Perception

By Charlie Barnes, Executive Director - Seminole Boosters

They say life can be messy and you have to deal with it the best you can.

They say a lot of things, and much if not most of it has been said to me and to other Seminole Booster leaders over the last several weeks. Be assured that we’re dealing with the issues of the moment in the best ways we can.

Our University is fortunate in a great many ways, not the least of which consists of currently having a strong Athletics Director and University President. We also have a living legend for a football coach, and the value of that may not be fully understood by all our fans until after his long tenure is concluded.

Perception about Florida State is an issue. Perception always is.

They say perception is reality, and when they say it often enough people assume it’s true. But of course, perception and reality are often substantially different. And when that difference becomes conspicuous in the public arena, things get even more messy than usual. I think that is the circumstance we’re dealing with right now in the matter of the recent coaching change.

Coach Jeff Bowden resigned for his own reasons, perhaps to relieve the enormous pressure on his parents and on his own family. Right or wrong, fair or no, the perception among fans and sportswriters has been that Florida State’s post-Dynasty disappointments have been on the head of the offensive coordinator, the coach’s son. The turbulence has become darker and uglier as each season passed.

Coach Jeff Bowden’s perception of himself is that he is a professional football coach with 23 years experience, including having served as offensive coordinator at two other colleges before coming back to FSU. He is a Florida State graduate, a Seminole letterman. In his mind, he has given steadfast service to the best of his ability.

Fan perception is most certainly at issue. Amid the flood of emails and phone calls we’ve gotten at the Seminole Booster office is a question often posed this way: Since Coach Jeff Bowden’s contract runs out in August, why are the Boosters giving him money beyond that cut-off? The answer is that as a practical matter if Coach Jeff Bowden were to leave the staff, it would have to be on his own resignation.

And that’s what Jeff did; he resigned. He did it against his father’s wishes, but with the certainty of mind that he was doing what was best for his father, for the program, and for his family. His father told him never to quit, and to always do the right thing. Jeff finally came to the conclusion that in allowing all parties to move forward, the latter must necessarily trump the former. He felt resignation was in fact the right thing to do.

Coach Jeff Bowden and Director Hart had discussed these and other issues over the course of several years. After the Wake Forest game, Jeff approached Dave and asked to negotiate an arrangement that would allow him to leave, and provide some security for his family.

Dave Hart acted responsibly in the best interests of the program and the University. So did Jeff Bowden.

What was the role of Seminole Boosters? The Booster organization provided the funding through concessions revenue. The money did not come from donors or major contributors, nor will any of the civic groups or youth organizations be short changed in the money they earn for their work in the stadium. There is no special fund to facilitate coaching changes. The Boosters did not negotiate this deal, although the organization did agree with Director Hart’s and President Wetherell’s actions.

The importance of perception cannot be overstated as it affects our recruiting, player morale, fan support, and overall standing of our athletic program on the national stage. The perceived continuing success or failure of a college football program has direct bearing on where tens of millions of dollars are going to land, from television networks to bowl committees to fans buying season tickets.

In a lingering twilight about ten years ago I sat alone in our stadium, admiring the gleaming curve of the new construction that bowled in the south end. I was surprised when I suddenly felt a small tug of fear. We cannot pay for this magnificent stadium, I thought, with a 7-4 program. We’ve passed the point where we can afford the luxury of just being good. We not only have to be great program, we have to appear to be a great program if we hope to prosper in the competitive arenas of television, recruiting and fan support.

I smiled at the irony: we built this house with the money that Bobby Bowden generated by establishing high standards of success. And now that it’s done, we cannot afford for Bowden or any future Seminole coach to achieve anything lower than unreasonably high levels of success.

Perception is not a small thing.

Selective perception determines much of our memory, as well as molding our expectations. The outcome of the Florida game helped determine how this 2006 season is remembered. Had we beaten Florida, we would have beaten the ‘Canes and Gators in the same season, won the state championship, gone to a bowl, overcome adversity and injuries, and set the stage for a prosperous 2007.

But even though we lost only by one score, this may be remembered as the season of the Wake Forest shutout, the desperate, undermanned defense, the underperforming offense and controversy on the coaching staff.

I assembled a trunk load of material from the 1996 college football season and I’m thinking of writing a book titled, The Greatest Season That Never Was. What do you remember about 1996? Probably not a great deal. Most Seminoles remember it as the year that our humiliating loss to Florida in the Sugar Bowl handed Steve Spurrier the national championship.

