LADY LAKE BOYZ

Story by Michael Harris

There isn’t much to do when you’re sitting on the porch at a farmhouse in Ocklawaha watching as Tropical Storm Fay rains down in front of you with a more-than-gentle breeze in the air.

“We kind of had a hurricane party,” Todd Thurgaland, owner of the farm, says.

The hurricane party was with Todd and pals Nate Biggie aka Nathan Mills and Kountry Jack Wyze, aka Nandi Johannes. It was an afternoon spent watching the rain, playing guitar … and authoring a song.

The authoring of the song led to a video shoot during a break in the rain.

The video shoot led to the group’s name – the Lady Lake Boyz.

The group’s name and video shoot led to their own Web site.

Their own Web site led to subsequent spots on 1,267 different Web sites, blogs, forums and during ESPN’s College Football Live in January, which led to 76,621 hits in just one day.

And the song was just about one person – Tim Tebow.

The Florida Gators quarterback is an icon in Gainesville and with every Gators fan. He may not be the most-adored when it comes to Gators rivals, but at least everyone knows the name Tim Tebow.

Kountry Jack Wyze knows who he is – at least now.

Nandi Johannes didn’t know who he was either.

“When they (Todd and Nathan) were telling me about him, I had no idea who he was,” says Nandi, who lived in Lady Lake at one time but now lives in Brooklyn. “I had to research who he was. But it seemed like a justifiable idea; we got together and recorded the song.”

Nandi describes the song as having “that Southern Krunk feel, but it’s about football.”

Once he found out more about Tebow, he went out to Wal-Mart and got himself a Western cowboy hat, an orange T-shirt, blue shorts, orange beads, weight gloves with orange on it … right down to a toothpick his two kids would paint orange and blue.

“Think this is too much?” he questioned to friends Todd and Nathan.

Behold Kountry Jack Wyze.

In the video, named The Tim Tebow Song, Kountry Jack can be seen in full regalia along with Nate Biggie, who comes complete with turned back Gators hat and former Gators QB Danny Wuerffel jersey.

“Nate is the true Gators fan,” Todd says.

Nate Biggie strictly dances behind Kountry Jack doing a timeout symbol and a Heisman Trophy pose (which Tebow won after the 2007 season.) Todd shot the video from his barn so his video equipment wouldn’t be damaged during Hurricane Fay. Kountry Jack sings the funk-electronic song in what appears to be a true Florida swamp.

“One of the things is that the video looks low-budget, but it was shot with a $30,000 camera,” Kountry Jack says. “That video ended up getting so much heat and they ran it everyday the week before the championship.”

There were 95,000 hits to be exact the week before the championship and currently anywhere from 3-5,000 hits a month. ESPN contacted the Lady Lake Boyz through their MySpace page and with the power of the Internet the video was soon broadcasted on TV.

“And we did NOTHING except put it out there,” Todd says. “We did not market it in any way.”

ESPN’s showing of the video generated more hits on the site and people in more than 22 countries viewed it, according to Todd.

And the popularity of the video also drew comments from the viewers. Of course, Gators fans praised it and those against Florida – well they had plenty of non-repeatable things to say.

“The comments are hysterical,” Todd says.

But just like Nandi not knowing who Tim Tebow is, fans of the Lady Lake Boyz have no idea what lay beneath Kountry Jack Wyze. Nandi Johannes studied classical violin in school and has toured musically in Japan and Europe. He’s working in Brooklyn in television production.

That’s why he digs the persona that is Kountry Jack Wyze.

“On one hand, that is kind of a backwoods touch,” Kountry Jack says. “We did the video with pretty much what we had. With Nathan, if you look at him, there may be a rip in his pants.”

Although there has been fame, there hasn’t been much fortune. Like Todd says, they just “threw it out there” not expecting to get the hits they would get.

But fear not, Lady Lake Boyz fans; they are planning another get-together with two additional videos. One is called “Ringz in the Swamp,” about the Gators’ championship rings, and the other is called “Pillow Butt Honey.”

And maybe they’ll film it during a tropical storm.