The Thursday morning crowd at Raising Canes in Gainesville were treated to a early surprise at the counter in Florida basketball’s top players.
Walter Clayton Jr. and Alijah Martin were at the register, Thomas Haugh was in the kitchen.
Monday evening, the three won Florida basketball their third national championship in San Antonio. About 60 hours later, back in Gainesville, they shifted to a new “career.”
Working at Raising Cane’s.
Clayton, Martin and Haugh “worked” a shift Thursday morning at the fast-food chicken establishment on University Avenue. It is part of Canes campaign to have athletes’ man the restaurant.
Haugh arrived before Canes opened at 10 a.m., with Clayton and Martin getting there soon after. They filmed promotional videos, answered media questions, worked the kitchen/counter and greeted hundreds of fans waiting outside.
Vinu Suthakaran, a second-year mechanical engineer, was the first in line at Canes at 7 a.m. He wanted to see Alijah Martin, who he attended Florida Atlantic with. He was later served by Clayton. Suthakaran called it surreal to stand across from maybe the best player in college basketball.
“Ordering a box combo, a Canes order from the guy that just led us to a national championship, it was surreal,” he said.
Suthakaran continued that Clayton was “pretty cool” with a nonchalant vibe. Clayton will be getting a new job in the coming months, but instead of serving chicken, he’ll be serving buckets in the NBA.
Clayton said Thursday he hasn’t communicated with NBA teams, leaving that to his team. After all, Clayton has been a busy man the past few days. After working at Canes, Clayton traveled to New York City on Friday and appeared on Good Morning America and First Take.
The NBA hype has increased exponentially in recent days for Clayton. On3 has him going No. 20 to the Miami Heat. CBS Sports, meanwhile, had him in the lottery at No. 12 to the Chicago Bulls and former Gator coach Billy Donovan.
Clayton will fully shift to the NBA after the hoopla from the Gators title dies down. The team will host a celebration Saturday at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium during halftime of the Orange and Blue Spring Game. This comes after the welcome back ceremony at Flavet Field on Tuesday.
Center Micah Handlogten, who showed up near the end of their shift for support, said he didn’t expect that many people to stay at Flavet.
“There’s a lot of support, and a lot of people that showed out, even though we were two and a half hours late,” Handlogten said. “It was really cool experience.”
Clayton made further news for his comforting of Houston’s Emmanuel Sharp. His defense forced Sharp to lose possession and fail to get a shot off. As Sharp squatted in sadness, Clayton approached the fellow Florida native and offered words of encouragement.
“It was a rough moment for him, so just went over there. Wanted to shake all those guys hands,” Clayton said. “It was a blessing for us to even be on that stage.”
Suthakaran watched Monday’s game at the O’Connell Center watch party. He called it the best experience of his team at UF.
The players saw the videos from the O’Connell Center and Midtown.
“I’ve never seen university like that, so it means a lot that we were able to cause something like that,” Handlogten said.
Martin shouted out the man who climbed the streetlight on the intersection of University and Buckman Drive.
“Hope he’s doing good. That was crazy,” Martin said.
Noah Ram covers Gainesville-area high school sports and University of Florida athletics for The Gainesville Sun, GatorSports.com and the USA TODAY Network. Contact him by email at Nram@gannett.com and follow him @Noah_ram1 on X/Twitter.
