The Gator Dugout Club's pregame tailgate is a staple at Condron Ballpark. (Photo: Courtesy of Gator Dugout Club)
Heartbeat of the Ballpark: Gator Dugout Club Turns 50
Monday, April 6, 2026 | Baseball
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By: Ryan Roddy, FloridaGators.com Writing Intern
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — When Florida shortstop Brendan Lawson steps to the plate at Condron Ballpark, Canadian flags – wielded by not his biological family, but his baseball one – wave behind him.
If you have ever attended a Florida Gators baseball game, you have seen or heard the Gator Dugout Club one way or another. If there is a cheer, the club probably started it. And if no one is cheering — well, that would not happen.
They are always there.
The man with the microphone who hypes the crowd up before the game, Gordon Burleson, is a member. In Tuesday's game against Jacksonville, from my seat in the press box, I noticed fans waving miniature Canadian flags when Lawson, a Toronto native, came up to bat.
I thought it might have been his family or friends, so I asked him about it postgame. He said it was the Gator Dugout Club.
That answer sent me looking.
Before Friday's game versus Ole Miss, I met with the president of the club, Bert Bevis.
After a minute or two with him and member Pat Brown, they gave me a Gators Dugout Club coin, which was a poker chip, with a blue outer ring and white stripes with their logo on the front and a QR code to their website on the back. They also invited me to their cookout on Saturday, the day before the series finale.
Bevis is a wise man who offered great stories.
He has been a member of the club for five years, serving as president for the last two.
Bevis joked that he won the presidential vote by a landslide: when it was time to elect a new president, those who were interested were told to stand, and he found himself standing alone. Bevis is not only the club's president but also a game-day ambassador for Florida Baseball, working in the ADA well by the visitors' dugout behind home plate.
"They pay me to watch baseball," he said.
Former UF baseball players Mike Zunino, BT Riopelle, Wyatt Langford, Colby Halter and Austin Langworthy, left to right, join members of the Gator Dugout Club for a photo at a recent dinner. (Photo: Courtesy of Gator Dugout Club)
While Bevis has been a member for just five years, his support for UF athletics dates back much further, particularly in football.
After selling his business in Tallahassee and retiring, he moved back to where his heart had always been and found himself around the diamond more often.
"I've always liked baseball, but never to this extent," he said. "I've always been a big footballer. Yeah, I've been a Gator booster for 48 years, which is a long time, but it was always football-related. And then, only when I moved down here, I got involved with this."
Despite living in Tallahassee, Bert said he has "been a Gator all my life" with family roots at UF.
The Gator Dugout Club hosts meetings, cookouts and other events, mainly in support of the UF baseball program, but also supports other sports like football and softball.
"We give them roughly $20,000 per year," Bevis said. "And then, of course, we do the award show, that we pay for. We feed them. We give them the awards. So, it's not as much money, but it's just moral support, being there for the players."
In a statement on the club's website, Florida Athletic Director Scott Stricklin thanked the club for its generous and continuous support of Florida athletics and student-athletes.
Club members bused up to Jacksonville together recently to watch Florida defeat the Seminoles 5-0. On the club website, members invited nonmembers but politely asked, "Please, GATOR FANS ONLY!"
In support of the program, the group has also brought together like-minded individuals.
"Well, it's just a commonality," Bevis said. "People in it like baseball, like to be in the group, like to come to games and support the teams. You'll see a bunch of them out there at the barbecue, just regular folks. Some retired, some still working, some young, some old, some families. They like baseball, they like the Gators.
"What else is there?"
To get a better feel of the club, I sat and watched part of Friday's game with Brown and found out that her connection to the group is not just rooted in passion but in love.
She said that she joined the club because of Bevis, her boyfriend.
Brown said the two had known each other because she was a retired mail carrier who had delivered mail to him, and she remembered his chocolate lab, DJ. The two then matched on a dating site, and the rest is history.
Bevis got Brown, born and raised in Gainesville, to join the club even though she was not much of a baseball fan.
Two years later, she could be mistaken for someone who grew up around the game.
Brown cheered as loudly as anyone, asked why some fans were not clapping, and waved "bye-bye" to the Rebels who had gotten out.
She knew not just players, like catcher Karson Bowen and pitcher Cooper Walls, who she had mentioned sat at her table during an event; she knew the people, telling stories about everyone around sections 111 and 110, but she stopped in the middle of conversations to cheer and picked up right where she left off after.
