Tennessee Vols’ Dancing “Security Guard” Explains How Viral Performance Came To Be

Meet the real “blue shirt guy.”

By now you’ve probably seen the viral video of the “security guard” joining the University of Tennessee dance team during Saturday night’s game against Kentucky at Neyland Stadium. If not, we highly recommend you take the time to watch. Trust us, you won’t regret it.

This week, as the video raked in millions of views from every corner of the internet, people kept asking the same question: who is he?

Meet Michael Galyean.

Speaking with Today Wednesday, Galyean, a 40-year-old Tennessee alum and former high school cheerleader, explained how the viral moment came to be. He said that Kelley Tafazzoli, his longtime friend within the local dance community and the dance team's coach, suggested the routine to him.

"She reached out to me about 10 days before,” Galyean recalled. “I remember it was a Wednesday and she texted me, 'Hey, the marketing team has this idea we want to do this little bit during the football game. We're still working out details, but would you be interested in doing some improv, some acting and then dancing with the dance team on the field?' And I said, 'I'm already in uniform. Where do I sign up? Let's go.'"

Tafazzoli told WBIR that she wanted to try something new.

"Just kind of a nice, like, a breather from the normal kind of show that we have put out there," she explained. And Galyean was just what she was looking for.

“I knew that he could not only look the part, but he was a very talented dancer,” Tafazzoli said.

To pull the act off, Galyean switched shirts with a real security guard at halftime and pretended to be working the whole third quarter.

"In my head, I was going, 'What am I doing? Are my knees going to break? Am I too old for this? They're going to hate me,'” he told Today.

But when it came time to do the bit, Galyean said he "blacked out" and nailed it. He had no idea he was on both Jumbotrons and that the whole stadium could see it.

Despite his nerves, the response to the video has been overwhelmingly positive.

"To see the joy that's bringing other people... and that's one of my main goals daily is just to make people smile,” Galyean told WBIR.

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