There's not much booing at Gator football games anymore, a sign George Edmondson Jr., more commonly known as Mr. Two-Bits, said means the team doesn't need him as much anymore.
After 60 years of leading cheers from the field during football games, Edmondson, 86, cheered his final game on Saturday.
Fittingly, UF played The Citadel, which was Edmondson's alma mater.
The first Gator game Edmondson went to was also against The Citadel. It was at that game that he developed his famous cheer, after watching fans booing the Gators.
Saturday was a day of mixed emotions, Edmondson said in a Tuesday interview.
He said he is ready to retire, but UF and the fans have been so good to him.
Edmondson said fans came up to him on Saturday and said, "Oh, Mr. Two-Bits, you can't quit," and "We love you, keep going," and all he could do was smile.
"You know, I just cannot keep going forever," he said.
He said he appreciated the tributes during the game, including being presented with a key to the city by Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan and being announced with the senior football players.
"I felt like I was in big company," he said.
He said the cheer he led on Saturday was probably the loudest cheer he has ever heard.
"When I ran out there for that last time, and I could hear the fans' response, and all I can say was 'awesome,'" he said. "It was just awesome."
He said the atmosphere on Saturday might have even gone to his head a little bit.
"After it was all over, I figured it was just 'Mr. Two-Bits Day' and the football game was just incidental," he said, referring to the fact that Hanrahan named the day after him.
His wife of 33 years, Jane, said she's ready to see her husband retire, but she never pressured him to quit because it was his decision.
She said she doesn't think her husband could ever be replaced as Mr. Two-Bits, though others have offered to take over.
"No one else would have the same feel for it," she said.
