On Saturdays in Sanford Stadium, even amid the sea of red and black, it’s impossible to miss the Spike Squad. Layers of face paint, thick shoulder pads, and costumes hide their identities in the crowd.
If you catch them outside the stadium on a weekday as they head to class or the dining hall, you might not recognize them at all, but on any home football Saturday, they’re local celebrities.
Hayden Couturier and Adam Buckler, aka Batman and the Junkyard Villain, are the co-presidents of the Spike Squad.
Couturier Supports Squad Goals
Couturier, a mechanical engineering major, grew up in Georgia playing golf. He was drawn to the technical side of the sport as much as the game itself. He spends his summers working at the Ocean Forest Golf Club and plans to use his degree to design golf equipment.
Couturier adopted his Batman identity after a casual trip to Party City. The mask fit perfectly and added a layer of fun to the already adrenaline-charged Spike Squad activities.
“It turned into a much bigger thing than I intended,” Couturier says. “Whenever I come home people are calling me Batman, even people I’ve never met before.”
But when the mask comes off, he spends much of his time deeply involved in his faith, including the Wesley Foundation, a campus ministry where he mentors younger students and leads by example.
“I’m not going to ask someone to do something that I wouldn’t do myself,” he says. “If I want someone to cheer louder, I cheer louder. If I want them to raise the energy, I raise my energy. It’s a lot easier to start yelling when someone else is also yelling with you.”
From Spikes to Scrubs
Like Couturier, Buckler grew up steeped in Dawg country. Buckler’s father is a Georgia alumnus, and the younger Buckler jokes that his childhood Saturdays were as sacred as holidays. As a child, he made his dad promise to take him to a game every year.
“If he forgot,” Buckler says, “My Christmas gift was a ticket to that year’s bowl game. So I won either way.”
Going from one annual game to hyping up a crowd of 96,000 people multiple times a year has been life-changing for Buckler. His Junkyard Villain persona is a nod to Georgia’s storied “Junkyard Dawgs” defense.
“My first attempt at the face paint was meant to look like the Robert Pattinson Batman, but it mostly made me look like a raccoon,” he says with a laugh.
In between Spike Squad planning meetings and playing intramural sports, Buckler is earning a surgical technician certification and plans to take the MCAT in 2026.
He’s on the pre-med track but also majoring in economics, a combination which helped during his internship with an Oklahoma state senator where he conducted research on mental health programs.
“I thought, ‘This is exciting. If I work hard now, I have a real opportunity to help people.’ And I felt what a real impact I could make, today in Sanford Stadium and hopefully tomorrow in the operating room,” says Buckler.
The Real Meaning of Spike Squad
This year, the co-presidents are launching a Spike Squad charitable fund to bring local children to their first Georgia football game and deliver smiles to a new generation of fans.
“It’s a way of sharing what we’ve been lucky enough to experience,” Buckler said. “That feeling of stepping into Sanford Stadium for the first time. It stays with you.”
For both Buckler and Couturier, Spike Squad has become more than a student organization. It’s taught them how to lead, connect, and show up — whether for a packed stadium, a Tuesday night tennis match, or a freshman finding his way.
When the pads and paint come off, each returns to their role as student, mentor, pre-med hopeful and aspiring engineer. But for now — in this season of community and spirit and sacred Saturdays — they are Batman and the Junkyard Villain, front and center in a crowd of 96,000 roaring fans.
