"We Are the Boys from Old Florida" is a song commonly sung as a unity and pep song during University of Florida

University of Florida

The University of Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a campus in Gainesville, Florida. The university traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906...

 sporting events, most notably at the end of the third quarter at football games

Florida Gators football

The Florida Gators football team represents the University of Florida in the sport of American football. The Florida Gators compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision of the National Collegiate Athletics Association and the Eastern Division of the Southeastern Conference...

.

History

There are several claims to authorship of this song. In Gainesville, Florida

Gainesville, Florida

Gainesville is the largest city in, and the county seat of, Alachua County, Florida, United States as well as the principal city of the Gainesville, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area . The preliminary 2010 Census population count for Gainesville is 124,354. Gainesville is home to the sixth...

, the traditional story is that it was written in 1919 by Robert Swanson and John Icenhour, two University of Florida students, for their barbershop quartet or dance band. However, several other universities across the United States—including the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

, the University of Nebraska, and the Toledo, Ohio

Toledo, Ohio

Toledo is the fourth most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Lucas County. Toledo is in northwest Ohio, on the western end of Lake Erie, and borders the State of Michigan...

 public school system—have very similar tunes, often with very similar lyrics.

An obituary in a Toledo newspaper from 1953 claimed that a local man named Joseph Murphy had written the tune as "We're Proud for Toledo" in 1906. The University of Nebraska's records indicate that their version, "Dear Old Nebraska U

Dear Old Nebraska U

Dear Old Nebraska U is a fight song of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln often played at football games by the University of Nebraska Cornhusker Marching Band...

", was composed by Harry Pecha in 1924 . And a collection of University of Florida songs from 1941 attributes the Florida version to Thorton W. Allen. As early Florida band director Harold Bachman wrote in a published history of the University of Florida bands, "No one seems to know for sure who composed 'We Are the Boys From Old Florida.'"

Whoever initially composed it, "We Are the Boys" has been a popular pep song with UF students and fans since at least the 1930s. It is traditionally played at the end of the third quarter of Gator football games by the school's marching band

Marching band

Marching band is a physical activity in which a group of instrumental musicians generally perform outdoors and incorporate some type of marching with their musical performance. Instrumentation typically includes brass, woodwinds, and percussion instruments...

, The Pride of the Sunshine

The Pride of the Sunshine

The University of Florida Fightin' Gator Marching Band, also known as The Pride of the Sunshine, is the official marching band for the University of Florida. They play at every Florida Gators home football game in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium and also performs at various other events such as pep...

, while Gator fans stand, lock arms, sway, and sing in unison. In recent years, UF bands have also played a faster march version of the tune at various sporting events.

Lyrics

We are the boys from old Florida
F-L-O-R-I-D-A
Where the girls are the fairest,
The boys are the squarest
Of any old state down our way

We are all strong for old Florida
Down where the old Gators play
In all kinds of weather
We'll all stick together
for F-L-O-R-I-D-A

Traditionally, fans add "Hey!" at the end of the first stanza, and shout "Go Gators!" after the line "Down where the old Gators play."

The crowd sways back and forth with arms locked through the entire song. When they get to the line "we'll all stick together," the word "together" is drawn out for two or three seconds, and everyone holds their lean towards the next person who is "downstream" of the sway.

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• Florida Gators
  Florida Gators
  The Florida Gators are the intercollegiate sports teams that represent the University of Florida located in Gainesville, Florida. The "Lady Gators" is an alternative nickname sometimes used by the Gators women's teams...
  
  
• History of the University of Florida
  History of the University of Florida
  The history of the University of Florida is firmly tied to the history of public education in the state of Florida. The University of Florida, colloquially known as "Florida" or "UF," originated as several distinct institutions that were merged to create a single state-supported university by the...
  
  
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External links

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvvBqJNlA5Q&Fan's eye view of "We Are the Boys" in The Swamp
  Ben Hill Griffin Stadium
  Ben Hill Griffin Stadium at Florida Field is the football stadium for the University of Florida and the home field of the university's Florida Gators football team. It is located on the university's Gainesville, Florida campus. The stadium was originally built in 1930, and has been regularly...
  
  ]