“Can’t be touched. Can’t be stopped. Can’t be moved. Can’t be rocked. Can’t be shook.” These lyrics, from “Can’t Be Touched” by Body Head Bangerz, boxer Roy Jones Jr.’s rap group, echo over the speakers before every home UF baseball game, and the reason is far more than the need for a catchy rap song.
Once Florida’s athletes get the adrenaline pumping through their veins, there is no turning back. Whether it takes blue eye makeup or a crazy dance move, how the athletes get fired up is their own game.
With the continuation of the UF baseball and softball seasons long after the halt of classes (meaning smaller crowds ahead) and the NCAA Gymnastics Championships on Thursday, athletes are serving up their own jolts of energy to finish their seasons strong.
“Our Song”
If the baseball locker room had eyes, they would witness something truly funky during the Gators’ pregame.
The most notable sight among the team’s cleats and sliders? The team’s 6-foot-4 pitcher, Kevin Chapman, busting a move to the song “Walk It Out.”
But while rap is booming throughout the locker room, there are some more, well, sensitive songs being shared.
“I don’t know if I should say this,” infielder Nolan Fontana said. “Josh [Adams] and I listen to ‘Our Song’ by Taylor Swift. But it was Josh’s idea.”
The songs oozing with femininity don’t just hide themselves for pregame pump-up in the locker room, they leak onto the field too.
Infielder Jerico Weitzel’s at-bat song sticks out like a sore thumb among his teammates’ Lil Wayne, Jay-Z and Eminem tunes.
His song? The pop-club hit “TiK ToK” by artist Ke$ha (a tune softball pitcher Ensley Gammel also uses).
“I didn’t choose that,” Weitzel said. “I had trouble picking out a song so Preston [Tucker] picked that out for me.”
While Tucker’s prank will be vibrating over speakers for the entire baseball season, the team is all about seriousness during their routine pregame prayer and discussion of the opposing team’s pitcher.
And when they step up to the plate, it’s time to get in the zone.
“I step out (of the box) and tell myself what pitch I’m looking for,” Weitzel said. “Most hitters do something before getting in the batter’s box.”
Fontana swipes the dirt to clear the plate off.
Freshman Brian Johnson infuses his faith into his on-field routines by making a cross over the plate when he’s up to bat, and drawing another cross before the start of each inning when he’s performing on the pitcher’s mound.
“I do it because I’m so blessed to be out there playing,” Johnson said.
“In the Air Tonight”
Who would’ve thought that a bus driver’s jam would become a staple on the softball field?
But sure enough, a Phil Collins song makes its way into every UF softball game.
“At the [Southeastern Conference Championships] in 2008, our bus driver was obsessed with the song ‘In the Air Tonight,’” catcher Tiffany DeFelice said. “It became our anthem — we kept winning with it.”
Phil Collins’ song can be heard during the team’s stretches, and the players even perform the classic drum solo in unison.
However, DeFelice has her own plethora of rituals she goes through before the series of stretching and air-drumming, and it starts when she’s getting dressed.
“I have to put my clothes on in the same order,” DeFelice said. “My stirrups go on last. If I don’t put them all on in order, then I’m all out of whack.”
And when the clothes are all on and ready? Time to join in on the fun in what the team refers to as “Club Locker Room.”
“The locker room gets really, really loud,” Gammel said. “Sometimes, someone busts out a dance move and things get real rowdy.”
While the locker room is popping with music, the players still find time to primp in front of the mirror amid the chaos.
“If I don’t have a ribbon in my hair and my nail polish and makeup and hair done, then it is not going to be a good day,” Gammel said.
Once the Gators have everything perfectly in place, they go onto the field, and each athlete brings her own ritual to the clay.
Gammel touches the dirt before every pitch.
After her counterpart, pitcher Stephanie Brombacher, has applied her signature blue eyeliner and ribbon, she has some ornate rituals of her own on the mound.
Rather than let a teammate hand it to her, Brombacher is sure to pick the ball up off the ground to start the inning, and she isn’t ready to throw until she taps the ball on her leg.
And once DeFelice has spit out her gum and put her clothes on in just the right order, she lives up to her nickname of “Raging Bull” when she makes her debut in the batter’s box.
“I’m a different person on the field,” DeFelice said. “I’m the aggressive one and I destroy the batter’s box. But I’ve tried to take that back a bit.”
“Show Time”
Gymnastics meets are full of plenty of sparkle and shine to paint the perfect scene for some serious entertainment.
While other sports have spectators admiring the back-and-forth competition, the gymnasts are performing and putting on a show. The UF gymnastics team recognizes its position on center stage during team huddles, when the Gators shout “Show time!”
In gymnastics, the beat they bounce to is a big deal.
And unlike the bounce before a back handspring, the melodies aren’t taken lightly.
Lots of planning goes into each of the songs for the individual floor dances.
“In the summer, each of the girls get a couple of weeks where I sit down with them,” UF gymnastics volunteer coach Jeremy Miranda said. “They know their body and what they like. It gives them ownership of their routines, and they are excited to have work to create the final product.”
Miranda oversees all of the creative aspects for the team, dealing with the music and choreography.
“This year, the girls chose sassy and strong beat music,” Miranda said. “They wanted the crowd to be clapping and they wanted to keep a driving rhythm.”
Freshman gymnast Liz Green had to reshape her floor routine from high school and tailor it to fit her new surroundings competing at the college level.
It didn’t take long to select her music. Once Miranda played a Britney Spears’ mix, Green pounced.
With the gymnasts, it’s all about finding confidence in their floor routine songs, and impressing the judges is something that could make or break them.
“If you just look at the judges and smile at them, once they smile back you can really get into your floor routine,” freshman Ashanée Dickerson said.
Dickerson can join the likes of Beyoncé in that they both seem to have their own alter ego — Beyoncé has “Sasha Fierce” — when performing.
Shy and reserved in everyday life with a soft-spoken voice and timid demeanor, Dickerson is anything but that on the gymnastics floor.
“It’s a place where I can just let it all out and have fun,” Dickerson said.
Dickerson gets an extra pep talk before meets through her cell phone, as her old coaches pray with her and send her a text before each meet.
And as a team, the Gators make sure to pay special attention to a certain someone in the locker room.
“When I first got here the older girls told me that you have to be sure to touch the alligator in the locker room before every home meet,” Green said.
Other musts of those in leotards? Each competition, one girl is responsible for providing a motivational word and quote. One week’s word was simply “dominate,” and the word made its presence with the repetition of the word alongside each rotation during the week’s meet — shouted in the team huddle.
But it’s what’s outside the floor, the locker room and the practice studio that makes for the biggest difference — and it’s in the bleachers.
The gymnasts stress they get their biggest adrenaline boost from the fans.
“The crowd plays a big role,” Dickerson said. “Especially seeing all of those orange shirts in the crowd at the SECs.”
But the adrenaline doesn’t terminate upon the transition from stage to seats — the audience gets in on the gymnast “show” as well. In each floor routine, the girls have kept the longtime tradition of incorporating the Gator Chomp to do along with the audience.
And who says the audience can’t join in and dance to the floor or walk-up songs? Enough thought was put into them so that everyone can bust a move — in the locker room or not.
