Unconquered January 2012

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Unconquered magazine (USPS 18182) is published quarterly by Seminole Boosters, Inc., 225 University Center, Suite 5100, Tallahassee, Florida, 32306. (850) 644-3484, Fax: (850) 222-5929. POSTMASTER: send change of address to, Unconquered magazine, care of Seminole Boosters, Florida State University Center, Suite C-5100, 5th Floor, Tallahassee, Florida, 32306. Periodicals Postage Paid at Tallahassee, FL, Volume 29, Issue 1.

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Overview Unconquered magazine celebrates Seminole athletics and the indomitable spirit of its student-athletes who overcome adversity, the passion of its coaches and educators who help students reach beyond their limits, and the devotion of donors who redefine the boundaries of generosity by giving scholarships that change lives and who make donations that build first-class athletic facilities. By sharing their stories of transformational experiences — on the athletic playing field, in the classroom and in life — Unconquered magazine encourages the growth of responsible world citizenship and cross-cultural understanding. Each issue carries stories on what makes student-athletes great and how they were shaped by their experience at FSU, features on Seminole community sports legends and profiles of donors who make contributions.

2013 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Bruce Harrell

GENE READY

David Rancourt

MIKE HARRELL

Brian Swain

Morris Miller

TOM JENNINGS

RANDY SPETMAN

ANDY MILLER

Allan Bense

Chairman

Booster Attorney

Chairman-Elect

VP for University Advancement

Secretary

Athletic Director

Past Chairman

Treasurer

Seminole Boosters President

Chairman of the Board of Trustees

Contact Send correspondence to Kirstin Rayborn, at the address shown above, or by email to krayborn@fsu.edu. Telephone: (850) 645-7330.

Magazine Staff Publishers: Andy Miller, Jerry Kutz

Oscar Vicente, Jr. GARY THURSTON

Managing editor: Derrill Beech

At-Large Member

At-Large Member

Nylah Thompson Dr. Pamela Perrewe At-Large Member

Faculty Representative

Design, layout, production, pre-press: Rowland Publishing, Inc. Photo editors: Rowland Publishing, Inc. Featured photographers: Mike Olivella, Ross Obley Contributing photographers: FSU Sports Info, Ryals Lee, Seminole Boosters, Larry Novey, Bill Kallenberg, Perrone T. Ford, Steve Musco, UF Communications Columnists: Charlie Barnes, Jerry Kutz Contributing writers: Joel Padgett, Brandon Mellor, Jim Crosby, John Lata, Alan Hooper, Rob Wilson, FSU Sports Info Copy editors: Jerry Kutz, Rowland Publishing, Inc. Photo purchasing information:

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Mike Olivella photos: www.seminoles.com Ross Obley photos: www.seminoles.com

Seminole Boosters, Inc. EXECUTIVE STAFF Andy Miller President and CEO Joel Padgett Senior Vice President Gift Planning Director Tom Carlson Senior Vice President Jerry Kutz Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications Cindee Lundeen, PhD Director Billy Sexton Director Eric Carr Director Sanford Lovingood Controller Matt Behnke, CPA Chief Financial Officer Max Zahn Northeast FL Representative Javi Garcia-Tunon Miami Representative EJ Foreman Tampa Representative Kristin Tubeck Tampa Representative Brett Hagler Tallahassee/Atlanta Representative James Warren Ticket/Membership Account Representative

ASSISTANTS TO EXECUTIVE STAFF AND DIRECTORS Kari Terezakis Senior Executive Assistant to Andy Miller Sarah Reed Coaches Clubs Director, Internship Coordinator Mary Bailey Executive Assistant to Jerry Kutz, Stewardship Lindsay Pierce Executive Assistant

Kirstin Rayborn Vice President for Marketing and Unconquered Magazine FSU VARSITY CLUB Betsy Hosey Director DONOR RECORDS Jennifer Terrell Director Matt Lanahan Data Entry

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Kathy Atkins-Gunter, PC Jorge Azor Eric Barron Tom Barron, PC Lance Barton Mark Bates Allen Bense Flecia Braswell Steve Brown, PC Yvonne Brown Bob Camp, PC Joe Camps, PC Bob Carnes Bill Carraway, PC Jimmy Carter, PC Ken Cashin, PC Bob Caton, PC Raymond Cottrell, PC Dave Cowens, PC Ben Crump Craig Dewhurst Chris Diamantis Carl Domino, PC Al Dunlap

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Sam Rogers, Jr. Scott Roix Bob Sasser Jared Schrader Jon Shebel Barry Smith Bob Smith Lomax Smith, PC Randy Spetman Kathy Stahl Brian Swain, PC Nylah Thompson Gary Thurston Nada Usina Oscar Vicente, Jr. Gary Walsingham, PC Mike Walsingham Brian Williams PC denotes Past Chairman

FLORIDA STATE BOARD OF TRUSTEES Allan Bense, Chair Edward E. “Ed” Burr Susie Busch-Transou, Vice Chair Joseph L. Camps, Jr. Emily Fleming Duda Joseph Gruters William Andrew Haggard

Mark Hillis James E. Kinsey, Jr. Sandra Lewis Margaret A. Rolando Brent Sembler Rueben Stokes

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“We are proud of our scholar athletes who excel in the classroom and on the playing field.”

Eric J. Barron

President of The Florida State University

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Booster Life 5 Board of Directors 12 Booster Life 80 NCAA Compliance/ Welcome New Members

photos by ross obley And MiKe Olivella and courtesy of FSU Sports Information

Columnists 8 13 Musings on the NewYear 22 Annual Membership Report 18 Community Outreach: Student Athletes Help Others 26 Indoor Training Center 30 Andy Miller Q&A 32 Baseball Season Preview 34 Softball Season Preview 36 Randy Spetman Q&A 39 Spring Sports Previews and Q&A 55 CollegeTown 59 30-Year Donors 60 Graduating Athletes 64 Godfrey Smith Chairman Award 68 Planned Giving 72 Spear Lighting 74 Quarterly Reports

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Features 48 Football Recruiting/New Coaches 62 Meet Mike Bell

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Cover Photo by: Mike Olivella

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Charlie Barnes

13

Musings

on the New Year

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By Charlie Barnes, Guest Columnist // Photos by mike olivella

here is a term — triskaidekaphobia — which describes the affliction of those who fear the number 13. Regarding our Seminoles, I think there is much more reason for optimism than anxiety, even though this is being written in mid-January and we do not yet know what new adventures 2013 will bring.

Here are thirteen musings on the Seminole sports landscape, looking toward the coming year.

On the Seminole Football Coaching Carousel It’s natural for aggressive and ambitious college coaches to want to move up.

Assistants want to become coordinators and coordinators want to become head coaches. Professional college coaches today do not expect to stay in one place very long.

Many built-in impediments burdening Florida State are offset by considerable advantages on the plus side. We’re in Florida, so we have access to the best high school talent in the country. And thanks to our history of success, the Seminoles remain a solid national brand, popular and familiar to college fans across the country. Coaches — whether assistants, coordinators or even head coaches — would love the opportunity to come here. It’s not always about financial compensation; sometimes it’s about the chance to get noticed and to have a realistic shot at winning conference and national titles.

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Jimbo’s method of assembling his staff appears to be like Bill Peterson’s.

Coach Pete was here from 1960 through the 1970 season, and he recruited the very brightest and most capable assistants, knowing that they would move on and up after a few seasons.

Peterson’s legacy in that regard is beyond extraordinary. Assistants who coached at Florida State under Peterson went on to win five Super Bowls and four major college national football championships. Eventual head coaches included Don James (Washington), Bobby Bowden (West Virginia and FSU), Vince Gibson (Kansas State, Louisville), Joe Avezzano (Oregon State), John Coatta (Wisconsin), Al Conover (Rice), Y. C. McNease (Idaho), Joe Gibbs (Redskins), Dan Henning (Falcons), Ken Meyer (49ers) and Bill Parcells (Air Force Academy, Giants, Patriots, Jets and Cowboys).

On the other hand, Coach Bowden liked to build his staff with an eye toward longterm stability. Bowden also had his share

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of assistants who became head coaches (Amato, Richt, McDowell, Schoolfield, Scott), but he credited his long dynasty run in the 1990s in part to having kept his key offensive and defensive coaches inhouse for extended stays.

One scheme is probably as effective as the other; it’s just a matter of the particular head coach’s style. As always, the important thing is winning.

On Why We Joined the ACC in 1991 It was a casual insult, a small thing and almost certainly unintended. It was simply the product of a copywriter assuming he knew the correct story because that’s what he had always been told. I saw it in a Barnett Bank advertisement as I flipped through a 1983 Seminole game program, almost a decade before FSU made the decision to join the ACC instead of the Southeastern Conference.

The Barnett Bank ad on page 18 of Tribe magazine (Homecoming, 1983) was a black and white photo of what

Charlie Barnes

appeared to be a college football game around the turn of the century. The copy read: “In 1906, Floridians cheered their first college football game. And Barnett celebrated its 29th year in Florida.”

But, of course, you know that Florida State College played football for three years before that, defeating the newly named University of Florida (in Lake City) in 1903 and in 1904. The Florida TimesUnion’s College Cup trophy recognizing the State of Florida Football Champions was presented to Stetson in 1903 and to Florida State College in 1904.

But that record disappeared from the general public view over the years, because only one set of voices was speaking. And those voices had decided that football in Florida started in 1906. The record of history depends on who’s telling the story and, I suppose, who’s telling it the loudest.

When only one set of unchallenged voices shapes history, that version takes root in the public mind and other histories can simply disappear. A 2003 exposition on university architecture in the Daytona Beach News-Journal pointed out that while the University of Florida and Florida State University were older institutions, Stetson University (1883) “is the oldest continuously operating university in Florida still at its original site.”

But, you already know this casual bit of misinformation is wrong. The hill where Westcott stands is the oldest continuous site of higher education in the state of Florida. Florida State endured inaccurate and condescending commentary from journalists for decades because most of them were privy to only one story.

By joining the ACC in 1991, Florida State University finally had the chance to craft our own unique story and develop our own equitable associations with some of America’s finest institutions of

From its first victory over the University of Florida in 1903 to the dynasty years and winning national championships, to joining the ACC in 1991, Florida State crafted its own unique story, free of the imposing shadows of rivals.

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FSU won the conference and then became Orange Bowl champions on New Year’s Day. The Seminoles hold the longest active record of consecutive bowl appearances.

higher learning. We could define our own experience, free of the imposing shadow of our rival.

Many of us were anxious in 1991 when the decision was made. Was it the right move for Florida State? Someone shrugged and said, “Well, in 10 years we’ll know.” It’s been 20 years now, and the debate today seems as fresh as it was then.

Someday I am going to write the real story of how Florida State came to be in the ACC. It’s a somewhat different story than the one you might assume you know.

On the New Football Dorm “The Burt,” as players used to call Burt Reynolds Hall, was opened with great fanfare more than 25 years ago. At the time, Reynolds was the top male box-office draw in the world, and he participated in all the weekend’s activities, bringing along with him a parade of his Hollywood celebrity pals including his wife, actress Lonnie Anderson.

The Burt housed our entire football team and it was a wonderful recruiting tool as well as an indispensible advantage for the coaches. The concept of an allfootball dorm originated with Bear Bryant Hall at Alabama and all the big schools in the South quickly followed suit.

But an under-the-radar campaign initiated by coaches from the northeast and Midwest resulted in a new NCAA rule that dismantled the all-football dorms. The rule says that no student housing facility can be more than 49% athletes.

The practical effect was that The Burt was now occupied mostly by freshmen and sophomore players. Older players lived off campus where, as Coach Bowden noted, they were harder to track down. (“They all got those dad-gum caller ID things on their phones.”)

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In addition, as time passed The Burt lost some of its glamour as trends in student housing became less spartan and more in keeping with the wants of a new generation of students.

Jimbo Fisher’s No. 1 facility priority was the Indoor Practice Facility now under construction. A housing facility where the coaches can have access to all the football players at once is probably priority “No. 1-A.” Such a new facility will be under construction soon, near the stadium and close to the original Burt Reynolds Hall.

It will be large enough to accommodate 72 football student-athletes, plus 73 nonathletes. Income from the rents will offset the cost of running the facility.

On CollegeTown CollegeTown is the new community of apartments, restaurants, shops, plazas and party locations along the roads east of the Intramural fields where our fans park, stretching toward the Civic Center. It’s been under construction since mid-2012, and many of the venues will be open when you bring your family to the games this fall.

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CollegeTown is a fabulous addition to the Seminole Game Day experience. Even better, it will create a revenue stream to help support Seminole Athletics.

On Coach Fisher Count me as a Jimbo fan. I think he’s the guy. I’m glad he’s here, and I want him to stay. Jimbo Fisher really did embrace the Seminoles as his favorite team when he was a young college player, and he has always thought FSU would be his ideal job.

Earlier, some of us were discussing an inconsequential legal point, and the attorney said, “Well none of that stuff is important … until it is.” There was a lot of anxiety this year over what appeared to fans to be Coach Fisher’s conservative play calling, especially in the second half. Like the lawyer said, it’s not important until it is. When you win, none of the minutiae is important. When you lose, well you heard the lawyer.

Lots of threads interweave to create the game plan. Sometimes the coaches will share their strategy with the fans but very often they will not, for all the reasons you would guess.

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Coach Bowden used to say over and over that he had learned through painful experience not to sit on a lead. And yet, over and over we watched him do exactly that. Each time he had his reasons, and the decibel scale of fans’ reaction to the game plan hinged on whether we won or lost.

Jimbo impresses as a deliberate sort, not given to impulse or ego during a game. He’s stronger in that regard than a lot of other coaches today.

For an example, look no further than the 1994 game against Florida in Tallahassee.

We were defending National Champions yet we were down 3–31 on our own field as the fourth quarter began. Fans were starting to leave; Gator players were strutting and posing on the sidelines.

You know the story. Our Seminoles scored 28 unanswered points in that fourth quarter to tie the game, and then FSU won the re-match in the Sugar Bowl billed as “The Fifth Quarter in the French Quarter.”

Coach Bowden said, “You know, all Steve had to do was run the ball. If he had just slowed down for one series, we never could have come back that far. But he kept throwing, and we kept intercepting and scoring.” Coach Bowden just shook his head. “You know, for us to ‘win’ that game every single thing had to happen exactly the way it did. If Steve had done any one single thing to keep the ball out of our hands, we would have lost.”

It was Spurrier’s personality. Two seasons later, Florida played Nebraska in the Fiesta Bowl for the National Champions. The Gators lost 62–24. The score was 49-18 at the beginning of the fourth quarter, but Coach Spurrier kept throwing out of his own end zone.

Spurrier is a great coach, no doubt. But I’d rather have Jimbo than Steve, and I believe the next several years will bear that out.

On Seminole Boosters: The Mickey Andrews Principle As the story goes, back in the day Coach Andrews and his staff were displeased with the effort of his defensive players in

practice. Mickey called the players together and gave them a very simple message.

