An American Hero...Johnnie P. Stephens, Jr.

By Jim Joanos

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.---John 15:13

John Stephens

Johnnie Perry Stephens, Jr., died as he had lived, as a leader of men. Early on the morning of April 22, 1969, U.S. Army Lieutenant Stephens, age twenty-three, was leading his platoon in a search and clear mission near the village of Duc Tan, in northern South Vietnam when he was mortally wounded. Thus, came to an end, in a far away land, the life of one of Florida State's most overachieving athletes. This story is about that special man.

Johnnie Stephens was born on November 6, 1945, in Starkville, Mississippi. Because of his father's work as a civil service radio communicator, the family moved to Tallahassee within a year of Johnnie's birth. About two years later, also for employment reasons, the family moved again to Pensacola where they would live for five years before returning back to Tallahassee when Johnnie was in the second grade. The family lived in Tallahassee thereafter throughout Johnnie's life. The family, including the parents, Johnnie, and his three sisters was always a loving, tight knit one and fit well into the Tallahassee community which was much less populated during Stephens' youth than is the case today. Johnnie's sister Peggy Stephens Workman says that they had "one of the old time families with Mother at home and Daddy working". Johnnie's lifetime friend, Huel Wheeler, has described Johnnie's father, Johnnie Perry Stephens, Sr., who died a few years ago as a "role model of strength who believed in the good old hard work ethic". Wheeler says that Johnnie's mother, Dorothy Stephens, continues to be "a great inspiration" to him. He said that when they were kids, Mrs. Stephens was a "mama" to him as well as to Johnnie. In gathering information for this column, I had the privilege of visiting with Mrs. Stephens in her home on Lake Talquin. She lives modestly in a small house surrounded by photographs and mementoes of the very happy life that she has enjoyed. She is very, very proud of not only the son who died for his country, but of his three sisters and their families and accomplishments. She is gray haired now but sparkles in a youthful way as she speaks of the days when her only son was a star athlete. It is very easy to see why Johnnie's friends and teammates would be so willing to adopt her as a second mother. In the very short time that I visited with her, I came away enriched and refreshed. Just a few minutes around that wonderful lady made me feel real good about the world.

A "team player" from the beginning

Stephens grew up, like most Tallahassee boys of his time, being very fond of sports, dogs, and outdoor life. By his middle school years, Stephens was competing in three sports, baseball, basketball, and football. Early on, there were indications that Johnnie was something special. Sister Peggy says that one year in little league baseball, the coach wanted to award the team's sportsmanship award to Johnnie. Johnnie refused the offer because he believed that another kid, a handicapped one, deserved the award more than he did. His middle school basketball coach, Dave Raker, regards him as one of the finest people that he has ever known. Raker tells a story about how Stephens, in the spirit of team unity, was willing to share in the blame for misdeeds that others had done in the damaging of a dressing room at an away game when Stephens had in no way been a part of the incident. He was always a "team player".

By his high school years, Stephens had become an outstanding football and baseball player. In football, at Leon High School in Tallahassee, he was a center on offense and a linebacker on defense. He was also the team's long snapper. He worked very hard. Wheeler tells stories about how Stephens practiced centering the ball for punts and place kicks. Each day after practice, Wheeler was required to stick around with Stephens while he practiced long snapping. Stephens would center the "ball" about fifty times each day. However, instead of using a regular football, Stephens would use one of those "heavy" medicine balls. Wheeler said that Stephens could "humm that medicine ball".

Wheeler also tells of how "tough" Stephens was. He said that in one practice, although Stephens had been "cleated in his eye area" and was bleeding profusely, he continued to practice until the coach directed Wheeler to take Stephens to the hospital to get the severe cut stitched up. As a result of his hard work, at the end of his senior year, Stephens was named the Florida Big Bend region's "lineman of the year" as well as its first team center. When the award was presented, Stephens' coach at Leon, Bill Sexton, Sr. (the father of FSU's current running backs coach) described Johnnie as the "best lineman that I've ever coached in fifteen years of coaching". Incidentally, also on that same All Big Bend team was a guy named Del Williams from Live Oak's Suwanee County High School who would be a close friend and teammate of Stephens at FSU where they would be valuable members of an outstanding line. Stephens' high school teammates also selected him to receive the honored Tallahassee Quarterback Club's Sportsmanship Award which was awarded to one player from each high school team in the Tallahassee area each year.

Stephens also had an outstanding high school baseball career. A catcher, he was an all star in American Legion baseball. In his senior year, he was selected as his high school baseball team's most valuable player.

