page_title: Florida Gators
section_title: Colors and mascot
hierarchical_section_title: Florida Gators / Athletic program culture and traditions / Colors and mascot
caption_attribution_description: Albert and Alberta in the Swamp (Florida Field). Image captured by en:Tampa Gator September 2004.
context_page_description: The Florida Gators are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Florida, located in Gainesville. The University of Florida, its athletic program, its alumni and its sports fans are often collectively referred to as the "Gator Nation." The Gators compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the Southeastern Conference and are consistently ranked among the top college sports programs in the United States. The University of Florida currently fields teams in nine men's sports and twelve women's sports.
  All Florida Gators sports teams compete in NCAA Division I, and 20 of the 21 Gators teams compete in the SEC. The sole University of Florida sports team that does not play in the SEC is the women's lacrosse team, which joined the American Athletic Conference after the 2018 lacrosse season. The University of Florida was one of the thirteen charter members who joined together to form the new Southeastern Conference in 1932. Previously, the university was a member of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association from 1912 to 1921 and the Southeastern Conference from 1922 until the SEC began play in the fall of 1933.
context_section_description: The University of Florida began its sports program soon after it was established in Gainesville in 1906, and its teams adopted orange and blue as their official colors soon thereafter. These colors are a probably a combination of the colors of the two primary institutions that merged to form the university, as the East Florida Seminary used orange and black and the Florida Agricultural College used blue and white.
  As with the school colors, the exact origin of the alligator (almost always shortened to "gator") as the school mascot is not well documented. It likely originated in 1908, when Gainesville merchant Phillip Miller chose the animal to adorn pennants he designed for sale to students. The school did not yet have a mascot, and Miller chose the alligator because it is native to Florida and was not claimed by any other school. The football team subsequently adopted the "Gators" nickname in 1911. There are two theories as how the name become synonymous with the university's athletic programs. One theory is that the 1911 football squad began calling themselves the Gators in honor of team captain Neal "Bo Gator" Storter. Storter himself refuted this explanation, saying that it originated when a sportswriter in South Carolina described Florida's 1911 road upset of Clemson as an "invasion of alligators from Florida" and the players adopted the name. Whatever its origins, the nickname "Gators" (and for a time, "Lady Gators" for women's sports) has been used by the University of Florida's athletic program for over a century.
caption: The University of Florida's costumed mascots, Albert and Alberta.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "NIKON", "Image Model": "E885", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "ACD Systems Digital Imaging", "Image DateTime": "2007:06:04 21:00:50", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "232", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1777", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6064", "EXIF ExposureTime": "5/579", "EXIF FNumber": "38/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2004:09:25 13:50:34", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2004:09:25 13:50:34", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "8", "EXIF SubSecTime": "343", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1242", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1419", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1705", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed"}