He explained that he and his fellow defensive coaches were professionals with families and careers and they did not intend to beat themselves up trying to motivate college kids beyond the players’ capacity or interest.

“I want you fellows to all go meet,” Andrews said, “And decide how good you want to be. If you just want to have a winning season, that’s OK; then that’s how we’ll coach you. If you want to play for a national championship, then we’ll take it up a notch. You decide what you want and what you’re willing to do, and then we’ll coach you to that level.”

Seminole Boosters asks similar questions of our loyal fans and contributors. How good do we want to be? An intercollegiate athletic program that wants to compete for championships requires funding at championship levels.

Some universities have no realistic chance of winning championships. They don’t have the student population or the demographics or the access to championship talent. But like Mickey Andrews’ defensive players, Florida State possesses all the innate talent to achieve any ambition.

We fans and Boosters just have to decide how good we want to be.

predicting 2013 is a mystery. They say the Seminole defense will still be very good, but not nearly as good as this year. Bleacher Report predicts LSU and Ohio State will win all 12 games, Alabama wins 11, the Gators win 10 and FSU wins nine.

USA Today waited until Jan. 8 to make their Top 25 predictions for 2013. They have Alabama at No. 1, with Ohio State, Stanford, Oregon and Florida following in sequence.

There are a couple of surprises. Northern Illinois is 24th, just three down from Oklahoma at 21. Did you think you’d live long enough to see Oklahoma ranked below Oklahoma State in a pre-season scenario?

Indulging our fantasy that counts Louisville and Notre Dame as ACC members right now, our conference contributes four teams to the Top 25.

Florida State is 6th and Clemson is 12th, along with Notre Dame at 8th and Louisville at 16th.

Now that you know, you can relax over the spring and summer and just let it come to you.

The first pre-season college football polls have four ACC teams (including future teams) in the top 25, with FSU and Notre Dame in the top 10 followed by Clemson and Louisville.

On Seminole Football, 2013 I believe we will be better than advertised, but I’m not prepared just yet to say why.

Such is the passion for college football that immediately following the national championship game, sports sites elbowed each other to be the first to publish far-tooearly predictions and rankings for 2013.

Bleacher Report jumped the gun on everyone and published the first 2013 rankings on Dec. 28. They have LSU at No. 1 going into 2013. Florida is No. 7 and FSU is No. 20, behind both Clemson and Miami. Bleacher Report opined that FSU’s odd schedule turned out to be so weak it was hard to tell how good the FSU team really was in 2012 — and, without several departing key playmakers on both offense and defense, 82>>

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ACROSS FROM FLORIDA STATE UNIVERESITY

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Community Outreach

FSU ’s Student Athletes Enjoy Helping Others Serving continues beyond the college Years

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By John Lata, Ph.D.

ver the years the Florida State University Athletic Department’s Community Service program has become the envy of many around the nation. Despite having a smaller program than many, FSU has been a national leader in the amount of service given and the number of children reached.

And it really starts at the top, as Athletic Director Randy Spetman understands the power of the experience.

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Community Outreach

“The Florida State Athletic Department works hard to develop each of our student-athletes as a total person. Along with academic and athletic challenges, we promote opportunities for them to reach out into the community and give back by being role models and speaking about the keys to success,” he said. “Through these outreach opportunities we have found our student-athletes have grown personally and professionally.”

Student-athletes have a variety of projects in which they participate, from Relay for Life to visits at the hospital and local Senior Center. But the mainstay of the departmental service program always has been visiting local elementary schools to reach and inspire those who most look up to the athletes.

“My favorite community service is speaking at elementary, middle and high schools about the importance of reading and living a healthy lifestyle, as well as sharing my faith with students involved in Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA),” said Amanda Saxton, a member of the new women’s Sand Volleyball team from Orlando, who is a winner of the coveted NCAA Elite 89 and ACC Top Six for Service awards.

“As a Florida State Seminole,” she added, “student-athletes are leaders on campus and in the community, and I’m so thankful for the

A variety of projects — from elementary school visits to Relay for Life — provide student athletes the opportunity to serve the community.

athletic department’s emphasis on community engagement to help me use my influence to make a difference in the lives of others.”

FSU student-athletes realize that to whom much is given, much is also expected.

“Student-athletes work extremely hard to be the best at their respective skill. As a result of hard work, athletes are given opportunities to work out in great facilities, receive medical care and finally given the chance to attend college,” said Dustin Hopkins, a former member of the FSU football team. “I always enjoyed sharing

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Community Outreach

Recent service projects include the football team’s visit to a Miami hospital while in town for the Orange Bowl and the women’s softball team participating in the Walk to Cure Diabetes.

my time with others who may not be as fortunate because I have been given so much. It’s only right to give back.”

The nice thing about getting into the habit of giving back while at FSU is that the athletes continue to serve at the next level. Derrick Brooks and Warrick Dunn have been recognized by the NFL with Man of the Year awards. And former players such as Everett Brown and Kamerion Wimbley have been recognized in their local newspapers for events they participated in as members of their respective NFL teams.

The FSU Athletic Department has won the National Consortium for Academics and Sports Outreach Program of the Year Award three times. Over the past five years, the athletic department has averaged giving back more than 5,000 hours annually to the community. During the most complete academic year, there were 10 teams that contributed over 200 hours of service. Five teams did more than 600 hours each!

There is an award given to the team that does the most hours per person — and the women’s Golf Team has won it 11 years in a row.

“Community service is very important to our program. We are very blessed to be at such a great university where we are supported, encouraged and challenged. With that comes the responsibility to be good examples and to return the favor of support and encouragement given to us,” said Women’s Golf Head Coach Amy Bond. “The girls love to participate in various forms of community service, from playing with the kids at the hospital to helping clean out the cages at the animal shelter and numerous other things in between. Anything that we can do to give back becomes a priority for us, even if we have to spend practice time doing it.”

That being said, there are a number of teams gunning for the golf team’s crown. Every year other teams get close to knocking them off the top of the mountain.

“As far as the challenge put on us each year to continue to win the Directors Cup for Service, well … every year we are the target team,” Bond acknowledged. “We have to continue to come up with creative ways to work the community service into our schedule because we are a year-round sport. After 12 years, I must admit that I am feeling the pressure because I do not want to be the coach that gets beat. On the other hand, it is great that other teams are striving to beat us, which means that all our teams are out in the community lending support.

Winning the Directors Cup for Service has become a sense of pride for us, and I hope that our streak continues for many more years.”

So far in the 2012–13 school year, the Athletic Department is right on pace to exceed the 5,000-plus hour mark one more time.

So whenever you’re out in the community at an event, look for a Florida State student-athlete. There’s a pretty good chance there is one somewhere close, hoping to impact a young person in a positive way. SB

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BOOSTER INSIDER

BY JERRY KUTZ, VICE PRESIDENT

Championship Dreams It Takes a Seminole Village to Win

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hese are interesting times in collegiate athletics but certainly not for the faint of heart.

The big story is conference expansion, and it has been for more than a year. It’s a story that will have legs for months, maybe even years. And while Florida State must pay careful attention, the Seminoles must not let it divide, discourage or distract us from championship dreams.

This story has staying power because it offers all the elements of a dark mystery: money, power and intrigue. Like all cliff hangers, there are “life and death” implications and a ticking clock to amplify the heartbeat.

The heart of the story is television money, and lots of it. At one time there was little difference between conferences in the amount of money paid to each school.

But over time, as conferences renegotiated network contracts, they leapfrogged one another until the disparity became substantial. How substantial is a matter of debate as there is little consistency in how the major conferences pay out revenue from television, championships and bowls or in how conferences reimburse their teams for championship and bowl expenses and unsold tickets.

The story line is that revenue, net of expenses, is substantial and will tilt the playing field against ACC teams. Over

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time, the cumulative differential will lead to a doomsday conclusion.

The resulting fear is leading Seminole supporters to choose camps: some for the ACC, some for the SEC, Big 12 or BIG 10, and some for simply following the money. The dialogue among the camps has become extreme, fatalistic and divisive and could become a dangerous distraction to FSU attaining its goals.

This column is not intended to be for or against the ACC, only to assure our supporters that the FSU administration is engaged and focused on achieving those championship goals.

Charlie Barnes ends his column in this issue of Unconquered with a timeless story about a question former defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews asked a worn out defense during a practice long ago. It was a simple question but one we should ask ourselves today.

I was covering practice that day for the Osceola newspaper and witnessed the moment. The triple-digit heat index and pace of practice had beaten the players physically and emotionally.

Lofty preseason goals of state, ACC and national championships vanished in a summer storm of physical and emotional agony. The immediate goal was surviving to the next water break and getting back to their air-conditioned “cribs” to rest and dream of championships.

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Decades have passed but my memory of what transpired next and what was said is that Andrews, the veteran motivator, simply walked off the field and settled under the old shade tree with his assistant sipping Powerade.

I recall one player walked toward the coaches, short straw in hand, to ask what’s up?

“You guys need to decide how good you want to be, and then we will coach you to be that good,” I recall Andrews answered. “This is not our team. It’s your team. And you will only become as good as you decide to become. Go decide.”

The players held an impromptu meeting, and the messenger returned to report that his teammates wanted to compete for championships. A shower of Powerade hit garbage cans, whistles shrilled and effort took a U-turn.

This legendary story applies today for us all. How good do we collectively want FSU to be and what price are we collectively willing to pay to become that good?

I say collectively because this story applies to the Florida State University administration, Seminole Boosters Inc. and every Seminole fan.

When you think about that moment of truth under the oak tree, the question the players had to answer went well beyond a question of goals. It went to

trust. The players had to ask themselves: Do I believe these coaches have my best interests at heart? If they had lacked trust, I doubt they would have made the commitment to pay the very steep price to become a championship contender or to sustain it day after day.

Mickey Andrews will tell you that trust works best on a two-way street.

That dynamic exists with Florida State and its supporters as well. Supporters ask: Does FSU have my best interests at heart? And when making tough budget decisions in order to chase championship goals the administration must trust that its supporters, who ultimately fund those decisions, share those goals.

It starts at the top. We all should know that President Eric Barron and the Florida State Board of Trustees have our best interests at heart, which frees us to focus on our individual roles.

FSU Athletics and the Seminole Boosters earn their supporters’ trust each day by addressing their interests.

Seminole fans have made it clear they want enhanced football schedules, and FSU has responded with major upgrades that should be announced by the time you read this story. These enhancements became possible when the Atlantic Coast Conference went from a nine-game conference schedule to an eight-game schedule, which freed FSU to ink Boise State. Seminole fans will also enjoy seeing Notre Dame as early as 2014, with FSU making a return trip to South Bend within the next six years.

Adding these teams also enhances the Seminoles’ strength of schedule, which is an important factor to qualifying

for championship competition in the conference expansion argument.

Jimbo Fisher’s position on these schedule upgrades is simple: “I am willing to play anyone, anywhere, anytime.” That’s music to Seminole fans who hunger for these games.

The Seminoles’ 2014 home schedule will include Clemson, Florida and possibly Notre Dame. The ’Noles play a neutral site game against Oklahoma State in Jerry Jones’ Cowboy Classic. Miami and Louisville will be featured road trips.

Future home schedules beyond 2014 look to be attractive as well.

Seminole fans have demonstrated they’ll buy tickets for big games, so the

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Jimbo and Trey Fisher with John Swofford lift the ACC Trophy after defeating Georgia Tech 21–15 in Charlotte earning a spot in a BCS post season game.

2014 home schedule could lead to the first season-ticket sellout since 2000.

Sold-out season tickets would provide upwards of $8 million annually to the athletic budget in ticket sales and ticketrelated Booster revenue. Eight million dollars in additional revenue helps fund championship dreams and enhances FSU’s ability to control its future.

What about the Atlantic Coast Conference? Can the conference add value

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to the television contract to command a higher payout for its member institutions?

Several developments are encouraging. Adding Notre Dame, even on a five-game-per-year basis, creates enhanced value for the ACC’s television partner ESPN and, sources say, will translate into a larger payout to ACC member institutions as early as 2014.

This will help to close the television revenue gap with other conferences.

Adding Syracuse, Pittsburg and Louisville also adds value to ESPN, as the ACC now has more television sets and eyeballs (even after the defection of Maryland) than when the partners signed the contract. Will increased viewership add enough value to ESPN’s advertisers to translate into more revenue to the schools? Typically, adding value leads to added revenue.

A recent article reported the ACC and Big 12 are in discussion to form a “conference affiliation,” crediting the two conferences with out-of-the-box thinking to drive revenue and address fan interest.

That’s encouraging. While this association is only in the discussion phase, intersectional matchups historically create large viewership and ratings and would add value to ESPN advertisers, which could also translate into more money to ACC schools. An affiliation may also help in creating interesting home game matchups for FSU fans.

Even if the association doesn’t materialize, these recent discussions should tell you that this is still an evolving story, one that surely has more plot twists and no timeframe for closure.

While at the ACC Championship game in Charlotte, there was a column

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ACC Champs Anthony McCloud and Everett Dawkins celebrate the Conference Championship, a first for the ’Noles since 2005.

in the Charlotte Observer that asked an intriguing question about the expansion timeline. The columnist compared conference expansion with free agency.

There was a time when pro ball players would play their entire careers with one club, but that loyalty ended with free agency which allowed them to take the money and run. The writer asked: Is conference expansion a one-time realignment of college sports, or is it just the beginning of free agency in collegiate athletics?

Stay tuned and stay focused. It takes a Seminole Village to raise championship dreams. SB

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Albert J. Dunlap Athlete Training Facility

IPF MEANS STRUCTURE

For Seminole Football Team

Eliminating Practice schedule changes has a direct effect on so much more

T

By Rob Wilson // Photos by Mike olivella

une into any college football or NFL broadcast, and one of the first things the announcers will address is how many days of practice a key player missed leading into the game. How will the Patriot’s Rob Gronkowski play after missing three days with a bad elbow?

How sharp will EJ Manuel be after sitting out Tuesday’s workout?

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Albert J. Dunlap Athlete Training Facility

Well, imagine the effect when an entire football team misses out on a practice because a cloud that might produce lightning drifted over Wakulla Springs. And it doesn’t stop with just missed drills. Even slight changes in practice schedule has a direct ripple effect to class schedules, tutoring sessions, dining hall meals, medical treatments, doctor’s appointments and so much more. Coach Fisher has been clear that the ability to stay on schedule and practice indoors if needed will be as much help to the players in the classroom as it is on the game field. The facility will provide a much safer environment for players and staff not only in the case of inclement weather but in dealing with heat and hydration issues that keep the medical staff on edge well into September.

None of the challenges presented are new, but their effect is much more dramatic. A better appreciation of weather-related dangers and NASA-like precision

storm detection units changed the game for college athletics several years ago — and literally sent programs running inside to find ways to finish a practice.

Gone are the days when a coach would wait under ominous clouds for the first lightning flash before covering his head with the practice script and leading the team’s charge off the field to, in FSU’s case, temporary shelter under the baseball stadium until the cloud had passed.

