1955 Sun Bowl

By Jim Joanos

This story is about an FSU football game that I did not attend but is a special memory to me.

In the summer of 1954, I was a junior at FSU and had undertaken to take a couple of courses during the summer term. A friend, the editor of the student newspaper, The Florida Flambeau, asked me to write a sports column for the hand full of issues that would be published that summer. Because I felt that it might help to improve my writing skills, I accepted.

At the end of the summer my friend asked me if I would serve as a co-sport’s editor of the Flambeau along with a good guy with the great name of “Dick Victory.” Dick would be in charge of sports for one of the Flambeau issues to be published each week and I would take care of the other.

It turned out to be a really fun football season that year. The names of a number of the players on that team are readily recognizable to this day for various reasons and include several of legendary status. That would include Lee Corso, Burt “Buddy” Reynolds, Vic Prinzi, Bob Crenshaw, Ted Rodrigue, Ron Schomburger and Vince Gibson, to mention a few.

The regular season went well with FSU winning 8 games and losing only 3. At the end, FSU was invited to play Texas Western in El Paso, Texas’ Sun Bowl game on New Year’s Day, 1955.

Texas Western is now named The University of Texas at El Paso. The invitation to play in the Sun Bowl caused quite a stir. There were only a few bowl games back then and it was a sign of a very good season to be invited to play in one. FSU had previously played in one bowl game. That was at the Cigar Bowl Game in Tampa at the end of the 1949 season when FSU was competing at the small college level. Plans were made and it was arranged that FSU’s team and its entourage would go out by train several days before the game and enjoy the activities before as well as the game.

FSU’s athletic director allotted one seat in the university’s entourage for a Flambeau writer to make the trip. It was then decided that one of the two co-sports writers would go. Wow, I was excited but soon disappointed by losing the coin toss so that Dick Victory would be the one Flambeau representative that would go.

Preceding the game there was a lot of excitement about the team’s participation in the Sun Bowl festivities. The local newspaper had daily stories telling about the events attended by the team. One of the events had been a trip across the border and attendance at a bull fight. I later learned the several players were sickened by the killing of the bull.

Eventually the game was played. It was not a shining moment for the Seminoles. The underdog FSU team did score first. Early in the first quarter, Lee Corso returned a punt 25 yards, and had a run of 48 yards to the 4 yard line. Quarterback Harry Massey then carried the ball into the end zone. Billy Graham kicked the extra point. Later in the first quarter Texas Western scored a touchdown and tied the game 7-7.

In the second quarter, the bottom fell out, Texas Western scored four touchdowns so that the game was effectively over by halftime, 34 to 7. Both teams scored 13 points in the second half so that it ended, 47-20.

One of the stories that emerged later was about Corso. He had an injury during the game and had to be carted off the field and taken to a hospital. After the game some of the coaches went to the hospital to check on him. Surprisingly, he had already been released. The story goes that he was later located across the border in a Mexican Cantina dancing.

A day or so before the game a problem had arisen. The Flambeau folks realized that Dick Victory traveling with the team would not be back in Tallahassee in time to write the story of the game for the next issue of the paper. The Internet, needless to say, did not exist then and it was too expensive for the Flambeau to pay for telegraph stories. It was decided that I should listen to game on the radio (there was no television coverage), take notes and write the story of the game for The Flambeau.

Consequently, I listened to the game, took notes, and fortunately had access to Bill McGrotha’s story of the game in The Tallahassee Democrat issue that was published the day after the game. As a result, I ended up writing the game story of a game that I had not seen. I later felt complimented when one of my classmates who had read my story came up and said to me that he did not know that I had gone to the game. I told him that I had not and we got a good laugh out of it.

As it turned out, as the result of a coin toss, Dick Victory had a very nice trip with the team to the Sun Bowl and enjoy all those activities and I had to do the work. Such is life! Regardless, I have some unusual but very fond memories of the only bowl game that Lee Corso and Burt Reynolds played in for FSU although I never saw it.

Lee Corso	Burt "Buddy" Reynolds	Vic Prinzi	Bob Crenshaw
Ted Rodrigue	Ron Schomburger	Vince Gibson

About the author:

Jim Joanos

Memories of Garnet and Gold

Jim Joanos and his wife Betty Lou have deep roots at Florida State University. Avid sports fans, they have literally seen, and done, it all. Fortunately for us, Jim loves telling first-hand accounts dating back to FSU’s first football game, a 1947 clash with the Stetson Hatters on Centennial Field, where Cascades Park is today.

The Osceola will run a series of these colorful stories written by the former Tallahassee lawyer and judge, which we feel our readers will find enlightening and/or nostalgic.

Jim and Betty Lou, who was Associate Director of the FSU Alumni Association (1991-2003), have been married 65 years and are each listed as one of FSU’s 100 Distinguished Graduates. The couple were enshrined in the FSU Hall of Fame in 2015 as Moore-Stone Award Recipients. Ironically, both Deans Moore and Stone were instrumental in the Joanoses career development.

“Both Jim and Betty Lou Joanos have been exemplary fans and supporters of Florida State University, both academically and athletically,” said Andy Miller, retired President and CEO of Seminole Boosters, Inc. “You can’t go to an athletic event of any kind that you don’t see both Jim and Betty Lou Joanos together. They love their university as much as they love each other.”