T.K. and Sandy—we’re lucky to have them both

By Charlie Barnes, Executive Director - Seminole Boosters

FSU has always been lucky. We’re lucky to have grown up with this state. At the time FSCW became FSU, Florida’s population was 27th among 48 states. Now, we’re fourth largest and gaining on No. 3. That explosive growth has allowed FSU to expand and compete effectively with older, larger institutions. We’ve been lucky with leaders. President Stanley Marshall inspired T.K. Wetherell to pursue advanced degrees in education. Marshall hired Bobby Bowden, and Bernie Sliger kept other schools from hiring him away. Sliger also kept legislative leaders like Jim King and Wetherell close, nurturing them in their early years in government.

Sandy D'Alemberte

The stage was set for Sandy D’Alemberte. One distinguishing characteristic of great leaders is they can see things most people cannot. Sandy had the gift.

Sandy saw our medical school 10 years ago as clearly as if it were real then. John Thrasher was perfectly positioned in the Legislature at exactly the right time. A titanic battle was won before he and D’Alemberte finally brought our medical school to life.

The days of state universities being adequately funded by the state are over. Now, we are again lucky. We have another president who is a formidable champion for advancing Florida State University toward greatness.

The trend today in higher education is to choose a president based on the CEO model. Twenty years ago, the Gators picked Marshall Criser, a prime example of the manager/fundraiser vs. the pure academic. Criser led UF to its first major successful capital campaign. He knew that money is the fuel that makes the engines run.

The Ivy Leagues may sniff contemptuously at this talk of money, but they all have endowments bloated by many generations of giving. While we would like to be there eventually, we are who we are now. We are a very good state university, desiring passionately to become a great one.

T.K. Wetherell

Wetherell is a former legislator who knows where all the bodies in the state are buried. He knows who has the money and how to get it flowing toward Florida State. He also has a Ph.D. in education, is a former college professor and successful college president, as well as Speaker of the House in one of the nation’s most important states.

That which T.K. Wetherell does not already know about university governance, he can learn. What he does already know about leadership and fundraising and charting a course, no one can teach.

Once again, Florida State is profoundly lucky.

Much has been made of the differences between Wetherell and D’Alemberte. What is truly remarkable is that the two are so alike in their strengths and abilities, despite the dissimilarity in personalities and style.

Both are Old Florida. Sandy took some heat from those who felt his Florida law degree and his UF pals from his days in the Legislature made him a Gator. In fact, his passion is the Law, and he was always a fierce advocate for Florida State. Sandy went to high school in the Panhandle, to college in Tennessee, and to the only law school in Florida at that time that was a reasonable option. His mother graduated from Florida State College for Women.

None will ever doubt now that Sandy’s loyalties were to the garnet & gold.

T.K. was born in the hospital in Volusia County where his father and grandfather were born. When he was a freshman football player at Florida State, his position coach was 35-year-old Bobby Bowden. T.K. has already looked our players in the eye and said, “I’ve been out there on those stadium steps at 5 o’clock in the morning and had [Bowden] standing in the middle of the field as I ran up and down, up and down, for missing study hall or other screw-ups I’ve done.” Wetherell is one of us.

Both Wetherell and D’Alemberte think in terms of competition. Make no mistake: Today’s landscape is not hospitable to the ivory-tower academic who fails to appreciate the competitive nature of modern higher education. Sandy and T.K. had no illusions; no gains would ever come without a fight.

Both men have positioned FSU to take full advantage of our location in the shadow of the state Capitol. Long-time FSU loyalists have watched with amusement and delight as the colors most prevalent in the Legislature shifted slowly but steadily from orange & blue to garnet & gold. It is exhilarating to think about what can be done for FSU over the decades to come. If T.K. Wetherell has a Bowden-esque run of 20 years or more, Florida State could experience a Renaissance unlike any in collegiate history.

The thing that made political opponents, and now our collegiate rivals, so fearful of Wetherell is the same thing that made them so anxious about Sandy. It is the same strength, the same character that made political leaders as disparate as Ronald Reagan and Dr. Martin Luther King so threatening to their opponents. That is: they wanted nothing for themselves. They are motivated only by their passion and vision, and they can lead others toward that end. Few human emotions are as powerful and as inspiring as selfless passion in a noble cause.

Both Wetherell and D’Alemberte are tough. Woe unto anyone foolish enough to try to bully or intimidate either of them.

If you really want to understand T.K. Wetherell, know that above nearly all things, he hates to lose.

I was having lunch with a friend who wears the other tie. He was musing about T.K., and something he said reminded me of an obscure book I hadn’t read since the 1960s.

There is actually a book, an instructional manual for police officers, on gun fighting. Appropriately, it’s titled “No Second Place Winner.”

One of the anecdotes concerned a couple of rough and ready Border Patrol types who spoke little and kept the hammers of their pistols cocked even while the guns were holstered.

One day they were in a café, and one of the locals tried to get a little too familiar. The fellow wandered over and asked questions. He didn’t get the hints, and finally saw that their pistols were cocked.

“Gosh,” the guy said, wide-eyed, “isn’t that dangerous?”

One of the hombres leveled him with a stare and answered, “You damn betcha.”

My friend told me he had voted for T.K. Wetherell and worked with him on a couple of lobbying jobs in the Legislature. “I used to like to watch him play football too,” he said. “He was a real competitor.”

But when it came to a question of whether Wetherell should become the president of Florida State, the tone changed. I heard the usual litany about how politicians shouldn’t take over universities, and he didn’t have experience at a research university, and all the rest of the stuff you’ve heard from people who were scared to death that T.K. would actually get the job.

Finally he admitted the truth: “We just don’t want him up here. He’s too dangerous.”

You damn betcha.