All eyes fixed on Jim McElwain, who faced a sea of fans hungry for words of inspiration, a dash of fire and brimstone or perhaps a quip or two like the halcyon days of the Head Ball Coach.
McElwain gave the people Winnie the Pooh.
Win one for the Gipper it was not. At the same time, Lakeland's David Bowden, a UF quarterback in the early 1970s, said McElwain's message last month at the Polk County Gator Club struck the right chord.
"'Every day you have the choice. You can be either Eeyore or Tigger,'" Bowden recalled McElwain saying.