When Stephens graduated from high school, he had choices to make. In addition to Florida State, he was recruited by the University of Mississippi as well as the University of Alabama. Sister Peggy tells of how honored the family was to have the coaches from the University of Alabama have dinner at their home on a trip to Tallahassee. She said that when Johnnie visited Alabama, he roomed with Joe Namath over the weekend. Sister Peggy said that during the trip to Alabama Johnnie became convinced that he really wanted to stay in Tallahassee and play for the Seminoles for that was where his "heart was".

Freshman football

Stephens entered FSU in the fall of 1963 and played freshman ball the first year as freshmen were not allowed to play on the varsity team then. While they played a few games against other freshmen teams, the main purpose of the freshman team was to scrimmage against the varsity. The 1963 FSU freshman team, in addition to Stephens, included a number of others who would in time contribute heavily to FSU football. Some of them were Wayne Giordino, Larry Green, Kim Hammond, John Hosack, Wayne McDuffie, Bill Moremen, Lee Narramore, Charles Pennie, and T.K. Wetherell, as well as Del Williams.

Stephens never red shirted. From the beginning, in his first varsity year, the 1964 season, he was a valuable member of the team. He backed up Jack Edwards at center and was the team's long snapper. He played in every game and made every long snap without a single mishap. No one that I have talked to can remember Stephens ever making an error in centering ball, regular or long snapping, during the three years that he performed those functions for FSU's varsity. Sister Peggy recalls that once a sportswriter blamed Johnnie for a fumble that occurred in a game. However, head coach Bill Peterson, after reviewing film, was fast to correct the assertion and pointed out that the fumble that had occurred was not caused by the center snap.

The first "great" FSU season

In 1964, under head coach Bill Peterson, FSU turned the corner and first took its place among the more outstanding college football programs in the country. It was a season of big happenings for FSU. The football rules had changed just before the season, and once again, two platoon football, which had been prohibited for about ten years, was allowed. Coach Peterson took full advantage of the new rules and implemented a pro-style passing offense. The offense featured quarterback Steve Tensi and flanker, Fred Biletnikoff. Both would later become outstanding NFL players. On defense, the 1964 team featured the famous "Seven Magnificents" and the "Forgotten Four". The season began with a 14-0 victory over the University of Miami in the Orange Bowl Stadium. In the fourth game of that year, FSU put the college football world on notice when it defeated the fifth ranked team in the country, Kentucky, 48-6 in a homecoming game at Doak Campbell Stadium which was filled to capacity, which at the time, was 40,000 fans. Other victories that year included a 17-14 victory at the University of Georgia, and, of course, the first ever victory over Florida, 17-6, in the first ever game played against Florida in Tallahassee. The only blemishes on the record that year was an upset loss at Virginia Tech, 11-20, and a 13-13 tie at Houston.

The 1964 season ended on a real upbeat. FSU was invited for the first time to play in the annual Gator Bowl game, considered at the time as one of the more important bowl games. In the Gator Bowl, FSU totally dominated the University of Oklahoma, 36-19. The victory climaxed what was easily FSU's most outstanding season up to then.

Iron Man

In 1965, Johnnie Stephens became the starter at center and did something that very, very few people have done in the history of FSU football. The undersized center, about 6'1" and 190 pounds played every single down of offense. I checked with long time FSU assistant coach, Bob Harbison. He knows of no other FSU player that has ever done that. Partially responsible for this was that the backup at center, Wayne McDuffie, broke his hand in preseason practice and was unavailable for many of the games. Incidentally, the third string center on that team was a player named, Bob Urich, who would later become a famous movie and television actor. Stephens and Urich were close friends and roomed together for a period of time at FSU. Stephens was something of a mentor to the younger Urich.

The 1965 team went 4-5-1, which was something of a disappointment following the outstanding 1964 season. However, there were some outstanding wins. For the second year in a row, the FSU team won a game against the team ranked number five in the country when the game was played. This time, it was the University of Georgia, which FSU beat in Tallahassee, 10-3. FSU also beat Baylor, Virginia Tech, and Wake Forest, and tied Houston. Losses were to Texas Christian, Kentucky, Alabama, North Carolina State, and Florida. The Florida game in Gainesville provided a great deal of excitement at the end of the season as FSU led 17-10 with less than two minutes left in the game. But then, some heroics by Florida's passing combination of quarterback Steve Spurrier and receiver Charley Casey as well as a pass interception return for a touchdown, enabled the Gators to win, 30-17.

