Young FSU alumni demonstrate growing generosity

By Charlie Barnes, Executive Director - Seminole Boosters

Can you remember where you were Saturday night, May 9, 1980? Coach Bowden and I were in Atlanta at the downtown Marriott at the annual Bobby Bowden Banquet.

At around 8:45 in the evening I was telling jokes and preparing to introduce Coach Bowden. About the same time in Richmond, Virginia, young Eric Carr entered the world.

And just before the start of this football season, Eric Carr became Florida State’s youngest Golden Chief, making a 10-year pledge of $6,000 per year. The 27-year-old Carr is a veterinary medical consultant living in Jacksonville.

Eric Carr is not the youngest Golden Chief ever. That honor goes to Chad Henderson of Tallahassee who joined that elite donor circle in 2005, at the age of 26.

All of this is important because it represents a shift in generations supporting our Seminoles. The explosion in student enrollment that began in the 1970s has not just produced more Seminole graduates; it has produced numbers of young alumni who are remarkably prosperous andgenerous in their financial support.

When the Golden Chiefs were created in 1976, it was unthinkable that men and women under the age of thirty would have the means to join.

In 1997, our first “Micco” ($1 million) donation was made by a Pensacola couple already retired from business. But just two years ago, 37-year-old Tampa insurance executive Lance Barton stepped up to the “Micco” ranks. Someone else will likely break that youthful mark very soon.

For nearly three decades, Florida State University has been producing vast legions of young, aggressive entrepreneurs bound for success. Some of this phenomenon is due to our location. Every hard-working Seminole optimist in sight is engaged in firing Florida’s hot economic engines.

Another portion of our success comes fromour having been the “Second Sons” in our state. In old Europe, the first son in a family inherited everything. Daughters inherited only if there were no sons, and the second sons were generally left to choose between the military or the priesthood.

But many of those Second Sons were ambitious; many burned with the passion for success. The most adventurous among them sought their fortune in America, where their talents and their energies could carry them to whatever heights their imaginations could reach.

The American Ideal was crafted in the spirit of those Second Sons. And I believe that much of our university’s success proceeds from that same, unique spirit. While another school may proudly sing “We are the Boys,” Florida State’s Alma Mater just as proudly proclaims, “Here, Sons and Daughters Stand.”

It’s interesting that our university and the Seminole Tribe of Florida have traveled different, yet parallel paths to great achievements. We make much of the word “Unconquered” because the Seminoles never gave up, never surrendered. It’s good to be unconquered, but that term could also suggest that they merely survived.

However, the Florida Seminoles didn’t just survive. Fifty years ago, the Tribe officially adopted its corporate charter and began to make serious use of its inherent economic power. Florida State University’s current “Unconquered” initiative employs highway billboards, televised promotional spots and Web sites to pay tribute to the Tribe and the signing of its constitution 50 years ago.

Last spring we dedicated inspiring new statuary of three bronze Seminole figures at the football stadium. The sculpture depicts a Seminole family from the 1840s moving through the high grass, alert to any sound or movement, perhaps watching for the pursuing soldiers.

As we were ceremonially dedicating the bronze Seminoles, today’s real Seminoles were negotiating the Tribe’s purchase of the Hard Rock Café for something close to a billion dollars.

The Seminoles didn’t just survive; the Seminoles triumphed. And like our namesake collegiate Seminoles, their ambition and hard work and vision led them to success on their own terms.

The Seminole Tribe has entered a new and more prosperous era, led by a younger generation. So has Florida State University.

We are the happy beneficiaries of good luck, burning ambition and great leaders compelled by magnificent dreams.

It’s not quite time yet to pass the torch, but today’s young Seminole sons and daughters are eminently willing to embrace the fire.