"Since I have met him, I have done a lot more," she said. "It feels good. It feels good that we're doing our part; we contribute to something good."
Gators baseball coach Kevin O'Sullivan accepts a donation from the Gator Dugout Club. (Photo: Nicole Scharff/UAA Communications)
A particular member that Brown singled out was Christian Straile, a two-year member but a season ticket holder of "a dozen years."
"Pat is the section mom. We do whatever she says," Straile said.
Unlike Bevis, Straile had a different upbringing as a Miami native.
In his household growing up, it was all about the U.
That changed for him when he attended UF.
"I came to Florida, I got a degree here, I stayed here," he said. "Now I'm a Gator, you know that's how it goes. So, I have not been a Gator fan my whole life; I'm a convert. When I came here and went to school here, I fell in love here. So, now I'm a Gator through and through. And, you know, causes a little stress in the family, but that's okay."
Straile, an attorney in Gainesville, also agreed that the club brings people together and became a lifetime member.
"We're all very friendly with each other," he said. "I kicked myself for not buying my lifetime membership a dozen years ago."
He suggests that those interested should try it out for a year, just like he did.
Not only did the members know the players and each other, but they also knew the ballboy, Jack.
They cheered for him just as much as the players.
"Atta boy, Jack!"
"Great scoop, Jack!"
"Good job, Jack!"
Wanting to learn more about the club and its members, I attended the cookout before Saturday's game against Ole Miss.
"You don't walk out hungry," Brown said.
Condron Family Ballpark is home away from home for members of the Gator Dugout Club. (Photo: UAA Communications)
On what felt like a boiling day ahead of the rubber match, I found the dugout club camped beneath three Gators Dugout Club-branded tents.
There, I was greeted by Bevis and other members of the group, who immediately told me to grab some pizza and get some water from the cooler.
With a warm welcome and pure hospitality, Bevis began pointing to different members of the club, telling me all about them.
Some of the club's members were law enforcement officers, veterans and even a UPD officer showed up in uniform to get a plate. Walking around with my slice of plain pizza in one hand and a paper plate beneath it in the other, I overheard many conversations.
Conversations about family, about work and of course about Gator baseball filled the hot air. The club might want to think about starting a podcast.
I had small conversations with a few members, but one really stuck with me, a long conversation with former club president Gary Carter.
"Catcher from the Mets!" he quipped.
Gary, an Air Force veteran who played college ball himself at Mississippi College, could talk about baseball for hours.
But in the midst of our conversation, he opened up.
He got choked up when he told me that when his son passed away in 2018, the club saved him. The members supported him; they gave him an escape, and they were there for him in a dark moment.
I could not see his eyes through his blue-and-green-tinted sunglasses, but I could imagine they began to water. After he talked about most of the student-athletes on the team, he admitted a problem in the club: they need more "young people."
He pointed to me, 20, and said that during his time as president, he tried everything he could to appeal to the new generation of Gators, not just students, but young families.
From my conversations with Carter and other members, I learned that if I wanted to learn more about the club's history, I needed to talk to Bob Lightner.
Lightner, a former Gators baseball player in 1969 and 1970, was at a birthday party, but was more than willing to talk to me over the phone.
He has been in the club since its start in 1976. He said he did not have a position in the club today, but I like to think he is the permanent historian.
According to him, the club started when they saw similar clubs develop for other sports, specifically football. Early donations were items like a $6,000 tarp to prevent rainouts and a $100 stereo system from Radio Shack, so the team did not have to keep renting one from the student union.
They also helped equip the team with uniforms, bats, baseballs and anything else they needed to be successful and comfortable, all on the back of its early 25 to 30 members.
"I had no idea that the club would turn into what an amazing club it is today," Lightner said.
Now, in its 50th year, the Gator Dugout Club is driven by its 250 proud members.
The members claim not to have a favorite player, but the man on the Golden Spikes Award midseason watchlist, the team's home run leader, does seem to be brought up an awful lot.
When No. 11 struts into the box, you can count on seeing an abundance of maple leaves flying behind him.
"I didn't actually know or realize when it started," Lawson said of the tradition. "People would always say, 'Look, look, look.' But it's really nice to feel that support, and it's really cool."
In the modern landscape of college athletics, when we think of "support" for a team, we often think of a number on a check. Admittedly, I, too, was guilty of that assumption until I met the Gator Dugout Club.
Support cannot be measured solely by a dollar amount, but by the willingness of a group bigger than the game itself to be present, to act as a family, to interact with and form relationships with players, and to offer a helping hand.
