Alligator Online
By DIANA MAZZELLA
The crowd was going wild, and it wasn't even a football game.
Gators head football coach Urban Meyer, UF President Bernie Machen, other administrators and dance presentations urged more than 800 students at the Black Student Assembly Tuesday night to show the world what they've got.
"There's gonna be ass-kicking," Meyer said of the Gators-Wyoming matchup this Saturday.
He asked students not to be surprised when they succeed, whether it be winning national championships, becoming doctors or making good grades.
He ended with, "I'll see you Saturday at 6 o'clock."
The crowd went wild.
Machen welcomed students and encouraged them to have a wonderful year.
"We're most proud of our students," he said.
Samuel Green, assembly co-director for BSU, said the event's organizers sent letters of invitation to the administrators and Meyer.
"He seemed eager to participate," Green said of the coach, adding he thought the attendance was better than last year's.
Student Senate President Diane Kassim said black students should challenge stereotypes of their being late and not making good grades.
"Do well in class first and foremost," she said. "Be on time."
She said her distinction as the first female black president of the Student Senate belonged to all students.
Her attainment of the position is a "sign that UF is changing," she said.
The rousing applause and cheers that met Meyer, Machen and the other leaders seemed like a polite whisper compared to the mania that engulfed the Reitz Union Grand Ballroom for the dance and music presentations.
Women catcalled and screamed when 10 men of the Apocalypse Dance Troupe decked out in jeans, white T-shirts, open button-down shirts and black suit jackets hip-hopped and did almost acrobatic stunts, including one man dance-walking across the backs of four other men.
The emcee announced the group as being UF's only all-male dance group.
Likewise, the male audience didn't contain their excitement when women from the Urban Essence Dance Squad jumped, hopped and kicked their way through a dance.
The Caribbean Student Association's troupe and Black Student Union's Shades of Unity also performed.
The crowd's chanting and cheering through the performances reached the back of the room, where the wall was lined with students who didn't get seats.
The audience laughed at the Association of Black Faculty and Staff's skit of studious and slacker students.
Institute of Black Culture Director Darius Bost said the event cost about $1,000 and was paid for mostly by the Dean of Students Office through a Weeks of Welcome grant. BSU paid for part of the Spinal Tech costs.