Today, FSU trainers are alerted 20 minutes before a

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Progress photos taken early spring, show the massive size of this athletic facility, scheduled to be ready in August.

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Albert J. Dunlap Athlete Training Facility

storm arrives and safety protocols force everyone indoors — not just under cover — until the computer says the entire area has been clear for another 20 minutes. Practice is shot. Coaches will have burned a significant part of the 20 hours they are allowed to practice for, say, Clemson. And there may or may not have even been a drop of rain or flash of lightning.

A late afternoon thunderstorm in Tallahassee in August is regular enough to set your watch by. But soon it will be of no concern to the FSU staff.

Beginning in August, the only weather-related issue Coach Fisher will have is whether to move the tackling dummies inside.

Since athletics facilities cannot be funded with state or university money, the funding for this facility, estimated at $17 million, needed to be privately raised by Seminole Boosters Inc. The Boosters capital campaign was propelled by the generous lead gift of $5 million from Al and Judy Dunlap. Larry Strom, who made a $1 million commitment, led the successful campaign which attracted gifts from hundreds of supporters ranging from $10 up to the lead gift of $5 million.

While the ground has been broken for this facility, the opportunity to contribute to its completion continues in earnest. Seminole fans who would like to help can visit FSUIPF.com to learn about the project, see progress photos and the many donor recognitions at various contribution levels.

The project is moving at a breath-taking clip and is far more than just dropping a building over one of FSU’s three fields. In fact, the whole practice area for football will have been literally picked up, turned and

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plopped back down with a whole lot more going into it than that.

The ceiling of the IPF will tower 65 feet The facility’s capital campaign attracted — or high enough for kickoffs and field hundreds of supporters, goals — above the artificial field which with gifts ranging from will run roughly east to west “across” the $10 to $5 million. north end zones of the old practice fields.

The two remaining grass fields run in the same direction as they always have, but they are being shifted 50 yards down towards Doak Campbell, which means the Sod Cemetery is finding a new home as well as the fact that the parking lot at the Moore Center will now flow around the extended fields and down along the wall adjacent to Stadium Drive nearly up to the soccer fields. Confused? Visit seminoles.com and take a look at the photos and plans.

How important is the training center to Florida State? Most coaches see the day coming when the lack of such a facility will be a huge recruiting stumbling block, and a recent visit by FSU officials to Auburn’s indoor facility to pick their brains on the project seemed to bear that out.

“To be honest, we probably built the indoor facility because the folks down the road had one,” a Tigers official who will remain anonymous told me. “We thought they might use it five to 10 times a year, but it turns out our program uses it constantly. It’s one of those things that once you have it you wonder how you ever got by without it.”

Starting in August, whether or not he can practice is one audible that Jimbo Fisher won’t have to make. SB

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Andy Miller Q&A

Exciting times lie ahead at Doak Cambell starting in 2014 with the addition of Notre Dame and Louisville to the conference.

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Andy Miller Q&A

Boosters President Andy Miller

Q&A

Kutz: There has been a lot of concern from Season Ticket Holders and Seminole Booster members about the football schedule, specifically the attractiveness of the matchups and where and when they fall on the schedule. Can you comment?

Miller: It’s without a doubt the No. 1 concern of our Seminole Booster Board and is equally shared by Athletic Director Randy Spetman and Head Coach Jimbo Fisher. The 2012 schedule was tough, with West Virginia backing out late and four straight home games in September. We are all sensitive to when the games are played because we know how difficult it is for our fan base, most of whom have to travel four to seven hours to get to Tallahassee. And we understand there were matchups that did not stimulate attendance. Our collective goal is to offer a schedule that is attractive to the fans, improves our strength of schedule, but does not put your team at a competitive disadvantage. Losing West Virginia was a big blow to both fan interest and strength of schedule and caused the once really attractive home schedule (West Virginia, Clemson and Florida) to look less appetizing. This year we are looking at challenges due to the ACC moving back to an eight game schedule.

The Boosters, Athletics Department and football office are all concerned and working to improve future schedules.

Kutz: What can we look forward to regarding future football schedules?

Miller: Boosters, Athletics and Coach Fisher all want to find balance. We would like to add home games against national opponents that will ensure the strength of schedule necessary to play on the grand stage and will excite our fans. We also support neutral site games in major markets where our alumni live. The Oklahoma State Game in Dallas is a real good opportunity to showcase our program. We have a significant alumni presence in Texas, and our traveling fans will be excited about the opportunity to spend a few days in Dallas and see the fabulous Cowboy Stadium. We will see Notre Dame on our future schedules once every six years, maybe as early as 2014. And then Louisville replaces Maryland in our division, so we will begin to see them instead of Maryland every other year. That will give us Florida and Clemson in even years and Miami and Louisville in odd years, plus Notre Dame every six years.

By Jerry kutz, Senior Vice President Photos By Mike olivella

FSU also announced the addition of Boise State at Doak in 2019 and at Boise State in 2020.

Kutz: What are the Boosters doing to keep the program competitive at the highest level?

Miller: After major construction projects in recent years to address all of our sports, we were able to address Jimbo’s top two priorities this year: the new Albert J. Dunlap Athlete Training Facility and a new facility to house student athletes. We are also raising the money to provide nationally competitive operational budgets that allow our coaches and student-athletes in all sports to compete nationally. And we continue to raise money to grow our scholarship endowment.

We are also addressing some core infrastructure issues for our fans to provide them with the total experience when they visit Tallahassee for one of our home contests, as well as in their home communities. The new CollegeTown entertainment district, downtown block parties, facility tours and other events give our fans more reason to travel to Tallahassee than simply to see a ballgame. We are also ramping up our activities in markets where our alumni and friends reside. We’ve moved full time Booster employees to our major markets (Miami, West Palm Beach, Orlando, Tampa/St. Pete, Jacksonville, Atlanta and the Florida Panhandle) to get to know our fans in those areas and serve their needs, as well as to bring Florida State Athletics to them with fun events throughout the year.

We are also working with the university to master plan the Tucker Center and have planned renovations to Doak that will add club seats and other premium fan amenities.

Kutz: Tell us about the Booster card.

Miller: We wanted to create a Seminole Booster benefit that would give all Seminole fans - no matter where they live - a tangible reason to join Seminole Boosters and help us fund our athletics program. The Seminole Booster membership card offers fast access and discounts to Booster Life events nationally and also offers member advantages at a growing number of select Booster partner businesses (see Seminole-boosters.com for list of participating businesses). Boosters who own businesses and would like to participate in this program can contact Jay Peeper for more information (jpeeper@fsu.edu). SB

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Baseball Season Preview

FSU Baseball Season Outlook

By Brandon Mellor, Managing Editor, Seminoles.com Photos By Mike olivella

H

e’s been doing it for 34 years but the excitement of a new season and the opportunities, challenges and possibilities that each fresh year represents isn’t lost on Mike Martin.

And since 1980, Martin has seen just about everything as Florida State’s baseball coach: victories (lots of them), broken records, a glut of great players, incredible fans and support and a whole bunch of trips to college baseball’s mecca in Omaha, Neb. But to get back to the College World Series and be in position to compete for the first national championship in program history, Martin has to do something that even he’s never done. Without star players Sherman Johnson, Devon Travis, James Ramsey and Jayce Boyd, who were all drafted last summer, FSU’s legendary skipper has to replace hitters one through four in his lineup for the first time in his remarkable career.

“It’s going to be a task to put somebody in those positions that could do what they did, but it makes it fun to see how new guys develop,” Martin said. “You can start with Boyd’s ability to come up with low throws, and what couldn’t Devon do? Then you’ve got Sherman, who was a four-year guy that was darn good at third base but more than that he, was our leadoff hitter and had an onbase percentage of over .420. And then you have the unquestioned leader. Ramsey hit third, he started for three years, played a lot his freshman year, passed up his opportuni-

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ty as a junior to sign to come back to school and then was a first-round draft choice.

“There’s a lot on our plate, but we are excited about the challenge.”

Luckily for Martin and his staff, there are plenty of options to choose from.

FSU’s defense-minded infield was decimated by the loss of Johnson, Travis and Boyd, but Justin Gonzalez’s return for his final year at shortstop provides a welcome playmaking presence on the field and a veteran voice in the locker room. John Nogowski had a good freshman year and will be in competition for the primary role at first base along with junior-college transfer Casey Smit.

Stephen McGee became masterful behind the plate last year and is back to help guide the pitching staff and set the tone for the defense.

In Travis’ old spot, freshman John Sansone will do battle with John Holland, who is rebounding from a back injury. Third base could see Giovanny Alfonzo in a starter’s role; the sophomore could also be a factor in multiple positions throughout the infield.

“Gio is a guy that can play third, short or second and I’m not talking about playing them average,” Martin said. “He can play them well.”

Ramsey excelled in the “playing well” department as a center fielder and his

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loss will surely be noticed, but that doesn’t mean Florida State doesn’t possess some nice pieces in the outfield.

Seth Miller returns after registering a .988 fielding percentage and belting 31 hits, including three home runs — all of which went for grand slams — as a junior a season ago. Josh Delph’s freshman campaign saw him post a 1.000 fielding percentage while driving in 20 runs. Jose Brizuela could factor in to the discussion at third base or in the outfield, as well.

The Seminoles also added junior-college prospect Marcus Davis and highlytouted freshman DJ Stewart, who has generated quite a buzz behind a strong showing in fall ball. Stewart could find himself as the opening-day starter in center field if that trend continues.

“DJ has good leadership skills,” Martin said. “I really like his make up. I don’t want to even put him in a category of some of the great ones that we’ve had because it’s not fair to him. He’s 18 years old and facing

Baseball Season Preview

pitching that he has never seen before. But I’ll say this, he will be given opportunities to show what he can do and it won’t be 25 atbats. It will be much, much more than that.”

Another hyped freshman, Jameis Winston, will juggle football and baseball this spring after the Hueytown, Ala., native and former five-star quarterback prospect redshirted in his first season in Jimbo Fisher’s program.

Winston will spend most of his time with the football team in the spring, Martin said, and will then see his opportunities increase on the baseball diamond once Fisher’s spring camp concludes in April. Winston is an outfielder and pitcher and could fight for pitching time in the vacant closer role that was left behind by Robert Benincasa.

It’s that closer’s spot that Martin sees as the biggest question mark heading into the 2013 season. Filling the one through four spots in the lineup are crucial, but Martin is confident that those roles will shake themselves out.

The ’Noles return preseason All-Americans Brandon Liebrandt and Mike Compton and a bullpen that features key returnees Luke Weaver, Scott Sitz and Gage Smith among others. But at closer, where Benincasa was so effective last season, it remains to be seen if there will be one player that steps up or multiple players that assume such an important role.

“It is going to be the one that is going to be a challenge to replace, and we may not replace Benincasa,” Martin said. “We may just try to get through with a bullpen by committee and a closer by committee. But we are trying to establish a closer. That’s what we would like to do.”

All in a day’s work for Martin who, along with assistants Mike Martin, Jr. and Mike Bell, knows a thing or two about putting players in their proper position to succeed.

After all, he’s been doing it long enough.

And he’s more than excited to be doing it again. SB

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Florida State Baseball started the season 16–0, the second best start in school history.

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Softball Season Preview

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Paced by Pitching

By Brandon Mellor, Managing Editor, Seminoles.com Photos By Steve Musco

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onni Alameda knows pitching.

She was a pitcher in college and later made a name for herself in the coaching ranks as an assistant at Stanford, where she mentored the Cardinal’s hurlers. Her achievements in Palo Alto later translated into a successful rebuilding effort as head coach at UNLV and eventually the top softball job at Florida State.

And while her softball expertise has consistently evolved to be more all encompassing as a head coach, it’s that pitching background that has provided the foundation for 324 combined wins as a head coach the past nine years.

The 2012 season reinforced that notion as the Seminoles finished 47-16 — the most wins in a year since the 62-win 2004 campaign — and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for a 13th consecutive time, thanks in large part to a pitching staff that led the Atlantic Coast Conference in eight different statistical categories.

Now entering her sixth season as FSU’s coach, and with each of the pitchers from last year’s stellar squad all returning in 2013, Alameda is set to field a group — from starters to the bullpen to the catchers — that she considers to possess the best chemistry she’s ever been around.

“We all work really well together,” she said. “From [Jessica] Nori to Bailey [Schinella] to Lacey [Waldrop]. Jessica Burroughs is redshirting, but she is learning so much from what’s going on in the bullpen. Monica [Perry] is the workhorse, but she is not above sitting down and chitchatting about spins and other pieces of knowledge and tidbits with all of them.

“And then you add Celeste [Gomez], Macey [Cheatham] and [Erika] Leonard catching. A huge part of pitching is having a good influence from your catcher.”

After transferring from Illinois and sitting out a season in accordance with

As Head Coach, Lonni Alameda’s pitching background has provided the foundation for 324 combined wins in nine years.

Softball Season Preview

NCAA transfer rules, Perry led the Seminoles as a redshirt junior last season with a 22-6 record and 1.54. She’s back for one last season in the garnet and gold but is not alone as far as experienced and key returnees goes.

Florida State also brings back a core of Tiffani Brown, Courtney Senas and Briana Hamilton, who each played in all 63 of the ’Noles’ games a season ago, as well as Waldrop, Gomez, Leonard, Morgan Bullock, Kirsten Austin, Kelly Hensley and a host of other up-and-comers.

In total, Alameda and assistant coaches Travis Wilson and Craig Snider boast a roster that returns 14 total players from last year’s team, including nine starters.

“I think what is going to be the difference and something that we are excited about is the senior leadership, the entire team leadership and the fact that we came back from break in great shape,” Alameda said. “We seem to come back every year stronger than before, and I can definitely see that entering this season. There’s an ‘eye of the tiger,’ so to speak, with this team.”

Alameda is the first to admit that even though the ’Noles are without just four student-athletes from last year’s team, those are significant losses because of the intangibles that both Shayla Jackson and Mallory Borden provided to the program the last several seasons. But while they’ll miss the duos on-field and in-dugout contributions, they won’t have to look far to find them. Jackson has joined the team as a graduate assistant and Borden is still in town training to be a police officer.

In their place on the roster, however, is an influx of exciting young talent that should help FSU not only sustain its success but build upon it.

Florida State welcomes a combined nine newcomers that are either freshmen or transfers, and each is expected to provide something in their respective first season at FSU — whether that be on the field, in the classroom or to the overall team chemistry.

The 2013 team, with nine returning starters, began the season 4–0 for the third time since 2007.

“What I have seen so far is a very hungry group of athletes that have all come from very competitive club-ball programs, so they brought with them a winning mentality,” Alameda said. “There’s a lot of programs here at Florida State that help foster that mentality, so they are going to keep growing and getting better and wanting to achieve more.

“They have just taken it by the horns and have done a great job of getting after it since they got here.” SB

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Randy Spetman Q&A

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Randy Spetman Q&A

Athletic Director Randy Spetman

Q&A

Kutz: There has been a lot of concern from Season Ticket Holders and Seminole Booster members about the football schedule. What can we look forward to regarding future schedules?

