By Bill Bunker

02/2004

This is the seventh in a multi-part series on the history of Seminole Boosters, Inc., written by former FSU Sports Information Director Bill Bunker.

Florida State's football 'Dynasty' and the University Center classroom-office complex were born in 1987

"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high and hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die." - Donald H. Burnham (1846-1912)

Doak Campbell Stadium and University Center

Andy Miller needed a phrase to help sell his latest idea, so he called upon his "quote guy", Charlie Barnes, to dig one up. Neither realized how closely their project would parallel that of Chicago architect Donald Burnham's Columbian Exposition of 1893. As one reviewer of a book about Burnham described it: "Built in a city that had been destroyed by fire just 20 years earlier, by an architect who refused to let lack of time, labor strife, financial crisis, swampy land or raging egos defeat him, the fair represented a triumph of the spirit."

Florida State's University Center may not have encountered precisely the problems that beset Burnham, but it unquestionably represents a triumph of the spirit and a practical solution to the vexing problem of finding room to expand the university campus.

"The way it all came together was because a small size of the FSU campus," Miller said. "The University was constantly looking for room to build, and they always looked to the area around the stadium. We had needs of our own for additional facilities at the stadium, and we wanted to expand our skybox operation.

"So, the idea was hatched; why don't we develop a program where the university could build our buildings up against the stadium? We can cover up the 'erector set,' and we'll put the skyboxes on top. So much of the cost of a skybox is from the ground up. You have to build a lot of support, and there's nothing in between. This way, we could share the vertical circulation, elevators and all that."

Miller commissioned Tallahassee architect Patrick Hoy to conceptualize a building wrapped around an 80,000 seat stadium, and a model was built. Soon, photos of the model began circulating, some imprinted on post cards with the Burnham quote affixed.

That same year a batted-down, two-point conversion attempt by Miami in the final seconds may have cost the Seminoles their first national championship. They finished second to the 'Canes in the AP rankings and defeated Nebraska in the Fiesta Bowl.

The year was 1987, when both a football dynasty and its gothic home were born. It would be 13 years and two national championships before FSU won less than ten games and finished lower than fifth in the national rankings. And, the image of Andy Miller's post card would restructure the very face of Florida State University.

Using the code name "Project SBI," a take-off on President Ronald Reagan's SDI (Space Defense Initiative), which was in the news at the time, Miller peddled his idea to University and Booster groups with predictable early results.

"When I first started showing the model, people would pat me on the back and say this would be great, but we ain't got a chance in hell of getting it," Miller said. "Then, all of a sudden, the magic happened. That's when T.K. Wetherell became Speaker of the House of Representatives."

Wetherell, now FSU's president, played wide receiver for Bill Peterson in the 1960s and holds BS, MS and Ph.D. degrees from Florida State. He had represented his home area of Daytona Beach in the House since 1980, and became its leader at the opportune time to help his alma mater.

"T.K. Wetherell was a huge part of this," Miller said. "If he hadn't come across with the money from the state, we wouldn't have been able to do it. He deserves a ton of credit. We (Boosters) get a lot of credit over here for conceptualizing the idea, but without T.K. Wetherell and Coach Bowden, it never would have happened.

Bowden's primary contribution was winning football games, but he also bought into the multi-use plan. "It's always been understood that the most wasted space on a college campus is underneath the stadium," he said. "Big old stadiums with nothing under them except a tractor over here and a grass keeper over there. But, here we are with classrooms all around, and we still have some space to do more. Making this University Center instead of just a football stadium, getting the University involved, building these academic buildings around it. That was a brilliant move. I credit Andy Miller for a lot of that."

Meanwhile, televised college football coverage was exploding. Cable systems challenged the broadcast networks, and the cameras loved Florida State with stars like 1988 Jim Thorpe Award Winner Deion Sanders and plays like the imaginative "Puntrooski" against Clemson the same year. Bowden's willingness to play anyone, anytime, anywhere for TV enhanced the Seminoles' popularity with broadcasters and brought much-needed cash into the program.

If the University Center was a hit in some quarters, it met with opposition closest to home where some among the FSU faculty viewed it as a threat to future academics growth. As deputy provost, it fell to Russ Kropp to help convince the faculty of the program's merit.

When the Boosters came to President (Bernie) Sliger with this idea it was referred to Provost Gus Turnbull because part of the project would add academic space which was sorely needed at the time," Kropp said. "We were delighted to take the lead because of that possibility of added space.

"There were two presentations made to the faculty senate about the proposal. The discussions were straightforward and sometimes fiery. I think the feelings, at least of the vocal ones, were that it would be injurious over the long-term to the proposed construction program for academic space on campus, and they felt this would be a tremendous chunk of money from the state and the legislature would remember and go light on us for the next 5-10 years to come. I think there's an element of truth in that.

"But, this was a gift from God, the way it appeared. It came straight from the top (President's Office). But some felt that anything that gets tied up with intercollegiate athletics is going to become intercollegiate athletics and dominated by it. We pointed out that we were already paying over a million dollars a year for academic rental property adjacent to campus.

"We were sitting in a position of knowing we had nowhere else to grow on the campus we had. The University from north to south is narrow and from east to west is long. We owned pretty much a corridor from Copeland (Street) to Pensacola (Street) and really didn't have anywhere to go after that. We saw that the redevelopment of the stadium site would be a bonus in a lot of ways.