The perception is that it was a bad year for us. The truth is that it was the Seminoles, not the Gators, who ended the season undefeated. Our 24-21 victory over them in Tallahassee was one of the greatest games ever played by a Seminole team.

It was only through the whims of fate and a back-room deal that a forced re-match in the national title game took place that year. And, even after taking the 52-20 pounding in New Orleans, FSU still finished 3rd to Florida’s 1st in the AP final poll. We tend to recall only that Florida’s best team beat us, and not that our team was great as well.

Sportswriters and television commentators rightly continue to shower glory on Bobby Bowden’s 1987-2000 Dynasty, and intone the mantra that such a feat will likely never be seen again. That is the perception, and no doubt that is true.

But the perception of those Dynasty years doesn’t quite mesh with reality. Yes, the astonishing fourteen year run was the best ever seen in a college program, but the Dynasty wasn’t a fabulous, unbroken string of victories any more than the last six seasons has been an bleak landscape of failure.

Looking at the last six less-than-Dynasty years, you and I shake our heads and say there’s no excuse for a even a weak Florida State team to fall 0-30 to Wake Forest. True, but neither was there any excuse for a Florida State team to be down 3-31 to Florida on our own home field. Yet there we were in 1994, defending National Champions no less, watching the Gator players strut and dance along the yard markers as the third quarter changed to the fourth quarter.

In 1994, we charged back in that fourth quarter and “beat” the Gators 31-31. The issue was settled in a Sugar Bowl re-match won by the Seminoles. Dr Jay Rayburn’s students got top grades for convincing the Sugar Bowl to actually change the scoreboard readout and promote the game as the “Fifth Quarter in the French Quarter.”

There was no excuse for the pre-season #1 ranked Seminoles to fall 0-31 in the season opener, but that’s what happened in 1988. Instead of collapsing, the team re-grouped under Bobby Bowden’s leadership and ran the table to whip Auburn in the Sugar Bowl and finish #3 in the country.

Another Dynasty year of great promise began with two appalling losses, to Southern Mississippi in Jacksonville and Clemson in Doak. How could such a thing happen to a Bobby Bowden-coached team? But again, Bowden led his boys on another undefeated rampage and crushed poor Nebraska 41-17 in the Fiesta Bowl. Those 1989 Seminoles finished #3 again.

We all complained when we looked bad in the National Championship game against Tennessee in the Fiesta Bowl in 1998, losing by, well, only losing by a touchdown “but-we-still-looked-bad.” Few of us fans took into consideration that our quarterback was the third string guy in only his second career start. We’re the fabulous Florida State! We should win. No excuses.

The Dynasty ended after 2000 and since then we have meandered unevenly through passages of success and failure. In six years we’ve won some bowl games, we beat-up Notre Dame pretty badly on their own field, we’ve beaten both Florida and Miami, we won the first ACC Championship game, and according to the experts we’ve had great recruiting classes.

On the other hand, the offense has slowly withered, dampening fan enthusiasm and requiring the defense to do the heavy lifting. This 2006 season will be the weakest of the last six, but it could also be the last before the next-Dynasty revival. There is hope and there is a sense that good things are coming.

A key to the new Dynasty is Bobby Bowden himself. I don’t know him as well as some, but I think I have a sense of him that many in the public do not. I will not be surprised if he coaches another three or four years or more. I think I know what drives him, and I think his son’s resignation, while it upset and hurt him, will also have the unburdening effect that Coach Jeff Bowden no doubt wished it to have on his father. It closed a chapter and opened a door.

We’ll know when the Seminoles are back. A couple of sequential Top Four finishes should do it.

So don’t depress yourself by believing that 2006 is the signature of Seminole Football. Public perception changes quickly, and when you continue to win, reality catches up.

Your University and this Athletics Program are run by honorable people. They are people of integrity and vision who are guided by their professionalism and a love for Florida State.

Trust is the key word. Seminole Booster CEO Andy Miller has always stressed that our organization must remain trustworthy in the eyes of our many contributors and supporters. We make every effort to keep your trust, and to do what’s right for the program.

Yes, this has been a mess, hooted over by our rivals and the media, and decried even by some of our own. Life is messy because we’re Human Beings with all the foibles and emotions and problems that presents.

But good people move forward when things must be done; even sometimes the ones who stand to get hurt by the process.