Spetman: The football schedule is a complex task, to say the least. We understand that while we must balance competitive equity within conference play, we must also schedule non-conference games which excite our fans. The last couple of years with conference realignment, we have been faced with serious dilemmas which have severely impacted our home schedule. We are actively looking to schedule quality opponents to visit Tallahassee. This is not as simple as it may seem, as many premier programs have completed their schedules for the next five years. We, too, have a major portion scheduled out for five years. Most of our game contracts today have buyout clauses of as much as a million dollars, which makes it very difficult to change mid-stream. The importance of conference games has become even more apparent with the changes in the BCS and the looming playoff format, so most schools are compressing available dates because you want to play your conference after your team has some experience against non-conference foes. In addition, we are keenly aware of the problems for our fan base that scheduling three straight home games causes. We believe that last year’s issue with West Virginia cancelling so late, after our conference members had locked in their schedules, was an anomaly. The new BCS format demands a quality schedule, and we will work hard to put that together to achieve our goal of a national championship while meeting the interests of our fans. The addition of Notre Dame and Louisville will naturally enhance our conference schedule, and we believe that with a few more prime games the future looks extremely bright. I have already scheduled a terrific game in 2014 against Oklahoma State in the Dallas Cowboy’s Stadium, which will be exciting for our fans and provide a quality opponent. FSU also added Boise State in Doak and at Boise State in 2020.

By Jerry kutz, Senior Vice President Photos By Mike olivella last three years only one of our sports in a single year did not reach NCAA postseason play. No other athletic department at the Division 1 level has accomplished this. In the same period of time we have had 13 conference championships, five NCAA Final Four appearances, 113 All-Americans, 13 Academic All-Americans and 250 Academic All-ACC honorees. These are phenomenal results that each of you helped us achieve, and we need your continued support. While we are clearly doing an outstanding job of getting the most bang for our buck, the needs continue to grow. There are significant enhancements that are long overdue at the Civic Center and Doak Campbell Stadium to make the game day experience better for you, our fans. Big tasks lie ahead to be sure, but they are achievable.

Kutz: Why hasn’t the ACC gone to realignment with a North and a South Division?

Spetman: The collegiate athletics arena is changing daily and creating some interesting challenges. The NCAA is drastically changing much of the governance structure, which could have a huge budget impact on Florida State, and there is widespread concern that the gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots” will grow.

We do not believe conference realignment is over, and we are assessing daily how the changing landscape affects our position in terms of maintaining our long-term goals. The traditions and brand of our university are incredible and valuable. We read daily of the many scenarios created by Internet bloggers, who are usually misinformed and perhaps even assert their own agendas. We must be careful not to get too caught up in these hypotheticals, but logically plot the road ahead. We appreciate, and in many cases share, your concerns and will do our best to keep you updated. SB

Kutz: Talk about the success of the program over the last five years.

Spetman: The fact that our athletic program is achieving comprehensive excellence is exceptional and will continue to be a fundamental goal of our department. The incredible support of our Boosters and alumni allows us to provide the resources that teams require to compete at the very highest level. As most readers know, we have been in the Top 5 of the Learfield Directors’ Cup two of the last three years, with a ninth place finish in between. Over the

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Track Preview

Different year, same story:

FSU’s track and field program has championship potential

By Brandon Mellor, Managing Editor, Seminoles.com Photos By FSU Sports Information

A

James Harris helped the Florida State 4x400 relay team post a school record and a third-place finish at the NCAA Indoor Championships. He also qualified for nationals in the high jump.

s it does every year, the Florida State track and field program enters the 2013 season with national championship

aspirations.

And while FSU Head Coach Bob Braman is already talking about the 2014 men’s squad as possibly being “one of the best teams we’ve ever had” (considering FSU’s history of success, think about that for a second) because of the returning athletes and expected newcomers it will boast, he also knows that this season’s teams — both the men and women — have podium potential as well.

“I think a top-five finish is in play for the women’s team this year,” Braman said.

“On the men’s side, we are going to be in the mix. Obviously, a lot of things have to happen on both sides, but we think we have some pieces to work our way into the discussion.”

For the women, an increase in the number of potential point-scorers across multiple events has made FSU perhaps the deepest it has ever been. But with an increase in depth comes an influx in youth.

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Veteran distance runners Amanda Winslow, Jessica Parry and Cal-Poly transfer Kayleigh Tyerman all competed at nationals a season ago and are expected to punch their respective tickets for return trips this time around. Coming off a redshirt season and finally healthy, Marecia Pemberton’s return to action also provides the Seminoles with point-scoring chances and experienced leadership. Thrower Chelsea Whalen is another upperclassman that has All-American honors to her credit after starring in the javelin last season.

Beyond those athletes, though, the women’s team will be unveiling a host of ultratalented newcomers.

Freshman Georgia Peel had a strong first season for Coach Karen Harvey’s cross country team last fall and is good enough to potentially score in the 1500m in her first collegiate track season. The same is true for World Youth qualifier Sage Watson and Kellion Knibb, who will redshirt during the indoor season and then compete in the discus and possibly the javelin during outdoor competition. Freshman heptathlete Grete Sadelko can also make an impact early, and

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Track Preview

Belgian hurdler Anne Zagre came to FSU with three years of remaining eligibility after earning a spot in the semi-finals of the Olympics last summer.

“We are really excited about where the women are going to go and the possibilities this year,” Braman said. “We have sort of this odd mix of older athletes and younger athletes. We are a little more traditional without a once-in-a-decade athlete like Kim Williams but stronger in a lot of events now.”

Braman is excited about the short-term and long-term possibilities of the women’s team thanks in large part to the increased role of Ken Harnden, who was promoted this off-season to the position of associate head coach for sprints, hurdles and relays.

Instead of working exclusively with the men’s team, as he has done throughout his career in Tallahassee, Harnden will now oversee the entire ’Noles program in each of those events.

His adapted role and the hiring of sprints, hurdles and relays Coach Devin West coincides with the addition of some heavy hitters on the men’s team this year.

Despite losing national champions and Olympians Maurice Mitchell and Kemar Hyman to graduation, FSU has added all-

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world transfers Dentarius Locke, James Harris and Josh Mance.

Locke was on last year’s team but had to sit out per NCAA transfer rules after coming to FSU from Tennessee, where he scored at nationals and earned SEC Freshman of the Year honors. Harris, whom Braman calls “the definition of a freak” because he excels in the high jump and the 400m dash and can score in both at nationals as well as the 4x100 relay, came from Mississippi State. Mance has the chance to break former FSU star Ricardo Chambers’ school record in the quarter mile after transferring from Southern Cal. Both Harris and Mance are eligible immediately.

“We are glad to have D-Locke here from my alma mater in Tampa,” Braman said.

“Harris is a guy that, I mean, he can do anything. He likes the idea of coming from Mississippi State where he did five, six, seven events to here where he may not even have to run the [400m] and do just the relay and be high jumping. When you start talking about the guys that have come through this program, like the Borlees and Chambers and Walt McCoy, those are ridiculously good athletes, and Mance has a chance not just to match them but to do it right away.”

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Senior Amanda Winslow raced to a secondplace finish in the mile at the NCAA Indoor Championships, lowering her own school record in the process.

That trio, plus the collective points-generating possibilities of sprinter/jumper Phillip Young, pole vaulter Andrew LaHaye and distance runners Dave Forrester, Mike Fout, Jakub Zivec, Breanden O’Neill, Zak Seddon and Darrin Gibson gives the Seminoles more than a few opportunities to make noise on the national level.

And then there are the wild cards that could make a strong team even stronger.

Football players Marvin Bracy and Ronald Darby are expected to be contributors, depending on their spring-practice schedules, and both have national-champion caliber ability.

“Bracy coming in is huge because he’s an NCAA scorer right away in the 60m indoors and the 100m outdoors,” Braman said. “He’ll also be a huge part of the 4x1 [relay]. Darby is going to be fighting for a leg in that 4x1, and maybe Coach Ken already has him penciled in. We have a great relationship with Jimbo [Fisher] and his staff, so anything those guys give us is bonus.” SB

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Anderson Reed returns for his senior season hoping to win a conference title.

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Q&A

Anderson Reed FSU Men’s Tennis Player

By Brandon Mellor, Managing Editor, Seminoles.com Photos By Bill Kallenberg and Ross Obley Q: What is your ultimate goal heading into the spring season of your final year at FSU? Reed: First off, I want to be in the position to host NCAAs. I think the first three years of my career here we have been close to getting to the Sweet 16 each of those years. It’s just been out of reach the last couple times, and I don’t want that to happen again. I want to host this year and get to the final site. I think we can do that with the team we have this season.

Q: When you look back on your career, is there one lasting memory or favorite moment that you think about the most?

Or has that moment yet to happen?

Reed: To have a signature win would be great, but that’s not something that I would remember most. I think, for me, it’s the road trips and the camaraderie with my teammates. Having a bunch of guys on my team that I am good friends with and can rely on in any situation and can have fun with, on the court and off, is such a blessing. We are together so much at home and on the road, laughing and cutting up with each other. It’s given me some great memories that I’ll never forget.

Q: Talking about that team, what can FSU fans expect from the men’s tennis squad this spring season?

Reed: I think we are doing a great job of building off last year. I think last year was a great season. We finished third in the ACC, and this season we can look forward to the same kind of success. I think we can make a run at the conference title and really keep that ball rolling and the momentum going from last year. I think we have got some good things ahead of us.

Q: How much have you grown as a person and a player since you came to Florida State?

Q: What does it mean to you to be a Seminole?

Reed: I absolutely love being a Seminole. When I first came here, I was coming from SEC country in south Alabama.

Everything there is all about the SEC. I was a little skeptical about coming to the ACC after growing up in that mindset, but I love the ’Noles and this conference and am a true ’Nole through-andthrough. Being at FSU has been everything I hoped it would be and more, that’s for sure.

Reed: Physically, I have grown a lot since my freshman year. I was pretty immature and physically immature when I got here, and I have grown so much in both ways. Dave Plettl has done a great job, and I have learned so much from him as I have grown physically and gotten stronger. We have great resources to help us improve both physically and mentally, and I have taken advantage of that through the years.

My experiences on and off the court here at FSU have really helped me grow mentally and physically, and it’s been great.

Reed: I think it’s special to be here because we have so much support from a lot of people that care about us, not just as athletes but as students and people as well. I have trained hard since I got here to live up to the expectations and to make my time here and the resources given to me worthwhile for those that make it possible. It really humbles me to be part of the tradition here. It’s something that I will forever be grateful for. SB

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Q: What does your scholarship mean to you?

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Q&A

Kelsey Goodman FSU Women’s Diver

By Brandon Mellor, Managing Editor, Seminoles.com Photos By Perrone T. Ford Q: What was it that made you choose Florida State coming out of high school in Georgia a few years ago?

Goodman: When I was invited on my recruiting trip in high school, my first observation was how beautiful the new Morcom Aquatics Center was. The pool reminded me of diving at home, and I loved that it was outside; I could definitely see myself diving at this facility. When I met the team and [head coach] Pat [Jeffrey], I was welcomed like family. The whole time I was on my trip meeting staff members everywhere I felt welcomed as if I was already a Seminole. When it came to showing me the weight room and the training room I was again extremely impressed by the facilities and basically couldn’t wait to start using them.

Q: What can FSU fans expect from the swimming and diving teams as competition ramps back up this spring?

Goodman: We have a few meets coming up in North Carolina that we expect to do really great in, as well as ACCs in Greensboro. For the divers, we also have

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NCAA Zones in Tennessee where we all hope to qualify for NCAAs because we have been working on upgrading our lists to harder dives and perfecting current lists. The swim team is expected to have some more fast races that will help them continue qualifying more swimmers for NCAAs this year.

Q: Do you have any pre-dive rituals or superstitions?

Goodman: I’m not a really an extremely superstitious person, but when I’m competing I have a general routine I like to stick to. About 10 divers before it’s my turn, I jump in the pool and wake myself up.

Then I walk over to Pat for some pointers on the dive I am about to do, and then we do a little fist bump — always with the hand he wears his Olympic ring on because this has to be lucky! — and then I do a model of my dive. By then it’s finally my turn.

Q: What has been your favorite memory as a Seminole studentathlete thus far?

Goodman: My favorite memory as a Seminole student-athlete was at the

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ACCs last year in Blacksburg, Va. This was a great meet for the FSU divers. We had a diver finish in the top three in every event. To me, it was at this meet that we truly came together as a diving team and a family. Every single time I stepped on the board I could hear my teammates screaming for me. On all of our drives to the pool we had a dance party in the van to get pumped, and everyone could hear us rolling up to the pool. It was the most fun and most successful I have ever been at a collegiate meet.

Q: Your team defeated Florida for the third time in school history

Junior All-ACC diver Kelsey Goodman earned points at the 2013 ACC Championship where the ’Noles set eight school records, won three individual titles and had five athletes earn All-ACC honors.

this past November. What do you remember most about that day, and how did you feel by meet’s end?

Goodman: Beating UF for the third time was an amazing feeling. On deck the girls swam and dove amazingly, even under the chilly conditions. When I look back I am almost glad the conditions of being outside were not perfect because it just shows how tough we are as a team — even under conditions that are far from perfect.

After the second diving break, the UF team had an emergency meeting, and that just got us even more pumped because we could tell the cold was getting to them.

That just pumped us up even more to get

behind each other and finish off the meet ahead of the Gators.

Q: What does it mean to you to represent Florida State University as a student-athlete?

Goodman: To represent FSU as a student-athlete is a huge honor. I am pushed every day to achieve the highest standards as a student and an athlete. Whenever I feel like I want to quit or cannot handle the pressure anymore I can turn to my team, or any of the athletic teams here for that matter, and see them pushing through the struggle of balancing athletics and school and it gives me the push I need. I love being apart of the

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Seminole family, and I know that these are people I will know for the rest of my life.

Q: What does your scholarship mean to you?

Goodman: My scholarship means everything to me. This scholarship has provided me with the greatest opportunity of my life, which is to be a student athlete and obtain the best education possible. Ever since I started diving when I was seven I knew I wanted to dive in college, and this scholarship just represents all the time and hard work I have put into diving. It motivates me to continue to work hard through my college student-athlete years. SB

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Q&A

Doug Letson

Letson tied for third place at the Gator Invitational, an event earlier in the season that the team won.

FSU Men’s Golfer

By Brandon Mellor, Managing Editor, Seminoles.com // Photos By Ross Obley

Q: First things first, who is the better athlete to come out of Plant High School in Tampa: you or James Wilder, Jr.?

Letson: I would say me, of course [laughing].

Q: So, who’s stronger?

Letson: I’ve gotta go with James on that one, unfortunately.

He might do a little more than me in the weight room.

Q: But who can drive the ball farther? I guess that’s the most important question.

Letson: Oh, definitely me.

Q: On a more serious note, what does your scholarship mean to you?

