“Man, where the hell did you come from? You’re a freak!”
If you followed Florida football in the Steve Spurrier 1990s you remember Kearse. He was 6-foot-5, 265 pounds and would cover ground – and bury quarterbacks – like a charging rhinoceros. Ballcarriers in the Southeastern Conference experienced “The Freak,” with his praying mantis arms and monstrous hands, up close and altogether too personal. Kearse cursed the SEC for three seasons, including as a redshirt freshman for Florida’s national-championship team in 1996, and went on to be a first-round draft pick and 1999 NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year after setting a rookie record with 14.5 sacks in helping the Tennessee Titans reach the first Super Bowl in franchise history.
That was 25 years ago.
“Yeah, but I’m still in the gym four days a week, lifting, doing cardio, on the treadmill,” said Kearse, now 47 and living in Parkland, Fla., since retiring in 2010. “I still think I could give a team about 12 to 15 plays off the edge on the third down … as long as they spaced ’em out.”
If that’s the case (and any NFL team out there is interested), they’ll need to wait until next week to put in the call. Kearse has an appointment with honorary “Mr. Two Bits” destiny Saturday when Florida and 19th-ranked Miami open the 2024 season with a hotly anticipated renewal of their once-iconic rivalry at Spurrier/Florida Field.
When he got the Two Bits call, Kearse needed, in his estimation, about two-tenths of a second to say yes.
Kearse, like most UF players, never really got to watch George Edmondson, the original “Mr. Two Bits,” doing his chant and routine in the stands at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. But he watched former teammates (Danny Wuerffel, Chris Doering, Thaddeus Bullard, Alex Brown, Ike Hilliard) take their ceremonial turns and hoped that one day the invitation would come.
Bonus: It came for Florida-Miami, a game he never got to play in, but one that he’s taken part in by osmosis. Kearse was at an…
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