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The Florida Bar
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The Florida Bar News
October 15, 2009
Mr. Orange and Blue
‘I’m just a fan who escaped onto the field with a microphone’
By Mark D. Killian
Managing Editor
If you have been to the Swamp to watch the University of Florida Gators play football over the past 26 seasons, you’ve seen Richard Johnston, a bankruptcy attorney from Ft. Myers.
“It is one of the biggest rushes I could ever imagine,” said Johnston, a Fowler White Boggs lawyer who described his role as a ringmaster who gets to “flip the switch” on 90,000 people. “I’m with all the cheerleaders; I have a 300-piece band behind me spelling the letters out. It is overwhelming to be able to rev them up. I know what I do is not the centerpiece, but it is an element of the electricity of Gator football.”
He sees it as his job to build excitement to a peak and help make Ben Hill Griffin Stadium a tough place for opponents to play football.
“I’m just a fan who escaped onto the field with a microphone,” Johnston said. “I don’t have any special training.”
But he does have a history with UF, earning his undergraduate and law degrees from Florida and serving as a cheerleader in 1978 and 1980 — his senior year as an undergrad and his second year of law school, respectively. It was during his second stint as a rah-rah that he got on the microphone.
“It was a good year to do it because we had just come off of 0-10-1, the first year of the Charlie Pell era. You could say ‘boo’ and they would scream,” Johnston said. “It was a good year. We were winning. It is always easier to be a cheerleader when you are winning.”
He must have made a good impression. Three years later, when Johnston was toiling as a young lawyer at the venerable Ervin firm in Tallahassee, the Gators came calling.
“I’m like, there is no way this conservative Tallahassee firm that is half full of Seminoles and half full of Gators is ever going to let me do this,” Johnston said.
But the then-26-year-old summoned up the intestinal fortitude to approach senior partner Bob Ervin, a former Florida Bar president, about reprising his energetic role.
“I said, ‘Bob, the university wants me to come in and get things revved up before the games on the football field. What do you think?’” Johnston said. “I’m wincing, waiting for the ‘no.’
“And he says, ‘Why Richard, I think it is a marvelous idea. Do mention the firm’s name and telephone number while you are on the field,’” said Johnston, imitating Ervin’s gentlemanly Southern drawl.
Now 51, Johnston still brings high energy to his game day cheers.
“Anybody can announce,” he said. “I hope what I bring to the table is something that is a little more exciting and adds to the color and excitement of college football.”
His job also entails making on-field introductions of those who have done great things for the university, including donors, those who have excelled in academics, and other athletes.
“It is the epicenter of the Gator Nation, a moment when all the University of Florida’s fans’ eyes are focused on the field,” Johnston said. “And I want to make that moment for those people very special.”
Johnston has not missed a home game in 26 years. Some of his greatest memories include the Gators’ 14-9 victory over Florida State in 1991; both teams were ranked in the top five that year. The Gators had just clinched their first SEC championship, and it took a late defensive stand in the fourth quarter to preserve the victory.
“That may have been one of the most intense dogfights of a game I ever remember seeing,” he said.
Another was in November 2006 against the Steve Spurrier-led University of South Carolina squad. With seconds to go, the Gamecocks lined up for a possibly game-winning 48-yard field goal that, if successful, would have likely ended any hope of the Gators’ national championship quest. But Florida’s 6-foot-6 defensive end Jarvis Moss blocked the kick, preserving a 17-16 victory.
“It went from being so quiet — like a church — to just bedlam,” Johnston recalled.
Florida went on to defeat Ohio State in the BCS National Championship game.
He even got a national championship ring on the occasion of his 25th year on the sidelines.
“It’s as big as a Volkswagen,” he said.
Johnston is married to a Seminole fan who says her husband has the oddest hobby on Earth.
“That is true,” admits Johnston, who jokingly adds he will keep working Gator games “until they pry the microphone out of my cold, dead hands.”
[Revised: 01-21-2012]
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