Recruiting a team of lifetime Seminoles

By Charlie Barnes, Executive Director - Seminole Boosters

You've got to have the horses, so they say. The Seminoles definitely had the horses this year as FSU stood alone as the only university in the nation to produce a football bowl team, an NCAA Tournament basketball team, and a College World Series baseball team.

With the 1998 football season fast upon us, we can pause to appreciate the magnitude of Bobby Bowden's Dynasty. You already know about 11 consecutive years of ten-or-more wins and Top Four finishes.

And speaking of having the horses, Lindy's pre-season magazine points out that FSU is the only school in the country whose recruiting classes have ranked in the Top Five for the last five consecutive years. Actually, Lindy's is wrong; it's eight years.

Bobby Bowden's Spring 1998 recruiting class was a virtual parade of All-Americas which included 24 of the nation's most outstanding players, 11 of them from outside the state of Florida. It was interesting to read the papers and see what these young men said when they signed their scholarships.

Here's All-America quarterback Jared Jones from Washington: "I'm a lifelong Seminole fan...That may sound strange coming from a kid from the Pacific Northwest, but I'm really excited about finally putting on a Seminole Jersey."

This is All-America receiver Talmon Gardner from Louisiana: "One of my dreams going into high school was to go to Florida State...I'm a big Florida State fan."

Star running back Raymont Scaggs came 3,000 miles from West Los Angeles because of FSU's "national reputation," and the top defensive lineman in Texas, Kevin Emmanuel, gushed that meeting Bobby Bowden "was like meeting a celebrity!"

Receiver Greg Moore, rated the No. 1 recruit in Florida by the St. Pete Times, said: "I've had a lifelong dream to play for Florida State." And the top offensive guard prospect in the country, Orlando's Brett Williams, said: "I've always loved Florida State; I've always wanted to be a Seminole."

Reading these comments, I couldn't shake the feeling that something has changed. I knew we were doing well on the field and in recruiting; I just don't think I can pin down the point at which the nation's top prospects began lining up and announcing that they'd always been Seminole fans, and they always wanted to play for Florida State.

For you and me, time passes so fast, so quickly that we don't always notice the changes taking place in front of us. The perspective that you and I have - not just of Florida State football, but of a shared history and culture - is very different from that of our incoming freshman class.

When you and I talk about football, we talk about the first Orange Bowl, and Jimmy & Wally, and Paul and Reggie, and Ron and Monk. We don't have to use last names because we know exactly who these guys are. But the fact is that they were graduated and gone before anyone in this incoming class was born.

You a movie fan? Steve McQueen and Natalie Wood both died before these freshmen were born. "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "An Officer and a Gentleman" came out either before or during their birth year.

It's happened fast, hasn't it?

Griffin Seigel, a good FSU grad, now a marketing guru in Miami, has passed along some statistical nuggets that relate to this incoming class. If our freshmen recruits are like other entering college freshmen nationally, then there is a very strong statistical probability that they: ...have no memory of a life before MTV...have never owned a vinyl record album, never ridden in a station wagon, and probably never seen a nun in a habit, even if they went to Catholic school...cannot recall having ever seen a single episode of "All in the Family," "M*A*S*H," "Hill Street Blues," "St. Elsewhere," or "Cheers"...cannot remember a time when cameras were not disposable, or when stamps did not cost 32 cents...cannot remember where they were when the Challenger blew up, indeed, if they can remember the incident at all.

They did see "Star Wars," but it was years ago when they were kids, and it was on videotape. They have no recollection of Star Wars as a controversial defense initiative.

And most of them had not yet discovered girls, or football, when the Gulf War was waged.

This past December, the North Carolina Tarheels beat up on Virginia Tech in the Gator Bowl. After the game on a television interview of UNC's quarterback Chris Keldorf, the tall, lanky star said, "I've always wanted to be a quarterback."

Did he ever pretend to be some famous quarterback when he was growing up?

"Oh yeah," he said with a big grin, "When I was a kid I liked to pretend that I was Charlie Ward."

It's been fast.

Now why is this important to us as Boosters and as fans? It's important because we - you and me and our University - have been given something very precious. We have come further, faster than any other major school. Our athletic program occupies an envied position at the end of 50 years that most Division 1 schools have yet to achieve after 100 years and more.

But we've done all this on a shoestring. As Joel Padgett likes to say, "We've been renting our success, and if we intend to stick around in this company, we can't rent anymore; we're going to have to buy."

You can name the universities that took maximum advantage of their great success on the field. Southern Cal, Notre Dame, Penn State, Nebraska and others are on that list. They took their long run of victories and national acclaim and used it to endow all the scholarships, and build all the key facilities, and ensure that no matter what unexpected adversity falls upon them, the athletic program will remain fundamentally stable.

There are other schools, many schools, that never took advantage of their precious opportunities. Remember Houston? How about Oklahoma?

The Florida State Seminoles are the winningest college football team of the 1990s, and I believe that we are also the most televised college team of the last decade. Bobby Bowden has given us this extraordinary opportunity to secure the future of our entire athletic program. Our mission at Seminole Boosters Inc. is to take advantage of the opportunity we've been given.

We've definitely got the horses now, but the clock's running, and we've seen how very fast it goes.