Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Lenora Lang and her then-husband had kids of their own. They had a house full of five children to feed, clothe, and nurture.

Adding to the family was not on Lang's to-do list. She was busy at home and work, managing the produce section of a Publix supermarket in South Florida. Lang also had a large extended family spread across the region, so anything was possible on any given day.

And then that day arrived.

"When my nephew found out, he called me,'' Lang said.

One of Lang's nephews is the biological father of Gators tight end Dante Zanders, who was known as Dante Lang when he arrived at UF in 2018. When Dante was born, both his parents were kids themselves, and the demands of parenthood and inability to cope overwhelmed them.

They had little money, battled addiction issues, and had run-ins with the law. The day Dante's father called his aunt, he dialed the phone from jail. He delivered more bad news.

Dante and his younger sister, Tiana, had been left stranded at home alone by their biological mother, who was nowhere to be found. A concerned friend of their mom's called the police to report the abandonment.

Somewhere in the aftermath is when Lang's phone rang.

"He asked me, begged me to take them," Lang said. "Nobody else would take them, and his mom's mother said she couldn't take them. Their grandmother, my sister, was sick at the time. She has passed away. She couldn't take them in."
 

Soon, the Lang household grew from seven to nine as Dante and Tiana moved in and became part of the family. Dante was 4 when the Langs adopted him.

Dante doesn't remember much of what life was like before then, but as he got older and discovered the difference between good fortune and despair, he realized the significance of that period.

While he and Tiana adjusted to a better life in the Lang home, his biological parents struggled for years with their demons. They later had another daughter, Ciara, who Lang's sister adopted.

Despite their cheerless beginning, the sun began to shine on the three biological siblings as they grew up together and saw each other regularly as part of the wide-reaching Lang family. Sometimes, their birth parents stopped by. Many times, they didn't.

What was important was that Dante, who began to use the Zanders surname after his sophomore season at UF, and his little sisters were being cared for and able to maintain their biological bond.

"That family is my dad's side of the family,'' Dante said. "It was good because we all stayed inside the family. We're all still connected. It's not like we got adopted by different people where we never got to see each other again."

That was never going to happen.

"I didn't want them all split up," Lang said. He attempts to fully grasp what he does have.

Zanders was distraught at the end of last season over his inability to make an impact and entered the transfer portal. He signed with the Gators as a tight end out of Boca Raton High before moving to the defensive line in 2020. He moved back to tight end once Napier took over.


He knew the impact a potential move would have on himself and Florencia Garcia, his longtime girlfriend and now fiancée. They met in the sixth grade at Boca Raton Community Middle School, became a couple in the seventh grade, and started to get serious in high school. When Zanders moved to Gainesville, Garcia joined him. She works as a certified nursing assistant at an assisted-living facility.

"The most difficult decision I ever had to make was entering the transfer portal,'' Zanders said. "That was something that kept me up at night for weeks. I felt like sick to my stomach. I've been here for so long, and UF, the environment, and everything had become my family and home. I wanted to find any and every excuse to keep me here."

Enter Napier, who offered a different kind of second chance.

"He told me if I put my faith in him, he'd put his faith in me,'' Zanders said. "So, that's what I did."

Zanders took his name out of the transfer portal and breathed a sigh of relief. He was staying where he wanted to be and back at tight end, a position the Gators needed help at following the departure of Kemore Gamble and a slew of injuries in the spring.

The 6-foot-5, 262-pound Zanders, who added about 25 pounds while playing the defensive line, impressed Napier with his athleticism and ability to move swiftly despite the added weight. Napier needed players, and Zanders looked like one that could help.

"You can immediately see where he's got a future," Napier said during spring camp. "I can't compliment him enough. I mean, he's been the story of the spring. We moved him over from defense, and the guy picked it up quickly. I saw him around the facility more than some of our coaches. I mean, he's a godsend."

Zanders enters the season splitting reps with Keon Zipperer and is a candidate to start depending on the offensive alignment. Zanders' career experienced a rebirth in the last nine months.

Garcia has seen Zanders' resiliency play out in many ways during their time together. She said he can be painfully shy and has overcome the odds time after time on the field and in the classroom.

Mostly, though, Zanders has beaten them in life.

"He's definitely overcome a lot,'' she said.
 

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Zanders' unexpected rally with the Gators has not gone unnoticed by those around the team or back home.

Many didn't expect him to be around long following last season. He almost wasn't. And then he talked with Napier, and the tide turned in his favor.

"Dante's a guy that I've had the chance to work with since I've been here," offensive lineman Michael Tarquin said. "I've seen him work. He hasn't given up. I think he's taken full ownership of that and stayed steady with it. I'm excited for what he's going to do this season."

Lang chuckles at a different kind of rebound by Zanders. Not long after she adopted him, she enrolled him to play City League Football for the Delray Rocks in Del Ray Beach. After the first practice, Zanders didn't want to come back.

He said he was hot. His chest burned. He couldn't breathe. The coach told Lang not to worry and to let him keep playing. She brought him back the next day.

"He played and was fine,'' she said. "Has been ever since. He was always that type of kid. If he wanted something, he went for it."

Zanders has come a long way since being left alone with his little sister, prompting the police to come and take them away. He found a new home. He met Florencia. He started playing football and became a two-way standout in high school, earning offers from the Gators and other Southeastern Conference schools. It's not been easy. Few things in his life have been. Zanders has endured the ups and downs of college football, committing to the Gators when Jim McElwain was head coach, starting his career with Dan Mullen in charge, and now following the lead of Napier.

Through it all, he has trusted those closest to him, such as Lang, Garcia and Eric Davis, his high school coach, as guiding lights.

Many of his people gathered earlier this month at Exactech Arena for UF commencement ceremonies. Zanders, an education science major, participated in the ceremony as Lang, Garcia, his biological parents, and other members of his large family circle looked on from the crowd.

"It was great,'' he said. "In my family, it never happened before."

Garcia thought of the long road the boy she met in middle school had to travel to get there.

"It was amazing,'' she said. "He was ready to quit school because football affected his life so much. Watching him walk across the stage, oh my god, he did it."

Of course, Lang was there cheering on once-small, now-big Dante like she has since he was a boy. She was going to be there whether he was at UF or somewhere else, whether he had stopped playing football or didn't.

That's what moms do.

"Whatever he does, I'm right along with him,'' she said. "I love those kids. I didn't give birth to them, but I love them as mine."