond memories of chanting at opponents when you're winning national championships, etcetera, therefore it conjured up those memories of yesteryear," he opined.

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Despite the seemingly innocuous nature of the cheer, "Gator Bait" was officially banned in 2020 out of what Di Virgilio deemed "an abundance of caution" during a time of heightened scrutiny.

Meanwhile, in those years since the banning, the GNFP audience continued to grow.

Williams and Di Virgilio's analytical lens mixed with their obvious love and passion for the team they covered endeared them to tens of thousands of Gator fans, which presented them with a u