Letson: It’s incredible. All the academic and athletic support that we are given and the support that we are given from the Boosters and everybody here is amazing. To know that there are so many people that care about us and are looking out for us, not just as athletes but also as students at this great school, is a great feeling. I know how lucky I am to have this opportunity, and I never take it for granted.

Q: Going off that, what does it mean to you to be a Seminole?

Letson: I am very proud to be a Seminole. I couldn’t see myself being anywhere else. I love it here. To have the FSU logo on my shirt and on my hat when I am out there competing, I know I have a lot to be proud of and to live up to, and I try to do that every day.

Q: Entering the final spring of your career, what is something that you still want to accomplish?

Letson: I want to get an ACC Championship, whether it’s an individual one or a team one. That’s been my goal since day one when I got on campus, and I have always stuck to that. It would mean a lot to me to help earn a conference title for FSU. That’s a big focus of mine in my last year.

Q: Looking back on your three-plus years, what is maybe the biggest change you have noticed in this program since you first got here?

Letson: I’d say that the biggest thing I have noticed extends to the entire athletics department. It has just really become one big family. I can’t imagine that any other golf team or any other athletics program can be as close as we all are.

Q: You missed last year’s NCAA Championship Finals after breaking your fingers in a weight-lifting accident. How often do you think about that and maybe what could have been?

Letson: All the time. It was brutal watching my teammates go to the national championship knowing that I should have been a part of it after helping them get there. It was tough to watch, that’s for sure. Every day I think about it.

Q: Would you say it’s something that drives you and motivates you at practice and in competition?

Letson: Definitely. I can’t wait to get back to that point and to be in position to help out this time around. SB

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Set Up for the Long Haul FSU withstands the loss of seven assistant coaches and signs another top class that helps the defending ACC champs now and in the future

By Brandon Mellor, Managing Editor, Seminoles.com // Photos By Mike Olivella

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New Coaches

Northern Illinois Head Coach Rod Carey with Jimbo Fisher and son Trey, Orange Bowl Pregame

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ike sharks in the water, Florida State’s opponents circled the Seminoles in the final two months before National Signing Day in early February.

After losing seven assistant coaches since the conference title game, the ’Noles were vulnerable. Not only had each assistant been a terrific coach, but each of them left with a recruiting prowess that collectively had generated a cupboard stocked full of top-flight talent over the past three seasons.

But somehow, some way, head coach Jimbo Fisher and his program recouped and recovered from the key personnel losses with critical coaching hires and capped off the 2013 recruiting cycle with another top-10 class; a class that not only signified an escape from those circling sharks in the present, but set the Seminoles up for the future.

“I actually think it opened up more doors in guys we ended up getting on the back end of it,” Fisher said about the coaching turnover. “It’s probably a wash, but we got in on some key guys I never thought we’d have a chance to get in on.”

Student-athletes like five-star defensive back Jalen Ramsey, former Alabama verbal commitment and stellar defensive end DeMarcus Walker and high-ceiling offensive lineman Wilson Bell, among others, are included on that list. As a whole, FSU’s latest impressive class of players helps the ’Noles when they need it most — at a time when key transitions across the depth chart are taking place as spring practice draws closer to its official start.

FSU is bolstered by the addition of two early enrollees in the 2013 class that add to positions with depth concerns. Walker will enter spring practice as the fourth scholarship defensive end on the depth chart following the off-season losses of stars Bjoern Werner, Brandon Jenkins and Tank Carradine. Veteran reserve Toshmon Stevens, junior-college signee Desmond Hollin and underrated prospect Davarez Bryant will round out the position once they enroll in June.

Charles Kelly

Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher added to his defensive staff with the hire of former Georgia Tech assistant Charles Kelly as the linebackers’ coach and special teams coordinator for the Seminoles in January of 2013.

Kelly just completed his seventh season at Georgia Tech and his third season as coach of the secondary. During his time with the Yellow Jackets, he also served stints coaching the cornerbacks and special teams. Kelly was elevated to interim defensive coordinator after the sixth game in 2012.

Kelly, who was a defensive coordinator at three different schools, served as the Yellow Jackets’ special teams coordinator in 2006 and 2007. He was instrumental in making Georgia Tech one of the nation’s best special teams units in 2007. That group went from 119th in the nation in kick return defense in 2006 to second in 2007.

Kelly has coached eight players that have made it to the National Football League, including Punter Durant Brooks, two-time AllAmerica cornerback Chris Thompson, Delvin Hugley, Calvin Jackson, Chris Schelling, Dell McGee and, most recently, Jahi WordDaniels and Mario Butler.

A 1990 graduate of Auburn with a degree in secondary math education, Kelly played defensive back under former Tiger coach Pat Dye. His senior class put together a four-year record of 39-7-2 while participating in four bowl games. In 2002, Kelly earned a master’s degree in education from Troy State. Kelly and his wife, Kristy, have three daughters, Caroline, Kathleen and Charli Grace.

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New Coaches January enrollee Freddie Stevenson will provide the same boost to the linebacker group after the graduations of Nick Moody and Vince Williams. Once fall camp starts, the ’Noles will introduce four more new linebackers to team, with E.J. Levenberry, Tyrell Lyons, Ro’Derrick Hoskins and fivestar Matthew Thomas all coming off stellar high school careers.

“Everyone knows that we got Matthew [Thomas], but not about the other guys,” Fisher said. “Ro’Derrick Hoskins is 6-2 and he’s smooth. E.J. Levenberry [has] great size and length and can bend his lower body — very physical. He’s a very good player. We’re very excited about him. Tyrell Lyons, he can play in space, can play on the edge, can run and use those coverage skills. Freddie Stevenson, who is in school

now, we watched him in drills the other day and he’s going to be a good player. He can do some things.

“We were very excited to be able to get those guys. They’re a really good group of young linebackers, and that was an area where we needed to hit.”

FSU’s addition of Ramsey, Marquez White and Nate Andrews in the secondary helps ease the sting of Xavier Rhodes’ early exit to the NFL and the fact that starting safeties Lamarcus Joyner and Terrence Brooks are both seniors. At receiver, only Rodney Smith and Josh Gehres are gone, while speedsters Jesus Wilson, Levonte Whitfield and 6-foot-4 pass catcher Isaiah Jones are now in their place.

James Wilder, Jr., Mario Pender, Devonta Freeman and Chad Abram are all back.

And now four-star prospect Ryan Green is added to the mix at tailback.

Jeremy Pruitt Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher tapped Alabama secondary coach Jeremy Pruitt as the new defensive coordinator for the Seminoles in December of 2012. Pruitt becomes just the third defensive coordinator in the last 28 years at FSU and replaces Mark Stoops, who was named head coach at the University of Kentucky.

“I’m very excited to add Jeremy to our staff,” Fisher said. “He brings a lot to the table. He’s one of the bright young coaches in college football. He’s done an outstanding job at Alabama and in the past as a great high school coach. He’s also a good recruiter. But most importantly of all, he’s a great person. I’m really looking forward to him coming to Florida State and helping us continue achieving the success that we’ve had and will continue to have. We’re very fortunate to be adding him to our program.”

“This is a great opportunity for me to join another one of the top college football programs in the country and take over as defensive coordinator for one of the best defenses out there,” Pruitt said. “I really appreciate Coach Fisher and his staff in welcoming me to the Seminole family. I’ve enjoyed my time at Alabama and am grateful to Coach Saban and my Crimson Tide family for their support in preparing me as I begin the next chapter in my coaching career.”

Pruitt, 38, has spent the last three seasons directing one of the best defensive backfields in the country for one of the nation’s best defenses. Since Pruitt has coached the secondary at Alabama, the Crimson Tide has ranked in the Top 10 in pass efficiency defense and Top 15 in pass defense in all three seasons while also ranking in the top five teams in total defense and scoring defense.

Pruitt also has been recognized as a tremendous recruiter. He was named as “National Recruiter of the Year” by 247Sports.com last year in helping Alabama land the No. 1 recruiting class in the nation.

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Devontea Freeman and Lonnie Pryor

Randy Sanders Randy Sanders comes to Florida State from the University of Kentucky, where he had served as the Wildcats’ offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach since 2009. The Morristown, Tenn., native has spent his entire coaching career in the SEC, where he began as a volunteer assistant with the Volunteers in 1989. Sanders has served as the offensive coordinator at both Tennessee and Kentucky and has been a part of coaching staffs that have been to 21 bowl games, including the 1999 National Championship game at Tennessee, where he served as the offensive coordinator for the Fiesta Bowl win that year.

Sanders has been offensive coordinator since 2009 and took on primary play-calling duties in 2010. In his first year in that role, UK averaged 6.1 yards per play, second best in school history, and 406 total points, the third best in UK history.

Prior to Kentucky, Sanders spent 22 seasons (1984–2005) as a player and coach at the University of Tennessee, including the last seven as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. He was named offensive coordinator after the 1998 regular season when David Cutcliffe became head coach at Ole Miss. Sanders’ first game as offensive coordinator was the 1999 Fiesta Bowl, when the Volunteers defeated Florida State for the national championship.

A native of Morristown, Tenn., Sanders was a quarterback on the Tennessee football team from 1984–88. He earned four varsity letters and was a four-year member of the SEC Academic Honor Roll. He remained with the team as a volunteer assistant coach, helping coach the quarterbacks, in 1989–90 under Coach Johnny Majors.

Sanders and his wife, Cathy, have two daughters, Kelly and Kari.

Sal SunSeri Sal Sunseri has a long history of success coaching in the SEC and the NFL over the course of a 28-year span. He has been a defensive coordinator, assistant head coach at Alabama for Nick Saban and a seven-year defensive line coach for the Carolina Panthers of the NFL. Sunseri joined Fisher’s staff in time to coach in the 2013 Discover Orange Bowl.

Sunseri joins Florida State after serving as the defensive coordinator at Tennessee in 2012. With the Vols, Sunseri coached two of the nation’s top defensive players. Linebacker A.J. Johnson was fourth in the nation and led the SEC, averaging 11.5 tackles per game.

Prior to Tennessee, Sunseri spent three years as the assistant head coach and linebackers coach at Alabama under Saban, including the 2009 and 2011 national championship teams. He also spent seven years (2002–08) with the Carolina Panthers under then-head coach and current Denver Broncos Coach John Fox, a tenure that included the franchise’s lone NFC Championship and Super Bowl appearance.

Sunseri began his playing career at the University of Pittsburgh in 1978 as a walk-on and ended it as a team captain and consensus All-American as a senior in 1981. He was the defensive MVP in the 1982 Senior Bowl and was drafted in the 10th round by the Pittsburgh Steelers but had his pro career cut short by a knee injury in training camp. He received a bachelor’s degree in communications from Pittsburgh in 1982.

Sunseri is married to the former Roxann Evans, who was a varsity gymnast at Pittsburgh. The couple has two daughters, Jaclyn and Ashlyn, and two sons, Santino (a quarterback at Pittsburgh) and Vinnie (a defensive back at Alabama).

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New Coaches An area that probably could have used a few more signatures on signing day was the offensive line, as the Seminoles inked three prospects for offensive line coach Rick Trickett’s group. But despite not bringing in a targeted number of prospects, probably closer to five or six following the loss of Menelik Watson, and the need to increase depth and competition, the additions of Bell, Ryan Hoefeld and Ira Denson encompass all three areas of the line: tackle, center and guard, respectively.

That trio will be responsible for the protection of FSU’s quarterbacks, who will continue to be the talk of the town throughout spring, summer and into the fall as the Seminoles replace EJ Manuel.

No matter how the quarterback competition plays out — or how any competition at any spot plays out on the roster for that matter — FSU was once again set up for continued success thanks to a strong addition of new players.

The Seminoles withstood that tumultuous start to the 2013 calendar year and emerged stronger and better equipped for the future.

“I am going to tell you this, with those four [returning coaches] and the other guys that were added to this staff, we had a great recruiting class this year,” said new defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt. “But after we all kind of get together, and we have 12 months together we are going to be higher up in [the rankings] next year. So I am excited about that.” SB

EJ Manuel and Coach Fisher

GRaham/Brewster comPlete staff The first group of assistants Jimbo Fisher compiled as Florida State’s new coaches three years ago turned the Seminoles back into Atlantic Coast Conference champions and BCS bowl-game winners. And with Jay Graham and Tim Brewster officially on board as FSU assistants, Fisher’s second attempt at revamping the ’Noles’ coaching staff figures to result in similar — if not greater — success despite an off-season defined by a head-turning number of coaching moves. When Billy Napier surprisingly elected to leave his new job as FSU tight ends coach for a spot on Saban’s Alabama staff, the timing wasn’t ideal but Fisher still had an answer. First, he went out and hired Graham away from his alma mater Tennessee. Then he swiped Brewster from Dan Mullen at Mississippi State. Not only did he wrap up his coaching staff with a pair of proven coaches, but he also added two more ace recruiters.

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Jay Graham

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Tim Brewster

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the great give moves to earth week! april 18–19, 2013 Florida State’s only 36-hour online fundraising campaign that allows you to support all academic and athletic programs from the convenience of your desktop, laptop, smartphone or tablet.

For more information, “Like” us at facebook.com/FSUGreatGive.

Starting April 1, visit our Web page at one.fsu.edu/FSUGreatGive.

be a part of the great give!

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30+ Year Donors

Recognizing 30+ Year Members In the spring of 2012, while planning a membership recognition program, we contacted donors whose records dated back to 1984, the farthest back our records are dated.

Knowing that many members began giving to the program prior to 1984, we asked them to share a story about how they remember their first year. The response was overwhelming.

Here are anecdotes from two of our 30-plus year donors. They are moving, interesting and entertaining, and reading them will likely trigger some of your own memories.

Share your story with us. Send to BoosterInfo@admin.fsu.edu

Dear Andy: guess is January 11, 2011, my best In regards to your letter of became a Booster.

1978 or 1979 when I first 1947 at the team in action was in My first memory of see ing Calhoun ter. I was standing on South Centennial Field as a youngs is now, a Bloxham, and it was, as it Street, between Ga ines and , because I did it until halftime to go inside very steep hill. I had to wa ts a day selling get in. I only made 30 cen not have the 50 cents to uniforms. me the most were the gold newspapers. What struck s for a rida State football is the pas My favorite memory of Flo 4. (I am in etnikoff aga inst UF in 196 touchdown from Tensi to Bil achers close had to sit in temporary ble the highlight film because we e game h every second of every hom to the sidelines.) I sat throug ere they One could sit about anywh in our 0-11 season in 1973. wanted to. the lows, but the days of Fan I have seen the highs and the tree were so memorable for Day out under the old oak ole It is so great to be a Semin up-and-coming 1980 team. lk for a brick for the Legacy Wa fan. My daughter gave me rs ago. My roots run deep my birthday a couple of yea ors owned property at one because some of my ancest located or nearby. time where Westcott is now

Long time donors shared their memories and Seminole treasures.

The Boosters are looking to share more memories through regular features in Unconquered.

Go Noles.

Paul R. McKee

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StudentAthlete Graduates

Congratulations, Graduates!

