We Are the Boys from Old Florida

"We Are the Boys from Old Florida" is a song commonly sung as a unity and pep song during University of Florida sporting events, most notably at the end of the third quarter at football games.

History

There are several claims to authorship of this song. In Gainesville, Florida, the traditional story is that it was written in 1919 by Robert Swanson and John Icenhour, two University of Florida students, for their barbershop quartet or dance band. However, several other universities across the United States—including the University of Chicago, the University of Nebraska, and the Toledo, Ohio public school system—have very similar tunes, often with very similar lyrics.

An obituary in a Toledo newspaper from 1953 claimed that a local man named Joseph Murphy had written the tune as "We're Proud for Toledo" in 1906. The University of Nebraska's records indicate that their version, "Dear Old Nebraska U", was composed by Harry Pecha in 1924 Gary Kirkland, Gainesville Sun (October 9, 2005). Retrieved...
Read More