The Gainesville home where Tom Petty spent his formidable years on the east side of town is a popular stop for visiting tourists. (Photo: Courtesy of Florida Roadside Attractions on YouTube)
A Dreamville Tradition: Tom Petty & The Gators
Thursday, October 13, 2022 | Football, Scott Carter
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By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
October brought him. October took him. And I miss him and will love him through all my lifetimes every day … — Adria Petty on her Instagram page, Oct. 2
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — He has now been gone five years.
The last time we saw him, Thomas Earl Petty was where he was born to be. He was on stage with a guitar strapped across his shoulder, sunglasses shading his eyes, a stylish scarf dangling from his neck, and standing behind a microphone.
Capping the last show of the 40th Anniversary Tour with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Petty performed his final song on stage the night of Sept. 25, 2017. Before blasting into the classic anthem "American Girl," Petty acknowledged the sold-out crowd at the Hollywood Bowl in southern California.
"We love you dearly,'' he said. "I want to thank you for 40 years of a really great time."
Petty died a week later on Oct. 2 — less than three weeks shy of his 67th birthday — a loss that stunned fans across the globe and set in motion a plan by University of Florida officials to honor Petty, a Gainesville native, five days later at the Florida-LSU football game.
A Tom Petty tribute on the 34th Street Wall painted soon after the rock-and-roll legend's death in October 2017. (Photo: Tom Petty Walls Facebook page)
A tradition was born, proving again that legends never die.
"He was very humble. He would be both embarrassed and delighted by this honor,'' Adria Petty, Tom Petty's oldest daughter, said this week. "He deserves it more than anybody I could think of."
When the Gators first paid tribute to the local icon five years ago by playing "I Won't Back Down" at the end of the third quarter, the moment electrified the stadium as 90,000 fans sang along.
It became an instant classic that has been repeated at every UF home game since, and on Saturday night, when Florida and LSU meet again at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, fans will turn 'The Swamp' into a magical music scene for the first time on Tom Petty Day.
The Petty family is all in.
Adria was born and raised in California, where her father moved in 1974 to chase his dreams of making it in the music business. The family often returned to Florida when she was younger to visit her grandparents. They would spend time in Gainesville, and at their home in St. Augustine, the one her father bought after Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers became one of the biggest bands in the world on the way to selling 80 million records.
However, none of Adria's previous trips to Gainesville will be like this one. She is bringing her 9-year-old daughter Everly so both can experience a Gators football game in person for the first time.
Tom Petty with daughter Adria. (Photo: Courtesy of Adria Petty's Instagram page)
"I have no idea how it's going to feel to be there,'' she said. "My dad was proud to be from a place where the football team was beloved, where people were fanatical about it. It's a religious experience for people in the South, and it's a great place for people to come together and share their love for the team and put whatever other differences they have aside. My dad's concerts were a similar environment.
"The fact that a large group of people sings his song and that it serves as a rallying cry for the Gators is beautiful. I think he would have loved that. Just loved it. I'm just going to try and not to cry."
Tom Petty turned to music at an early age, and while not a huge sports fan when he was younger or as a student at Gainesville High in the late 1960s, he developed a passion for the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers after moving to California. Bruce Petty, Tom's younger brother, was the more avid sports fan of the two brothers.
Bruce Petty recalled this week being at Florida Field with his father the day the Gators beat Auburn in 1966 on eventual Heisman Trophy winner Steve Spurrier's game-winning field goal. On a recent visit to town, Bruce stopped by Spurrier's restaurant for the first time and studied the zippered shoe on display that Spurrier used to kick his famous field goal.
Bruce Petty said Tom didn't follow professional football closely, but that his brother always kept an eye from afar on the Gators. When Bruce's family visited, the Petty brothers often watched Gators bowl games over the holidays. And when Tom returned to Gainesville in 2006 for a 30th-anniversary show at the O'Connell Center, both Petty boys were giddy before the show over taking pictures of Joakim Noah's and Al Horford's lockers in the UF men's basketball locker room.
One of Bruce's favorite stories about his brother happened when Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers performed the halftime show at Super Bowl XLII in February 2008. Bruce tagged along with Tom for an interview leading up to the game on the NFL Network.
With Tom on the set and Bruce watching from off to the side, Peyton Manning walked in, sat down next to Petty, and started talking. Bruce still chuckles at the memory.
"Did you know that was Peyton Manning?" he asked his brother later.
"I had no idea. But I figured he was somebody important because he just walked onto the set and sat down. I just kind of went with it,'' Tom replied.
Bruce and his family are making the trip to town this weekend from their Tallahassee home. Unlike Adria, Bruce has been to a Gators game since the tradition started. He served as an honorary captain in 2018 when the Gators rallied from a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter for a 35-31 win over South Carolina.
A recent version of the Tom Petty tribute on the 34th Street Wall in Gainesville. (Photo: Tom Petty Walls Facebook page)
"It was one of the times it really worked,'' Bruce said of the "I Won't Back Down" singalong. "That was pretty special that we were able to pull that off. I'm so grateful that they do that and that it has been received the way it has."
Tom Petty's untimely death resonated deep here in north central Florida, where Petty launched his way toward stardom by playing in local bands and at venues such as Dub's and on UF's campus at the Plaza of Americas.
Once he hit the big time, Petty's music connected people through songs everyone could relate to. He is considered one of America's finest songwriters and Tom Petty Radio remains a staple station on SiriusXM Satellite Radio. Petty grew beyond Gainesville but remained connected to his roots.
As part of the inaugural Tom Petty Day at The Swamp, the Tom Petty Estate is donating its entire proceeds from merchandise sales to Kids Count and Family Promise, a pair of local charitable organizations that benefit underserved communities in Gainesville.
In searching through her father's archives, Adria discovered that when Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers returned to Gainesville in 1981 for the first time since becoming international stars, the band encouraged the local independent record stores to donate money to the Ronald McDonald House. The band matched the amount. That is what her father would want, Adria Petty said.
The partnership with UF is one Adria is confident her father would be pleased over, shattering the myth that Tom Petty was not a supporter of the University of Florida despite having served a brief time as a member of UF's grounds crew. Tom Petty expressed a complicated relationship with his hometown at different times in his career, though in his later years spoke fondly of Gainesville and idealized it in his song "Dreamville."
"Our dad was really impressed by the University of Florida and proud to be from where he was from," Adria said. "I know for him, he would want the Gainesville community to continue to be the artistic hub that it is, running right alongside the university's incredible athletics and educational opportunities. Some of the schools there are really struggling in Gainesville. We're excited to be able to help out in any way we can."
Bruce Petty planned to arrive in town Friday to prepare for the big game. He misses the older brother with whom he used to hang out at Northeast Park near their boyhood home. The park is known as Tom Petty Park today, dedicated in his honor in 2018.
Little better shot of sign ... Bruce Petty, Tom's brother, said family is touched by #Gators' new 'I Won't Back Down' tradition ... pic.twitter.com/xgrdOCkojV
Bruce Petty has a good idea of what Tom would think of all this: his life being honored and his music as alive as ever five years after his death.
"I don't think anyone in our family, including him, thought that he would be linked with the University of Florida this way and honored in every game by singing his song,'' Bruce said. "It's such a powerful thing. I saw it when he did concerts and shows, but this is different.
"I know he would just be over the top, crazy happy about it."
