Gulf standout Leon Orr addresses photo controversy

Posted Dec 17, 2009 by Eddie Daniels

Updated Dec 17, 2009 at 01:41 PM

There are two things Gulf football standout Leon Orr wants University of Florida fans to understand.

No. 1: Yes, that was definitely him in the two photos – one of him holding a gun and money and the second one of him with his face covered in a bandana – making their way through the World Wide Web.

No. 2: The pictures were of a typical teenager clowning around with a pellet gun and he has since distanced himself from that level of immaturity. The photo of the bandana covering his face was for his rap group Merk Boyz Squad – named after Mercury Avenue, the Tarpon Springs street he grew up on.

“The pictures had nowhere near to do with gang-related activity,” said Orr, who verbally committed to UF in March. “The signs I was throwing up was just the neighborhood that I lived in in Tarpon Springs. It was no specific gang.”

Orr, who is in the process of trying to graduate early from Gulf in order to enroll at the University of Florida in January, said the photo of him holding the pellet gun was taken when he was in eighth grade.

“I’m surprised,” Orr said about the level of attention the pictures have garnered, “I feel bad because it’s putting a bad impression on a team. The whole Gator Nation, I feel like I’m letting a bunch of people down because I let this kind of stuff happen to me and put myself in that kind of a situation. But at the end of the day, I’ve matured and grown way past that stage of my life.

“It was done a long time ago when my maturity level was way lower than it is now. I’ve grown up and I know what I can do in the public’s eye and what I’m not allowed to do. Back then I didn’t have those kinds of rules restricting me on a day to day basis.”

Orr, who stands 6-foot-5 and weighs 315 pounds and projected to play on the Gators’ defensive line, said he has spoken to Gators assistant head/defensive line coach Dan McCarney about the pictures and assured him there was nothing to worry about.

“Leon doesn’t have time to be involved in anything that’s not on the up and up because with his music career, and with trying to do online courses and trying to get his requirements fulfilled to get in to Florida in January and the work he’s doing everyday, he don’t have time to be doing anything stupid,” Gulf coach Jay Fulmer said. “There’s not enough hours in the day for it. My guess is there’s nothing to it.”