A leader in 1966

For the 1966 season, Stephens was one of the team leaders. Harbison remembers Stephens as "not being real big as you would expect a center to be today". He says that Stephens came to FSU undersized and did not grow much. He further describes him as "a tough kid, intelligent, a handsome young man". The team used different game captains each game. It is significant that Stephens along with Wayne Giardino were designated game captains for the first game of the season and served on other occasions as well.

The team lost the first game to Houston, 13-21, but went on to a pretty good season with a 6-4 regular season record, despite a most controversial loss to Florida in Tallahassee. In the final moments of the Florida game, FSU quarterback Gary Pajcic threw what appeared to be the winning touchdown pass to Lane Fenner in the right corner of the north end zone. However, one of the Southeastern Conference officials who were officiating ruled that Fenner did not have possession when he rolled out of bounds. Photographs and films of the play that were released the next day convinced a lot of people that the official had erred in making the call.

There were some special victories in 1966. They included a 23-20 win at Miami, a 42-33 victory at Texas Tech, a 10-0 victory over Mississippi State, a 32-10 win at South Carolina, a 28-0 win over Wake Forest, and a 45-21 victory over Maryland. FSU historian, James P. Jones, has described the 1966 season as "a big step back toward the successes of 1964" and that it was "a year of exciting games and offensive fireworks".

After the 1966 regular season, FSU was invited to play Wyoming in the Sun Bowl game. Despite playing well in the first half, FSU fell behind in the second half and lost to Wyoming 20-28. Wyoming was led by future NFL star running back, Jim Kiick. The Sun Bowl game ended Johnnie Stephens' football playing career at FSU.

In 1967, Stephens married his high school sweetheart, Sally, who he had dated since about the eleventh grade. Sally graduated before Johnnie and got a job teaching at Carrabelle High School. Johnnie went to Carrabelle, too, to do his internship as an industrial arts teacher and assistant football coach.

Lieutenant Stephens

Stephens graduated from FSU in 1968 and on the same day, having completed his Reserve Officers Training Program in college, was designated as a "Distinguished Military Graduate" and commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Army. Coach Peterson had offered Stephens a job as a graduate assistant at FSU. Stephens put the job on hold so that he could fulfill his military obligation to serve on active duty. Peterson promised Stephens that when his military tour ended, that the job would be waiting for him. Stephens' mother recalls Johnnie's military commitment by saying that "being in the Army was just something that he had to do."

After a short training program in Panama, Stephens was sent to Vietnam as a platoon leader. Just a little over two months later, he was killed. Edward Raymond, one of the soldiers in Johnnie's platoon has described the event on a Vietnam war veterans' web site. "We knew something was up that morning when our platoon saddled up for patrol. There was a seriousness to our duty and Lt. Stephens took a position among the first four guys in the point element. It didn't take long. We were walking uphill...on a rocky path where you watched where you were stepping more than what was up ahead. The five guys at the point rounded a bend and the maelstrom started. Lt. Stephens was killed instantly. Three others were mortally wounded and died enroute or at the hospital." Raymond writes further that while he "didn't know Lt. Stephens that well" because Stephens had only recently arrived, the two had "shared bunker guard duty one night" when they had talked "about college football". He further described Stephens as "a leader, a responsible leader, who gave all for his men".

Posthumously, Stephens was awarded several medals in addition to the Purple Heart. They included the Bronze Star, the Gallantry Cross with palm, as well as the national defense and Vietnam service medals. When learning of Stephens' death, his teammate at FSU, Del Williams, wrote to the Stephens family. Williams who had played alongside Stephens for four years wrote that he had "learned to respect him like a brother" and that "God never made a finer person or a better friend".

The effect that this outstanding young man had upon people continues to this day. In 1969, Carrabelle High School, where Stephens had coached while an intern, dedicated its football season to Stephens. That same year the school established the John Stephens Award which is given at the end of each season to the most outstanding Carrabelle football player. In 1989, Stephens was posthumously inducted into the Leon High School Football Hall of Fame. A large group of family members and friends as well as a number of his former coaches attended the event.

In November of 2000, Helge Swanson wrote a nice story about Tallahassee's old, abandoned baseball park, Centennial Field. Swanson had played against Stephens in high school sports and then roomed with him when they were both on the freshman fooball team at FSU. In the article, Swanson made a pitch to have the old ballpark restored. He also suggested that the field be renamed for Johnnie Perry Stephens, Jr., who had played in so many baseball and football games on that field when he was growing up. A number of other people in Tallahassee have signed on to Swanson's idea. It would be great way to honor the Tallahassee boy who grew up on that wonderful field, became a leader of men and went on to give his life for his country.

Johnnie Stephens' life continues to be a symbol of the best in FSU athletics.