"First it would call attention to the fact that if we were going to grow, it would have to be to the west, and this would open that up to a great extent. Second, students and staff were upset because the center for a lot of student activities and finance was right in Wescott where there was no place in the world to park, inconvenient to get to and on the curb of the east end of the campus. From the outset we saw the possibility of peaking academic processes at the stadium to serve undergraduate students on a one-stop basis, registration, admissions, counseling, advisement, payment of fees and that kind of thing.

"We really saw the possibility of almost doubling, effectively, the campus of the University through this, because it just levered so many other projects to get the stadium wrap going.

"The advantages were obvious to many, but just beyond the imagination of others."

Another important person in the success of the University Center was Jim Pitts, then vice president for university relations, now director of FSU's international study program. "Jim Pitts was absolutely a key figure in getting this done," Miller said. "As vice president for university relations, he carried the campus. Bernie (Sliger) was outwardly supportive, but Pitts handled all the brush fires on campus."

Miller recalls a meeting at Westcott Hall one afternoon when the campus was reshuffled to make the one-stop shopping concept work. "We literally sat down and reorganized the University," Miller said. "Things were moved around like a big chess board. The school had need for the space. There was a funding mandate from the Board of Regents that said a certain number of credit hours offered by the University translated into prescribed amounts of office space and classrooms.

"Since we had the need and the legislature was responding through T.K. Wetherell, we realized this was a good opportunity to reorganize the physical space on campus and try to get people where they needed to be. I cannot tell you how exciting this was. In one afternoon we got it done."

Funding for the project would come from a number of sources, but the Boosters were responsible for building the skyboxes and athletic facilities. The Board of Regents insisted the Booster money go into the pot first. The Legislature appropriated $3.25 million for planning and design in 1988, and in 1989, the Boosters formed a select committee, called the "A-Team" to lead the effort to get approval for the project, build confidence, sell skyboxes and raise seed money.

Members were Manny Garcia, Andy Haggard, Canty Higdon, George Lanford, Mike McIntosh, Bill Parker, Gene Phipps, Burt Reynolds, Godfrey Smith, Hans Tews and Marguerite Williams.

"Gene Phipps became the real hero and lightning rod of this group," Miller said. "He put up the first million of the $10 million they eventually raised. To their credit, our board embraced the University Center idea and went to the bond market for $50 million to build all seats, skyboxes and stuff that was not covered by the state."

When it became public, Project SBI was renamed University Center to emphasize the University, rather than the athletic, uses of the complex. While it was an exciting venture, it did not reflect all Booster activity during the period.

In 1986 the Boosters took a large step toward the future with the election of Pinellas County businessman Bill Parker as president. Not only was the former three-sport athlete the first Booster president from outside the Tallahassee area, he also accepted chairmanship of the Endowed Scholarship Program and endowed the first $50,000 scholarship.

A co-founder with George Langford of the Golden Chiefs program ten years earlier, Parker moved quickly to round up the usual suspects for his new venture. "There were always people you could call on for anything," he said. "I asked George (Langford) to help me, and we got ten the first year from old friends like Rod Brim, Marguerite Williams, Gil Pirrung, Don Grant and Block Smith. If you ever had to have anything, those three were always right there."

The original goal was set at 240 scholarships. That goal has been reached, but the total has been pushed upward through the years. Eighteen years later, Parker remains chairman of the endowment program. "It's one of the most important programs ever started at Florida State, and I'm just glad to have been a part of it," he said.

Parker also helped negotiate the first affinity bank card agreement with Barnett Bank, a program that has grown into an extremely lucrative program that has endowed several scholarships and paid for FSU's soccer-softball complex among other things.

One of President Bernie Sliger's favorite appointees to various boards and committees, Parker helped select Pat Kennedy as FSU's new basketball coach in 1986, a significant move for FSU's future. Kennedy began his career at Florida State with an 80-76 victory over Florida at a packed Leon County Civic Center on Nov. 28, 1986.

Parker, along with Mike Fields, '87, Haggard, '88, and Ken Cashin, '89 served as leaders of the board in the late '80s and deserve credit for a great deal of progress in a short time period. During this period the title of the elected head of the Booster Board became Chairman, and the title of President was bestowed upon Miller. Not only did Miller's accomplishments rate the more prestigious designation, but, with out-of-town presidents becoming common -- Haggard was the second -- the board needed someone in Tallahassee with the authority to sign checks.

Another 1987 project was the development of Burt Reynolds Hall as an athletes' residence. Rooms were sold to eager donors who had their names placed on doors. "Bernie and the Bandit," featuring Sliger and Reynolds in a send-up of one of Reynolds' popular films, was the dedication theme, an event considered by some as one of the best ever staged by the Boosters.

By the end of 1988, 20 endowed scholarships were in hand. Booster membership exceeded 12,000 members and increased to 14,400 in 1989 as FSU football tickets became Florida's hottest sports entertainment product.

Florida State was rolling now. Kennedy's basketball team was a force in the strong Metro Conference and made the NCAA tournament two years straight. Mike Martin's baseball team dominated the Metro and made almost annual trips to the College World Series. What had become apparently annual hiccups against Miami prevented the Smeinoles from back-to-back undefeated seasons in 1987-88 and, in 1989, they charged to ten straight wins after opening the season, uncharacteristically, with tow straight losses.

But, despite its successes, football had problems not suffered by the other sports. Since the breakup of the non-scholarship Dixie Conference in 1950, FSU had played as an independent, turned down time and again for admission to the prestigious Southeastern Conference. Seminole athletic directors struggled to arrange home schedules attractive enough to warrant the planned stadium improvements.

This status would change, and soon, in a manner surprising to many loyal Seminoles.

Next: Florida State charges into the Atlantic Coast Conference as the University Center gains momentum.