Steadily Building The Legacy

By Charlie Barnes, Executive Director - Seminole Boosters

Late fall in Tallahassee is pleasant, cool. And the wisps of wood smoke on a chilly evening bid us close our eyes, smile and open the door of memories.

Beautiful houses line our street and one of them belongs to us. In this analogy, our home is our University. The houses vary in architecture and size. Some are larger and grander than others, but all of the homes are substantial. All are built on solid foundations, and each is occupied by the family that built that particular homestead.

This is an exclusive neighborhood. It costs a lot to live on our street. Maintenance is expensive. Once in a while something breaks and we have to bring in professionals to fix it. Maybe the basement floods or the roof leaks. it happens, even to the best of houses.

But we persevere. We know that our house is well built and will last, and we remember how hard we worked to get here. We remember how big the dreams were that led us to this place.

It was twenty years ago, roundabout, that Florida State's dreams of big things began in earnest.

Dreams were the currency of faith among our Seminole loyalists. Someone found a quote, framed it and hung it on a wall. Chicago architect Daniel Burnham's words were placed beneath a photograph of a small architectural model illustrating how Doak Campbell Stadium might appear in the dreamscape of a true believer.

"Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die."

The majestic University Center that now surrounds Doak Campbell Stadium was envisioned as the centerpiece of an entire park of new Seminole athletic facilities. There were those who declared that using state money to build an educational facility surrounding a football stadium was outrageous. But we had two weapons to overcome all opposition: We had the vision of Andy Miller and the muscle of T.K. Wetherell.

Bobby Bowden took over Seminole football in 1976. Andy Miller had already become CFO of Seminole Boosters in 1975. By the late 1980s we were winning on the field, and T.K. Wetherell was one of the most powerful politicians in Florida. Opportunities began to reveal themselves.

Our perception of ourselves began to change. Instead of just aspiring to compete, we wanted to excel. We believed that we could become one of America's great collegiate programs. We felt that we could do for Florida State what Notre Dame's athletic program had done for them. We could become a Michigan, a Southern California, Penn State or Nebraska.

We had always seen ourselves as a scrappy little athletic program, taking on the giants and doing well. We imagined all those great programs of legend. Now we imagined being one of them.

Seminole athletic facilities overall were poor, not just football but all sports. Our football locker room, training room, strength facility - all were substandard and hurt recruiting. Our basketball arena was not "collegiate." Our golf course was marginal and the clubhouse was dreadful. The varsity swimming pool leaked. Women's soccer and softball facilities were amateurish. Tennis was catch-as-catch-can on the campus recreational courts.

The varsity track building was adequate for the moment and Dick Howser Stadium was thought to be state-of-the-art...until we saw the baseball parks that other big southern schools had built.

We gathered our largest donors and potential donors. We talked about the programs of legend, about how a first class winning collegiate athletic program plays on a huge national stage. Seminole athletics is the window through which much of America views Florida State University.

We told them that the window should always remain unclouded. It should sparkle, we said, and it should always enhance the academic architecture and mission of our University.

We asked them to imagine all those great programs of legend, and to imagine those programs traveling through history as if on a road. A road laid out straight by great coaches and leaders. They built the road as they went, cutting through the forest of time, layering the roadbed with winning seasons, paving the surface with All-Americans and championships in all sports.

Now Florida State was building its own road. And because we had a hell-on-wheels road builder named Bowden, we were able to cover twice the distance in half the time. No other school had ever built a road that fast. We built and built and worked and seemed to be coming closer and closer to where the programs of legend dwelled.

But then we hit an obstruction. We suspected it was there all along, but we never really saw it clearly. And then suddenly there it was.

Think of the obstruction as a river. Our road ran right up to the river's edge, and stopped.

We could see Notre Dame and Michigan and Alabama and Tennessee and Texas and all the rest. We could see where they lived, right on the other side of the river. They had all reached the river's edge years ago, and when they did, each one of them built a bridge.

Building that bridge is the last thing you do to complete the journey, that journey to the place where legends dwell, where they are secure and where excellence can be sustained indefinitely.

Bridges are different than roads. To build a bridge you have to sink foundations down deep beneath the water, to the bedrock. And each of those pilings has someone's name on it. That bridge is where all the scholarships for all the sports are endowed and where all the permanent athletic facilities are finished.

How many other schools, we wondered, have been left standing at the river's edge? We determined that we would do whatever was necessary for the Seminoles to cross the river.

An so, Seminole Boosters conducted a five-year long capital campaign called The Dynasty Campaign to build our breathtaking array of first class athletic facilities. And a few years after that we began another six-year fund drive call the Legacy Campaign. Its purpose was to build the Seminole Boosters Scholarship Endowment so that all sports would always have the full complement of scholarships allowed by the NCAA. The Legacy Campaign concluded on October 31, 2009, having surpassed its goal of $110 million.

It's time now to end our evening walk, as we stroll down by the river.

We used to live across that river. If we look hard through the cold twilight we can see the other houses, other families over on the opposite side of the river. We know how it feels to be over there and to yearn to be here. We know that some of them will never have the opportunity to come across, and we know that some are building their bridges even now. And we know how hard it is.

But after two decades of work, here we are. We built the big house; we achieved success, glory and fame. We've lost some of that lately, but who on our street hasn't had the same problem from time to time? You work some more and you get it all back.

We don't have enough money yet to retire the mortgage, but we're on solid ground. And our family business is plenty strong enough to recover and thrive.

This is our home. There's a fire inside, and friends and family waiting to welcome us. This is where we belong, where we deserve to be.

Go 'Noles.