The Fall 2012 graduation celebration included 26 current and former student-athletes.

Photos by Rylas Lee

Ines Jaurena, International Affairs

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Taylor Vancil, Interdisciplinary Social Science

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StudentAthletes Graduates

Fall 2012 FSU Student-AthLetes Graduates Baseball Brian Busch, Interdisciplinary Social Science Sherman Johnson, Geography

Nick Moody, Social Science Chris Thompson, Sport Management Clint Trickett, Social Science

Football Justin Bright, Finance Cornellius Carradine, Social Science Jacob Fahrenkrug, Sociology Brandon Jenkins, Sociology Moses McCray, Social Science

Men’s Golf Brooks Koepka, Social Science Men’s Swimming & Diving Mark Cox, Social Science Mateo DeAngulo, Social Science

Duygu Duzceler, Environmental Studies

Men’s Track Kemar Hyman, Economics Women’s Cross Country Violah Lagat, Sociology Soccer Tiana Brockway, Psychology Ines Jaurena, International Affairs Jessica Price, Sport Psychology Casey Short, Sport Management

Tiffany McCarty, Sport Management Taylor Vancil, Interdisciplinary Social Science

Women’s Swimming & Diving Victoria Richmond, Accounting and Finance

Volleyball Kalee Schlabach, Psychology Duygu Duzceler, Environmental Studies Sareea Freeman, Sociology Fatma Yildirim, Dietetics

Women’s Tennis Noemie Scharle, Hospitality

Fatma Yildirim, Dietetics

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Mike Bell

Builds a Winning Pitching Staff Bell Returned to Florida State in 2012, 16 Years after Back to Back Trips to Omaha as a Player

by Jim Crosby // Photo By Mike Olivelia

R

iding on the team bus from the airport to the hotel, Mike Bell looked across the aisle at Coach Mike Martin who mouthed the words, “We’re in Omaha.”

Then a smile as big as TD Ameritrade Park, where the Seminoles would play in the College World Series, broke out on the faces of both coaches. This special moment said a lot about the season that was nearing completion for Florida State’s 2012 baseball team and their first-year pitching coach. It also signaled a new beginning.

For Bell, as well as Martin, it was familiar territory. So familiar in fact that Bell has been accused of having a lucky horseshoe in his locker. After all, everywhere he has gone his team has ended up in the CWS. As a player, Bell was never on a Seminole team that didn’t make it to Omaha. Likewise, in stints as a pitching coach at Tennessee and Oklahoma, those teams also went to the CWS.

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While pitching at Florida State in 1994–95, Bell was a member of College World Series squads both years. In fact, one of his fondest memories as a player is pitching a complete game in the regional championship final in 1994 to catapult the ’Noles into the CWS. “Usually when that happens the pitcher will jump up in celebration and be caught by the catcher. But since our catcher only weighed 155 pounds he jumped up, I caught him and we went down under a large team dog pile,” Bell recalls.

The name of that 155-pound battery mate? It was Mike Martin Jr. Now, 16 years later, the two friends have been joined together as coaches on the Seminole staff. Bell, a Sarasota native, who was recruited and played under pitching coach Jamey Shouppe, ironically replaced him when staff changes were instituted last year.

When Bell arrived back in Tallahassee one could hardly blame him if he looked at the roster and decided to head back

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Feature to Oklahoma. What he saw was a list of 18 pitchers, nine of them freshmen with no college pitching experience. Two other pitchers had seen very limited action on the mound.

“I tried to look at it as a glass-is-half-full kind of guy would,” said Bell. He told all the pitchers they were starting with a clean slate.

Nothing they had done in the past would be held against them. If they were inexperienced freshmen, that would not count as a negative either. Everyone had a fair shot at winning a job.

Coach Martin had complete confidence in Bell’s ability to whip those young pitchers into a solid pitching staff. “Mike is one who enjoys a challenge, and he knew it wouldn’t be easy,” Martin said.

“But the thing that always impressed me about him as a player was his team-first attitude. He was a two-way guy who could pitch and play first, and it didn’t matter where we put him. He was just a team-guy.”

So the Seminoles embarked on the 2012 season with a new pitching coach and a raw, untested pitching staff. A lot of folks are still scratching their heads as to how FSU was able to win 50 games, with an amazing 24 ACC wins, take nine of the 10 conference series and stay in the World Series until only the final four teams remained.

A lot of the credit has to go to Bell’s handling of the pitching staff.

Martin Jr. says that Bell did a good job of not leaving any gray areas.

“It took consistency, every single day. Attention to pitching detail, implementing that and getting quality performance,” he said.

First Bell had to decide on a weekend rotation including the important Friday night starter, usually considered the staff’s ace. It was a difficult decision, but he turned to freshman Brandon Leibrandt.

And as a Saturday starter, freshman Mike Compton was the choice.

Leibrandt certainly had the bloodlines. His dad Charlie spent 14 years in the Major Leagues, starting 346 and pitching 2,308 innings with four different teams. The Leibrandts obviously know how to pitch.

Leibrandt responded with 19 starts, eight wins and a sparkling 2.82 ERA. Compton started 18 times and earned 12 victories with a 2.87 ERA. Both pitchers had an impressive two-to-one strikeoutto-walk ratio. Opponents repeatedly had difficulty solving the leftyrighty, one-two pitching duo.

What kind of magic dust did Bell sprinkle on his young staff that resulted in a sparkling team ERA of 3.47? No mystery says the pitching coach, who points to two things. “At this level you must have the ability to command your fastball to both sides of the plate.

And you must have the ability to throw your off-speed pitches for strikes when you are behind in the count.”

For Leibrandt, that was not a difficult adjustment. “I have always prided myself on being able to throw the fastball wherever I wanted.

In high school my fastball was in the low 80’s my junior year, so I had to learn to pitch to different areas.”

According to Bell, young Leibrandt had something else going for him. “It is no secret that Leibrandt had probably one of the best changeups in the ACC last year,” Bell said.

But there was another big key to the Seminole mound staff’s

success. Often a team is only as good as its closer. You can get eight good innings out of the rest of the staff, but if you don’t have a guy who can nail down those final three outs you will lose a lot of games with a frustrating late-inning meltdown.

In Robert Benincasa the Seminoles had one of the best in college baseball. Number 11, as everybody except his wife Carol calls Mike Martin, gives Bell credit for helping “Benni” transition from a pitcher who had won four games in two years with an ERA of 4.28 to the team’s closer. “Mike Bell did such a good job of selling Benincasa on the idea of becoming a closer,” Eleven said.

In his new role Benincasa appeared in 32 games, saving 16 of them with a dazzling 1.32 ERA. Even more amazing was his 58 strikeouts in 41 innings with only seven walks. He was selected as a first team All-American and a semi-finalist for the Dick Howser Trophy and then became a minor league All-Star in the Washington Nationals system.

In his soft-spoken way Bell defers credit saying, “It was just a combination of things. You learn from trials and tribulations in life and the experience on the field. He bounced from starter to reliever and back without a defining role. Once he had that defining role, things simplified for him. He knew what his timing in the game would be.

If I helped with anything it was mental preparation.”

So, game-by-game the Seminole staff continued to grow as the team evolved into a World Series participant. Bell says that college baseball has changed in that “you used to be able to make it to the CWS with three or four arms. Nowadays, you need a staff of 12.”

With that in mind Bell knew it was important for each pitcher to know his role and perform that without trying to do a lot of extra things that would weaken him.

Brandon Leibrandt understood that from the start. He learned it from his Major League Dad. “He told me the biggest thing was never to get too high or too low. Things are going to happen, both good and bad. Just limit the damage. Don’t try to do too much.”

That mindset allowed him to expertly perform the Friday starter’s role. “Coach Bell also stresses trying to get things done within three pitches and keeping the pitch count low. Just command your pitches, and let the defense work behind you,” he said.

The lessons learned by Mike Bell’s young pitching staff have provided the perfect complement to Seminole hitters. As hitting instructor, Mike Martin Jr. has parlayed a strategy of exercising patience at the plate and hitting to all parts of the field, enabling the Seminoles to achieve a team batting average over .300 in 11 of his 15 years. Pitching, hitting and defense continues to be a winning combination.

And when those two young coaches combine current strategies with those that have worked well in the Seminoles’ storied past, the future of FSU baseball continues to look solid. And, of course, there’s that lucky horseshoe in Bell’s locker to help ensure that there should be many more opportunities look across the bus and see his head coach smiling and mouthing the words: “We’re back in Omaha.” SB

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A

The

Godfrey Smith Chairman Award The Directors of Seminole Boosters, Inc. have determined that each successive chairman of the Board be empowered to make a special award at the end of his or her term, affording recognition to an individual who, in the estimation of the Chairman, has achieved extraordinary participation, either through exceptional generosity or profoundly unselfish contribution, toward the successful completion of the Chairman’s and the Board’s goal for that year.

This award is to bear the name of Godfrey Smith, Chairman of the Board of Seminole Boosters in 1959 and 1960. Godfrey Smith was the embodiment of gracious good sportsmanship, savvy business acumen, and exemplary citizenship. That he imparted these virtues to his family is fitting tribute to the man. That his gentlemanly demeanor, quiet leadership, and compassionate humanity endeared him to generations of Tallahasseans and Seminoles, is the reason this award recognizing an inheritor of that Seminole spirit carries his name.

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Eric J. Barron, 2012

poet once mused, “We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it ... ” That insight into human nature may explain the abiding love that so many Florida State alumni have for our university.

In his campus days, President Barron stood here with us on these shaded grounds more than 40 years ago. We arrive here beneath the towering pines at not-quite-the-end of childhood, and the playful days of our undergraduate years never really leave our hearts.

“Even after three years as president I still have déjà vu when I pass some place on campus where I might have been as a student, with a date, or standing in front of the Sweet Shop, or on a path where I might have ridden my motorcycle,” Barron says. “It’s as if the university hasn’t changed; it just got bigger … . It seems as if everything that was familiar to me then is still there.”

In the late summer of 1969 freshman-to-be Eric Barron loaded a trunk onto an Eastern Airlines jet in Atlanta and got off the plane in Tallahassee. He asked someone to point him toward the university. “I wanted to study Geology, but I believed that Oceanography was the frontier,” he remembers. FSU had a special program: If you were an honor student, then you could take Ocean Sciences graduatelevel classes in your junior year. So he started in Geology, and that led to Oceanography.

Eric Barron came to FSU because they offered him a course of study that no other university offered. “They promised something, and they delivered.”

That phrase, “[FSU] promised something, and they delivered,” has guided his goal of providing a superior educational experience for his students. He promotes students’ engagement with each other as well as with the university. “It’s a fact that freshmen who live on campus persist to graduation at a higher rate,” he says. Barron wants to encourage them toward service, leadership and one-on-one research where possible. “It’s those students who make better grades and get better jobs.”

Barron made friends with fellow student David Coburn.

The two of them moved out of the dorm and into an apartment and later rented a house together. “I’ve seen it recently; it’s a dump,” he chuckles. “But back then it had three bedrooms and a bath, a carport and a yard. We thought it was wonderful and so spacious!”

Barron had wonderful experiences as a student in this North Florida landscape, canoeing down the Wacissa and diving in the sinkholes.

“Those activities required transportation,” he recalls, “so he bought a 1964 Pontiac Catalina for $250.” Then he adds with a satisfied smile, “Later I sold it for the same amount.”

He took an Ocean Sciences academic cruise on a 50-foot houseboat to do coastal research in Escambia Bay. “We were trying to determine ways to try to bring the oysters back,” he said, after chemical contamination had killed the beds.

Barron smiled at how differently things were done in those days. There were no electronics on board. He was assigned the 2 a.m. shift, during which he was to scuba dive, alone, to the bottom to read the current meter and chart the flow of the water.

He found himself in pitch black water, unable to see the sea life that increasingly found him to be an object of their curiosity.

As it happened, the houseboat was taking water from a storm, and the captain threatened to beach the craft. Things happened

quickly. Barron was ordered to get in the small Boston whaler in the pouring rain (“ … in my underwear”) and set out across the bay to see if the scientific data had been destroyed.

The data had indeed disappeared and, he soon discovered, so had the houseboat. Young Eric Barron sat alone in the blackness in the rain in a small boat in the bay. “I remember, I thought I could see the lights of Pensacola off in the distance … ” In Colorado, he met his wife Molly, raised a family and found a career that he loved as director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. He and Molly expected they would never leave the state.

The first time Molly set foot on the campus was when the couple travelled to Tallahassee to interview with the Trustees.

Not long after he returned to FSU as president he visited his old dorm room, 310 Smith Hall. “It hadn’t changed much,” he says. “Except there’s air conditioning, and now the elevator stops at every floor.”

Unrelenting demands on a university president’s time and passions wear down even the strongest leaders. “When the pressure of the job becomes too much, Molly and I head for any event with the students,” he says. They draw renewed energy and passion from the enthusiasm of their students.

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ATHLETICS were told that an indoor facility was the No. 1 priority of the coach, and so the Boosters got out their checkbooks, and things began to happen immediately. That project went from objective to reality in nothing flat.”

Barron’s working relationship with Booster leaders is close and cooperative. In 2012, Booster Board of Directors Chairman Brian Swain selected him for the Godfrey Smith Award. The annual award affords “recognition to an individual who, in the estimation of the chairman, has achieved extraordinary participation, either through exceptional generosity or profoundly unselfish contribution, toward the successful completion of the chairman’s and the board’s goal for that year.”

Polk County businessman Brian Swain served the Boosters as chairman for two consecutive years, a time in which major building projects were conceived and put into play. “I have to say working with Dr. Barron during my tenure was like a breath of fresh air to me and to the entire Booster organization. Without his support and leadership, CollegeTown, the Indoor Practice facility and the soon coming student-athlete housing facility would not be a reality. They’d just be concepts still hanging on the wall in the Booster office.”

Swain looks beyond just Seminole athletics to Barron’s leadership of the greater university community.

“It was Eric Barron’s vision of ‘One FSU’ that really helped bring all the direct support organizations together to work toward the common goal of helping to create the best university anywhere,” he says. “It has been a pleasure to watch this concept grow over the past several years under Dr. Barron’s guidance.”

Swain doesn’t hesitate to lavish high praise on Barron.

“One of my dearest friends, Andy Miller, has a favorite phrase: ‘The Right Man at the Right Time.’ For me and for the entire Seminole Booster organization, the right man is Eric Barron.”

Most presidents of Division I universities find that athletics and its attendant issues demand an extraordinary amount of their time. But, Barron says, “There’s no doubt that athletics is the front porch of the university. It enhances name recognition and image.”

He’s keenly aware of the importance of the undergraduate experiences and their influence on the creation of future donors. “The undergraduate experience is transformative. The graduate experience is more individual, with less emotional connection to the institution.”

Barron appreciates the value of his close relationship with Seminole Boosters. “The athletics facilities the Boosters have built communicate a sense of vision about what we want. Building University Center in the collegiate gothic style was brilliant; it’s become an iconic part of the campus.”

