Carter's Corner: Story Behind Stiner's Transformation to 'The Waterboy'
Saturday, October 6, 2018 | Football, Scott Carter
Here's how Gators safety Donovan Stiner became known as "The Waterboy" in a span of a couple of hours following his game-clinching sack at Mississippi State a week ago. A sophomore safety from Houston, Stiner blasted into Mississippi State's backfield on a blitz from 15 yards out to sack Bulldogs quarterback Nick Fitzgerald on fourth-and-10.
Game over.
Meanwhile, about 540 miles from Davis Wade Stadium, Bruce Floyd and some friends watched the game. A UF graduate and former Gators distance runner, Floyd works at the University Athletic Association as social media manager.
As Floyd and friends celebrated Florida's third consecutive win in head coach Dan Mullen's much-hyped return to face his former team, one of Floyd's friends mentioned Stiner's sack reminded her of Bobby Boucher, a legend for the South Central Louisiana Mud Dogs.
Who? Perhaps you know him best as the character Adam Sandler played in the 1998 movie "The Waterboy." In football parlance, the sackmaster Boucher was a beast.
At that point, Floyd's creativity took over. When he got home, he pulled an audio track of one of Boucher's most famous plays, a grunt de force. He matched the audio track with the replay of Stiner's sack. The marriage was made in social media heaven.
That final @GatorsFB tackle, but with audio from "The Waterboy". #GoGators pic.twitter.com/wk4ONzGXLJ
— Bruce Floyd (@brucefloyd) September 30, 2018
Floyd posted the clip on his Twitter account (@brucefloyd) and the tweet started to go viral soon after the Gators landed back in Gainesville. As of this post, the clip has from than 3,000 retweets and nearly 6,000 likes, a personal record for Floyd's personal account.
"It's funny," Stiner said after practice this week. As he spoke to reporters, teammate Vosean Joseph walked by and yelled out Stiner's new nickname. "Every time I see it on social media, I watch it a couple of times. so I'd say over a 100 times at least."
Meanwhile, the Orlando Sentinel and SI.com wrote stories this week about Stiner's newfound persona. Floyd even heard from a fellow Gator working at a Hollywood movie studio that the clip found its way to Sandler and that the actor thought it was funny.
Viral indeed.
"I wasn't sure that the tone would fit our @FloridaGators account, so I posted it on my own,'' Floyd said. "I think it was successful because 'The Waterboy' has been on TV for the 20th anniversary of its release and because the clip I selected was one of the most impressive plays in college football of the entire weekend."
A winning combination.
