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Pro Wrestler Flair Delivers Pregame Pep Talk

Posted: Mar 24th 2007 By: CMBurnham

The Nature Boy paid the Gators a visit.

Coach Billy Donovan brought out professional wrestler Ric Flair to deliver the pregame speech.

Donovan foreshadowed the appearance by showing the team game film mixed with Flair highlights Thursday night.

He started the same process in the locker room Friday.

"Coach pretends to press play, and was like 'Alright, let's watch this,'" guard Jack Berry said. "All of a sudden, we hear "Wooo!" and he just walks out."

Flair praised Donovan in a short speech, telling the team to get it done in the Sweet 16.

He closed out the message with his signature "Wooo!" scream.

"Coach is very good with motivation," Berry said. "He's always got something he's doing for us. It's kind of surprising, but it's also motivating. It also lightened the mood a little bit. He wanted to ease up the tension in the locker room."

The Gators have also adopted an interesting pregame led by the fiery Noah.

The team came out of the locker room a few minutes before tipoff with Noah dancing and repeating the rhythmic phrase "let's get the light feet going."

Interestingly, Noah's memorable moves during a post-game interview at the SEC Championship were dubbed the "light feet" dance by Taurean Green.

After Noah's performance Friday, players huddled around Green, who delivered a quick speech.

As they ran onto the court, players and coaches touched a brown boa for good luck, a team tradition for the past few years.