Dr. Barron is also an enthusiastic backer of CollegeTown. “CollegeTown is another signature illustration of the grand vision. Soon, CollegeTown will connect the architectural anchors on both ends: University Center and the Tucker Center. In a couple of years, that corridor is where everyone will be walking.”

Molly and Eric Barron have set a goal to settle in and watch games in all 20 sports the Seminoles offer. “Our student-athletes represent the prestige of the university, and these are good kids,” he says. While they have yet to watch golf matches or see the cross-country teams in action, the Barrons are avid fans. They love football and enjoy basketball; soccer and softball are big favorites, too. “And, we’ve become addicted to baseball.”

Molly Barron adds, “The more games I watch, the more I get to know our athletes. They are wonderful and so much appreciate the fans.”

As president, Barron says he’s been impressed with the way Boosters “step right up” to meet the university’s needs. “I see the Boosters voting with their feet. They

DAVID COBURN David Coburn enjoyed a legendary career as a staff director and chief of staff in the Florida Senate and Florida House of Representatives. For 30 years, Coburn’s influence and remarkable abilities have been sought by every major political leader in Florida.

Today, he is chief of staff (“Special Assistant to the President”) for his former FSU roommate and friend.

“I came back for Eric,” he says. Their offices are directly across the hall from each other, much like their rooms in that old house with the carport 40 years ago.

Always an avid Seminole fan, Coburn muses, “I think college athletics reflects perception more than reality. We have a more mature alumni base now.”

Coburn smiles as he recounts standing in a friend’s house watching the iconic 1980 FSU vs. Nebraska game; the game that propelled Florida State onto the national stage. “When Gary Futch fell on that ball,

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we started jumping over chairs and couches. The Seminoles were on our way up; going to places we never dreamed we’d be. The world was young. Today, the expectations for Seminole athletics are much higher, much more demanding.”

When Eric Barron applied to become Florida State University’s 14th president, David Coburn encouraged his old friend about the value of college athletics. “When you’re here on football weekends,” he told him, “you’ll realize that nothing else brings people to the campus like this.”

To quote George Elliot, “We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it … .”

It would not have been appropriate for me to ask the president if he ran through Smith Hall doing the childish things that freshmen do. But I hope so, and I rather suspect that he did. His heart is here; he is one of us.

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Former sga President Avi Assidon, President and Molly Barron, Orange Bowl Committee Member Charlie Johnson, and Current sga president Rueben Stokes

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planned giving

By JOEL PADGETT

Unexpected

Donors

W

The Hillis’ began gifting donations to Florida State in 1975 and both have served on multiple University Relations Boards of Directors.

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Photos Courtesy The Hillis Family

the

hen Nan and Mark Hillis first started giving to their alma mater, they never expected to become major benefactors of Florida State University. But every journey begins with a faithful first step.

Mark recalls his first gift in 1975, spurred not by a great philanthropic passion, but a simple College of Business solicitation and Trust Company Bank’s matching gift program. The FSU Foundation had a giving society called the Century Club. Donors would commit to give $100 per year for five years and, in exchange, would receive a marble FSU paperweight and brass engravings signifying each year’s contribution.

“I thought the paperweight would be a very nice FSU memento to display on my office desk and an incentive to give annually to FSU,” Mark said.

Twelve years after Mark graduated from Florida State, Nan Casper earned her business degree from FSU, majoring in finance and marketing. She moved to Atlanta in 1976 and began working as a management trainee for Trust Company Bank. Atlanta was becoming the major banking, industrial and transportation hub of the South and one of the nation’s hot spots for college graduates.

In her quest to meet new friends, Nan joined the Atlanta Seminole Club, whose members gathered to watch tapes of the previous weekend’s game. Very few FSU games were televised at that time. Seminole Boosters would make reel-to-reel copies of the games and ship them by bus to the clubs. To help increase alumni participation and attendance, Nan requested a list of FSU grads working at Trust Company Bank and invited them to watch the game tapes. Mark received the invitation, and after confirmation by a coworker that meeting Nan would be a good thing, he decided to attend.

After that first meeting, Mark was persistent in asking Nan for dates despite her insistence that she did not date anyone who worked for the same company that she did.

“I finally tricked her into going to a concert at Stone Mountain, and we began dating,” Mark said. A lot of their dates centered around FSU events, particularly football. In 1980, Mark and Nan married and became Boosters shortly after their union.

During the early ’80s, The Lark and Dove was a very popular upscale restaurant on Roswell Road owned by Florida State alumnus Don Maynard. There were no sports bars as we know them now, and most restaurants had no TVs. Don opened his restaurant bar to the Seminole faithful on game-day Saturdays for “listening parties.” Since Atlanta had no radio station that carried FSU games, they would gather at the bar, contribute to the long distance call to Florida State alumnus Doug Mannheimer in Tallahassee who would place his phone by his radio so they could listen to Gene Deckerhoff call the games. Don hooked the phone into his public address system so the entire crowd could listen. When not at games, Mark and Nan were regulars at these events.

For a couple of years, Mark went on a “boys’ trip” to Tallahassee for a game with two Atlanta alumni, Rick Grodzicki and Joe Duket. Soon this became Nan and Mark’s trip. They became season ticket holders and members of the Foundation’s Presidents Club. In 1988 Nan was asked to serve on the Alumni Association Board, and during the same year, the Hillises established their

Endowed Fund for Finance in the College of Business.

“We were not rich by any means and Mark and Nan at the 1991 FSU vs. Michigan game our gifts were not large, but we saw a in Ann Arbor. The Hillis’ need to support the university and did have traveled across the country for years in what we could,” Mark said. support of Florida State’s A year later, Mark joined the College athletic teams. of Business board.

As the Hillises spent more time in Tallahassee and became more involved with the university, they became friends with Florida State alumni Jimmy and Betty Lou Joanos, who acted as their mentors. It was the Joanoses who introduced them to other Boosters, FSU administrators and university supporters.

“As our involvement increased, we recognized that in the College of Business and the Athletics Department, there were many bright young people who struggled to finance their education,” Nan said. “That resulted in our focus on student scholarships.”

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planned giving

By JOEL PADGETT

Athletes’ scholarships, of course, are entirely supported The Hillis’ with Kathie and Mel Pope. through private Booster gifts.

While continuing to make their gifts to the university, Mark and Nan contributed much more by introducing others to Florida State and encouraging them to support it. This included alumni in Atlanta, Theta Chi fraternity brothers and Tri-Delta sorority sisters, and senior executives of the banks where they worked. The College of Business received an Endowed Chair in Finance primarily due to the efforts of Hans Tews from SunTrust Bank (formerly Trust Company Bank). In addition, BB&T contributed several million dollars to the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy as well as the College of Business with the assistance of the Hillises.

As their involvement with Florida State grew, so did their careers. In 2002, Mark retired from SunTrust in Atlanta as a first vice president of Real Estate Finance, and retired from the Marine Corps after 20 years of active and reserve duty. During the past 36 years, Nan worked for several financial institutions and retired last year as the BB&T regional president for Central Florida. During much of that period, Mark served on the FSU Foundation board for 14 years and on the Alumni Association board for nine years. He currently serves on the university’s Board of Trustees and chairs its Finance, Business and Audit Committee. Nan currently chairs the College of Business board, which Mark formerly chaired and has served on since 1989.

In addition to funding their Endowed Scholarship in Finance,

Mark and Nan endowed a Scholarship for Real Estate in the College of Business, an Endowed Scholarship for Football with Seminole Boosters; funded the named dining room in the Alumni House; and recently donated property to support the construction of the Veterans Legacy Complex; the Honors, Scholars and Fellows House; and a new College of Business building.

Now both retired, Nan and Mark are in the process of relocating back “home” to Tallahassee.

In 1992 they made gifts through their estates to the FSU Foundation. In 1999 they added athletic scholarships through the Seminole Boosters and other scholarships primarily benefitting the College of Business. They were in the process of updating their estate gifts when I visited with them recently at their home in Winter Park.

“When we recently reviewed our wills and estate plans, we recognized that not only had our financial circumstances changed, but also realized that we wanted to restructure the makeup of our gifts to FSU,” Mark said.

They explained to me their motivations.

“We want to help students obtain an excellent education,” Nan said. “Our educations were the foundation for our success, and we want to help kids from families that need financial assistance so that they will not be burdened with a lot of debt when they graduate. We want our university to continue to grow in size and stature.

Florida State has come a long way academically and athletically since we were students. We understand that it takes financial support at many levels to maintain and improve the status of our great university.”

“Through deans, administrators, coaches and development officers, we have learned firsthand how critical endowments are to the success of academic programs and athletics,” Mark said. “A significant endowment provides a perpetual income stream that enables the university to fund scholarships, and hire and retain the best professors and coaches.”

I asked why, when so much of their time and gifts have gone to the College of Business, they had given such a generous portion of their estate gift to athletics, Nan replied, “Football is what brought us together and back to Tallahassee. Football is what brings thousands of alumni and friends like us together who we hope will support the university just as we did. The rewards are priceless.” SB

Author’s note: Many of our generous estate gifts are made by Boosters who have given modestly over a long period. Many of those Boosters also make provisions to other parts of the university and other charities. If you have made a provision for Seminole Boosters in your estate, please let us know. If you have not, but may be interested, please contact us for more information, or we will be happy to send you a will kit.

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Spear Lighting

Spear Lighters Les & Ruth Akers Maggie Allesee Del & Kathy Archibald Eric & Molly Barron Lance & Ashley Barton Dick & Holly Baugh Nick & Angela Bergan The Boyle Family

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Steve & Kathie Brown Steve & Yvonne Brown Bill & Lisa Burkhardt Jim & Robin Byrd Harold & Barbara Chastain Al & Judy Dunlap Linda Dupree Ann Ruth Figg & Donna Figg Lacey

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Jimbo Fisher Tom & Ginny Futch Manny & Gerry Garcia Bill Griffin Philip & Jerrilyn Griffitts Andy Haggard Bruce & Anne Harrell Mike & Leslie Harrell

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Cantey & Marilynn Higdon Ron & Carolyn Hobbs The Hobbs Brothers Brian & Nicole, Roger K. & Denise, Reagan & Stacy Roger & Judy Holler Family Bobby Jacobsen Herb & Mary Jervis

Spear Lighting

Spear Lighting A Home Game Tradition

A

By Charlie barnes // Photos by Ryals Lee

t sunset on Oct. 10, 2003, the monumental Unconquered sculpture was formally dedicated in Williams Plaza, at the end of Langford Green. Internationally renowned sculptor Fritz White created the massive bronze that was designed to symbolize the indomitable spirit of the Seminoles. We’ve adopted that spirit as a symbol for the university and for our teams.

The statue stands on a granite pedestal and soars a full three stories into the air. At sunset before each home football game, the spear is set afire and burns until Sunday morning after the game. While it appears to echo the living game-day symbols of Osceola and Renegade, Unconquered represents a much broader concept. Steve Reilly is a local attorney who chaired the committee and guided this project through 10 years of planning and production. The sculpture “celebrates the human spirit that will not be defeated,” Reilly explained. “This statue does not depict any particular person or event. It symbolically portrays the unconquered spirit of the Seminole people of the 19th century and the timeless legacy of that spirit that continues to burn bright into the future.”

George Langford was the first to support the vision of Unconquered with a $1 million gift in 1994. Founder of the Municipal Code Corporation, a national company, he twice served as chairman of the board of Seminole Boosters. His son, Lawton, also served a term as chairman; Langford Green is named for the family. Williams Plaza honors the Williams family of Thomasville. Thomas L. Williams founded Maybelline Cosmetics in 1913, and the family has given millions in contributions to athletic and academic initiatives at FSU. On that October night 10 years ago, thousands of Seminole fans crowded the parking areas to witness the official university dedication and the first lighting of the spear.

Since the spear was first set afire by only a few, special individuals have since been chosen to light the fire in a brief but serious ceremony each Friday night before a home football game.

The ceremonial It is a rare and coveted invitation, and only spear lighting select, exceptional people are chosen for the happens Friday honor. The distinguished guests are selected by night before home Seminole Boosters Inc. SB football games.

Manley & Mary Johnson Ron Jutilla George & Marian Langford Brett & Cindy Lindquist Rick Losco Michael & Deborah Markowski Winsome, Michael, Hunter & Amber, Mark & Colin McIntosh

Dave & Pam Middleton DeVoe & Shirley Moore Coyle E. Moore Family Trust Doug & Cricket Mannheimer Russ & Genie Morcom Gary & Sallyn Pajcic Warner & Mary Kaye Peacock Dave & Regan Rancourt

Steve & Donna Reilly Dick & Allene Roberts Sandra L. Robinson & sons Brad & John Scott & Suzanne Roix Harry & Deborah Sargeant Lee & Shelly Smith Gordon & Bette Sprague Bob & Kathy Stahl

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Mary Anne Stiles & Barry Smith Larry & Hilda Strom Brian Swain Nylah Thompson & HL Hartford Gary & Lee Ann Thurston Don & Fran Veller Gary & Cumi Walsingham Tommy & Sabrina Williams

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Florida State University Athletics

Quarterly Reports Photo By Mike OlivelLa

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Dentarius Locke (left) and Marvin Bracy (right) currently lead the NCAA in the 60-meter dash (Bracy ranks first and Locke ranks second).

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2013 Q U A R T E R LY R E P O R T

Senior Amanda Winslow (left) set a school record in the mile run this season and is ranked among the national leaders in the mile and 3,000 meters. She is joined by sophomore Colleen Quigley (right).

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2013 Q U A R T E R LY R E P O R T

Photos by UF Communications (Golf) And Courtesy FSU Sports Information (Track)

Florida State men’s golf team won the SunTrust Gator Invitational in February for the first time since 1981, with a team score of eight-under 832. The team won by 15 strokes on the Mark Bostick Golf Course at the University of Florida. Sophomore Daniel Berger won the individual title for the first time in his career.

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2013 Q U A R T E R LY R E P O R T

Senior guard Alexa Deluzio entered the Top 10 in career points, surpassing the 1,400 mark. On defense, she has led the ’Noles in holding every team that they have played this season to 50% shooting or less (as of Feb. 7).

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2013 Q U A R T E R LY R E P O R T

Photos by Mike OlivelLa

Junior forward Natasha Howard became the 28th Seminole to score 1,000 career points as FSU defeated Clemson on Feb. 3.

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Compliance

Recruiting Rules Still Apply W

ith National Signing Day taking place a little more than a month ago on Feb. 6, it is only natural for FSU fans to feel a rush of enthusiasm for both the program and the new recruits that will soon be part of the Seminole family. However, it is important to ensure that this passion does not cause a situation that could potentially jeopardize the eligibility of one of the incoming student-athletes. The FSU Compliance Team would like to remind you that an individual remains a prospective student-athlete (PSA) even after they have verbally committed or signed a National Letter of Intent (NLI) or an Athletic Financial Aid Agreement with FSU. Therefore, all recruiting rules still apply to those individuals, meaning that you cannot initiate phone calls, email (Facebook and Twitter messages), have in-person contact with or evaluate PSAs (pickup transcripts or video). Additionally, they will remain PSAs until they enroll in a full-time program of studies (12 hours), participate in practice or competition or are enrolled in the summer term prior to initial full-time enrollment. However, please note that NCAA bylaws do not preclude media entities that report on FSU athletics, such as Warchant or 24/7 Noles, from making comments about or evaluating PSAs because they are considered to be part of the media and not representatives of athletic interests.

Finally, if you have ideas concerning possible educational initiatives, or functions you would like the Florida State Compliance Team to be involved with, our office welcomes your input. We can be contacted at (850) 644-4272. Help us to better educate you! Please follow us on Twitter @FSUCompliance, as we are always providing the Twitterverse with timely information. We greatly appreciate your continued support and assistance in our compliance efforts. Thank you very much and Go ’Noles!

WELCOME NEW MEMBERS (through February 12, 2013 )

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Ramirez-Sy Family Chance Partners, LLC Michael Madden Jeffrey Dub

TOMAHAWK

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Richard & Pamela Edwards Janet A. Fuller Raoul Garcia-Cantero Jeffrey A. Moxley Steve Barnette Elizabeth Snyder Ryan Taylor Chris Waters Sean Ramirez Reginald & Dana Dudley

RENEGADE

Harold R. Gubnitsky Jonathan F. Cohen Curtis Smith Nicholas Fugate Kassandra Kesilyas Tracy Eisnaugle Britten N. Finlen Lesley Goldman Tallahassee Cardiology Associates Emerson Noble Mary J. Woodworth Chad R & Jennifer Dubose Nick Vincelli Garrett Lindsey Robert McDonald Marj A. Schroeder Christopher A. Petys George Hanna Amanda Neff Daniel Ettman George R. Hanna Jan B. Collins Joe Villella Benjamin G. Martin Lenny Faulk Neal Martin Barbara & Tony Lombardo Brad Gornto Eric Dockins Seminole Payments Michael J. Cox Frenchtown Community Development Corporation Gary Corless Scott McMullen Timothy & Kendra Wilhelmy Roy Langley Williams Communications, Inc. Patrick Loebig Fredrick D. Hicks Ashlea Boutwell Christopher C. Todd Nathan H. Harrington Daniel J. Stephens Robert F. Breon Chad D. McIntosh Matthew D. Fox Jessica M. Cook Philip D. Swartz Ron Colombo Dennis Woodham Jeremy Zenon Karey E. Gautier Jason Clark Jeffrey Brock Jill Carnall Kramer Robert T. Hallback, III Josue Rodriguez Justin Goodwin Scott Ubillos

Jason D. Henderson Eddie Holley Monica M. Cepero Jason K. Holwerda Jack & Cathy Stansel Joy Soper Bobie Croom Bruce & Candace McKibben Cynthia R. Bethune Charlotte Seminole Club Don A. Scott Cindy Molnar Robert M. Bailey Greg Gainous

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Charles Sapp Michael & Jana Blaker Andrew J. Helfan Rashida J. Brown Thomas & Sandra Childress Brent Brackin Andrew & Christie Johnson Holly A. Davis Tracy Rectenwald Best Results Consulting Brian Becker Brandon Pace Crystal L. Cliggitt Justin H. Ford Kara L Chenoweth AMB LLC. Ann Moore Caroll Ortega John H. Olinto Gregory Hood Katherine K. Juckett Robert & Wanda Mayer Elizabeth A. McGee Shelley L. Geron David Fleischmann Lindsey Collier Jason R. Mills Megan L. Banfield Ken Elliott Santis Squitiro Brian Blount Jan H. Pratt Elizabeth Turner Design Kristyn Rochester Colleen D. Crouch Cassie A. Oppenheim Craig Christoffersen Jennifer M. Small Stephen Jacoby Morgan N. Rigney Julie M. Gugenheim Freddie Johnson Kevin J. Connelly Sandra Pearce Chris Ready Ed Clark Alan Bulnes James & Julie Muir Todd B. Greenslait Michelle L. Priem Gregory S. Beaver, Jr. Leila Kendrick Nick Garrido Carlos A. Chinchilla Steven M. Hansen Benjamin Shelfer Kelli L. White

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Iron Arrow

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Ellen E. Vanta Erik M. Ferner Gabrielle Trefelner Rebecca H. Mangali Amber Spotts Natalie Correa Adolfo Chandeck James Titcomb Jon Apolinario Linda N. Santos Luz Chandeck Mark Deitz Mary J. Arnason-Paz Patrick Boykin Rita Armstrong Viveca Ycaza Brian A. Stotler Mary Beth Mason Scott A. Bures Cindy Parr Andrew Gorman Blair E. Wulfekuhl Jeremiah Bird Chad L. Woodruff Dan Woodruff Toby H. Jobson Alan Cicora Demetrius Barnes James & Laurin Tilbrook Stephanie G. Broome Theresa A. Wahl Paul Green Eugene Webb Rodney W. Cooke Tommy Davenport Benjamin R. Kelley Crystal Alonso Sandra K. Harrelson Tatia J. Jordan Brett D. CImbora Carolyn Swords Doug Kinson Durand Yangson Kaleb Yangson Karen Yangson William Self Albert Bowland Amber D. Bowland Benjamin Dukes Brittany Browning Carolyn Bowland Chawashe Bowland Christine Bowland Cory Bowland Elvia Z. Zuazo Emanual Waynes Lauri Bodieson Markeisha L. Smith Marquis Bowland Rachael Hardin Taneisha Jackson Timmie Bodieson, Jr. Timmie Bodieson, Sr. Timothy Bodieson Lowana & Joseph Goyer Michael Leeks Bradley A. O’Malley Brian & Sarah Parent Gregory A. Keane Jessica E. Conte, Esq. Lauren E. Wyckoff Lauren S. Cavanagh Leslie O’Malley Liam K. Julian

Ross M. Gass Ryan Stead Sokoung Yun Soyoung Yun Vanessa L. Hertz Amanda Wood John M. Van Dusen Pamela Squitiro Kenneth A. Kiler Kristin Justavino G. Clay Morris Matt A. Sperling Keith J. Palmer Bennett S. Nelson, II Christopher N. Brown, V Kelley Cooper Jeremy Jewell Keith Bohacs Kevin & Laura McKinnon Sindhy Fugon Robin Tubbs Kevin Ferguson Gregory W. Barnes Pat Ashby Janine Brand Fredrick Shepherd Cheryl Cleek Christopher N. Antonious Jennifer Birdsong Josh Roberts Tyler D. Amato Bill Kelly Christopher James Claire L. Bozeman J. Robert Bell James I. Campbell, IV Jodi M. Ruberg Karen Heer Rick Simpson Jeffrey J. Hartsook Shannon S. Karup Cameron M. Gilliam Robin F. Thomas Jeff Broome R Hernandez-Baquero Ryan J. Peters Scott Bell Steven Waterman Louis & Katherine Schlitt Olga B. Organvidez Jessica La Prade Xavier M. Beitia Courtney N. Thomas Nicole R. Kasak Susan Demarcus Burns M. Lowry, Jr. Mac & Nancy Lowry Kevin N. Ramdas Enrique D. Hernandez Kelly McDonald Gail M. Gillies Deanne Gordon Robert Brush Kathryn Weathers Marcus June Anthony Contessa Andrew Polaszek Robert F. Swan, Jr. Terri S. Alexander Francisco Perez Sean D. Wimberley Kenneth & Patricia Delledonne

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Michael H. Odom David K. Adams John Cmar Patrick & Sanda Shiflett Walter W. Schalk, III Sandy & Russ Wheeler Tom Bolinski John Schutz Malcolm & Mabel Farr A.J. Atchison Mr. Gary Strong Holly S. Cawood James A. Richardson Jordan Perlmutter Tony Blasucci William R. Proctor A. Denise Sagerholm Christopher A. Henschel Tamara Price Wilfredo Coto, Jr. Jeffrey E. Lickson Warren Lickson Wesley R. Driggers Charles Wood David T. Maley Lisa S. Minshew William Weber Juan P. Rodriguez Leon Mark Mark & Wendy Johnson Martin D. Angiulli Steve Neill, Jr. J. Reed Reavis Jr. Donna Noonan Jason & Kristen Esteve Nanci King Brian S. Seaberg Robert E. Judd III Ruth E. Noriega Rebecca P. McKay Robert Pigott Brian & Laura Freeman Ricalya Mast Will Atkinson Dino R. Mullin Steven McClung David Washington Jonathan Tyler Taylor Cintron Mrs. Catherine A. Newhaller Kelley Waters Linda Nicholson Mike Reed Robert & Verena Webster Sandra P. Clobus Peter Hurry Emily Mueller James Sherrill Richard & Michelle Ferris Will Mueller Angela Swain Brandon Lovejoy Lea Ann Burkart Ernest Strickland Melinda Helsel Chirag P. Shah Michael Cohen Ralph & Loren Davies Sylvia Williams William Harwood Laura Moose

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Phillip M. Crow Vincent D. Russell Brian J. Leininger Crystofer Roberts Jeannette M. Delong John S. Smith John V. Armstrong Natoya Whitake Scott Lewis Ian J. Dankelman Karen A. Matthews Marc Williams Curtis Davis Don White Kellie A. Lee Raphael Siegrist Scott Garren Timothy E. Morris Joseph Russo Sheldon York Kenneth C. McGhee Rick Fenton Sharon Schrader Scott Hampton Susan Ahrens Barry Hepner Michael Friedman Ricky & Carol Tucker John Sumner Xiaoyi Wu Dwight D. & Sherrie DeBoer Gerard Veshosky Gerry Lee Grant Houle Greg Godsey CSG Systems Inc. Dan Royal IV Nancy & Laura Ritchie Lonnie Davis Karen Curtis Bryan Watson Matthew Curran Michael W. Wright Billy Watson Debi Tuten Juan C. Yibirin Lucas R. Mayo Neil C. McMullen, Jr. Thomas J. Whitley Willie Ruis Adrienne C. Cox Howell Smith Patrick C. Worlds Patrick Oday Paul Templeton Todd Nichols Sarah Pearce

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Charlie Barnes, from page 11

On the Albert J. Dunlap Athletic training Facility When you visit Tallahassee for the spring Garnet & Gold Game you may be shocked at the size of this monster. Photos don’t really give a good indication of the scale.

Groundbreaking took place Thanksgiving weekend, and the facility should be ready for the team to begin practice in August.

On Conference Realignment Everything you’re seeing — all the movement — is driven by money.

Conferences now are not so much associations of universities with common cultures; today they tend to be little more than alliances of financial convenience.

We watched the real estate bubble burst.

I wonder if there is not a similar bubble expanding around televised college football advertising. So much money has been promised in so many massive contracts; some of the numbers now sound other-worldly. The question is whether those obligations are sustainable.

Conference media money is a complex issue. Trying to compare financial apples to apples can be misleading and is never simple. Important contract details are closely held; we don’t really know who’s receiving how much money and in what form.

An analogy is the distribution of bowlgame money. Let’s say a particular team gets a $4 million bowl payout; it’s hard to understand how that team can lose money. First, the conference will take most of it. Then, the bowl requires each school to purchase a specified number of tickets at a set price, and the bowl assigns each team a specific hotel in which the school must purchase a set number of rooms for their players, coaches and administration.

Participating teams get the worst tickets in the stadium because the prime tickets go to sponsors who fund the bowl payout.

Savvy fans will buy their tickets from sources other than their school’s ticket office, placing an even greater financial burden on the program.

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Conference memberships will continue to shift in 2013, following the money.

What’s certain is that we have no idea what the landscape will look like in a year or two from now.

On the NCAA When Joan of Arc stood before her inquisitors and declined to confess her sins, she was shown the instruments of torture. She fainted.

We do not know if Penn State President Dr. Rodney Erickson fainted upon being shown the instruments of torture the NCAA high priests threatened to inflict upon on his university.

Penn State elected to endure the tortures rather than embrace several seasons of death. In a few years death may prove to have been preferable. Joan never confessed and was burned at the stake.

President Erickson did confess and they burned his house down anyway.

This brief essay is not about whether justice was done to Penn State. Seminole fans have expressed passionate opinions in the full range of extremes, from “burn the campus to the ground” to “Penn State should sue.” We’re not taking sides here.

The subject here is something else.

The Draconian penalties imposed on Penn State are just one example of how the NCAA has established a much more aggressive role for itself. How the member schools accept this new imperial NCAA is yet to be seen. NCAA President Dr. Mark Emmert’s actions suggest he possesses ultimate authority over all the many elements that define big-time college football, without much regard to due process or traditional legal safeguards.

The NCAA has no subpoena powers, depending instead on voluntary compliance with its investigations. In November, Emmert announced a new approach. The NCAA sent letters to former Miami Hurricane players and coaches suspected of wrongdoing, directing them to confess voluntarily or the NCAA will assume guilt and punish the University of Miami accordingly.

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Some years ago, then-Director of Athletics Dave Hart speculated that the top 60 or so Division I football programs might eventually form themselves into one combined league with the bargaining power of a half-dozen conferences. He also speculated that this super-league might partially detach from the NCAA and form what would be in effect a Division IV. If the NCAA accelerates along this current path, Dave Hart’s earlier musings may take on substance in 2013.

On Coach Bobby Bowden Just a hunch, don’t be surprised to see him at a game next fall.

On the Orange Bowl Do not concern yourself in the least with people who say that the Orange Bowl was a lose-lose proposition for FSU. We won the conference and then became Orange Bowl Champions on New Year’s Day. No one will ever care nor will they remember who we beat. The Seminoles hold the longest active record of consecutive bowls, and we may be the current holder of consecutive bowl wins. Enjoy.

On The Bowl Games “If we call a tail a leg,” the old riddle goes, “then how many legs does a dog have?”

Well, not five. A dog has four legs because a tail is still a tail no matter what you call it.

But just for today let’s call Syracuse, Pitt, Louisville and Notre Dame “ACC Teams,” even though they’re not quite that yet. Six ACC teams won their bowl games — the same number as SEC teams. Two ACC teams beat the SEC in bowl games; three SEC teams returned the favor. In our contrived scenario, the SEC sent only nine teams to bowl games vs. the ACC’s ten.

This is not to suggest that ACC football has gained parity with SEC football yet.

But this year’s bowl record was a welcome and refreshing whiff of oxygen to the supporters of ACC football. As the old country song says, “No, it’s not love… but it’s not bad.” SB

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work side-by-side with their neighbors

you’ll be entered into a

to make sure that everyone – regardless

drawing to win a “Live Like a

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Give Florida’s Economy, and fellow Noles, a boost.

Tourism is the heart of Florida’s economy—and you can do your part to help businesses grow when you invite to visit. From family and friends to colleagues and college buddies, you’ll be creating Florida jobs while you’re creating Florida memories.

Send an invitation today at ShareaLittleSunshine.org or share your FL:

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Tourism spending in 2011 amounted to more than $67 billion, generating 23% of the state’s sales tax revenue.