Trampoline and Football

By Jim Joanos

A lot of things happened to me during the year 1957 while I was in the Air Force.

I was sent to Weapons Director School at Tyndall Air Base near Panama City, Florida. I graduated from there in May and a week later Betty Lou and I were married. As a consequence, newly married, we were sent to be stationed at Hanscom Field near Boston where I was set to utilize the skills of my new job.

Soon, surprisingly, we learned that FSU was to play football at Boston College that very Fall. It would be the first time ever that the two teams played each other. This brought on lots of excitement. We could go to the game and hopefully see some FSU folks. We got in touch with two friends nearby and planned to go to the game together. One was Leroy Collins, Jr., the governor’s son. Roy had been student body president at Leon our senior year in high school. He had gone on to the Naval Academy and was stationed at the submarine school nearby in Connecticut. The other was longtime friend Coyle Moore, Jr. We had run track together at Leon and at FSU he was student body president when I was vice president. He was a first year law student at nearby Yale University.

On the day of the game we dressed up in our finest, as at the time, folks dressed up to go to football games. I had on my suit, tie and all and Betty Lou had on one of her garnet and gold outfits. Off we went to the game.

We did see a handful of folks from Tallahassee but not as many as we had hoped would be there. Fans did very little traveling to out of town games then. On the field we saw Johnny Sheppard, Ted Rodrique, Ron Schomburger, Bobby Renn, Fred Piccard, Bob Nellums and some others that were underclassmen when we were at FSU. Well, the game did not go as well as we hoped. Boston College beat FSU, 20-7.

Dick Gutting

The halftime show was a surprise. Remember back then FSU men’s gymnastics team was regularly among the counry’s best. There was a gymnast among them named Dick Gutting who had been the national champion in the trampoline event in the early fifties. The event has been discontinued since then because of its dangers.

As part of the halftime show, they wheeled a large trampoline out on the football field and FSU’s Gutting performed. Up and down he went. Gosh, he was good. Through the years, I have remembered his performance as one of the best halftime shows that I have ever seen.

A few years later, FSU terminated its men’s gymnastics program. But it cannot erase the memories of the times that FSU won the first ever team national championships, 1951 and 1952, in any sport.

Sadly, what I remember most about that weekend was that it was the last time that I would see Coyle before he was diagnosed with Cancer. The visits thereafter were all with that shadow hanging over them. The visits when he was in the hospitals were especially difficult. He died in 1961. Coyle’s funeral was one of the saddest events that I have ever attended. At both Leon High and FSU, Coyle Moore, Jr., is well remembered by those of us who were there as an outstanding, intelligent, well rounded, leader. To me he was also a great friend.

About the author:

Jim Joanos

Memories of Garnet and Gold

Jim Joanos and his wife Betty Lou have deep roots at Florida State University. Avid sports fans, they have literally seen, and done, it all. Fortunately for us, Jim loves telling first-hand accounts dating back to FSU’s first football game, a 1947 clash with the Stetson Hatters on Centennial Field, where Cascades Park is today.

The Osceola will run a series of these colorful stories written by the former Tallahassee lawyer and judge, which we feel our readers will find enlightening and/or nostalgic.

Jim and Betty Lou, who was Associate Director of the FSU Alumni Association (1991-2003), have been married 65 years and are each listed as one of FSU’s 100 Distinguished Graduates. The couple were enshrined in the FSU Hall of Fame in 2015 as Moore-Stone Award Recipients. Ironically, both Deans Moore and Stone were instrumental in the Joanoses career development.

“Both Jim and Betty Lou Joanos have been exemplary fans and supporters of Florida State University, both academically and athletically,” said Andy Miller, retired President and CEO of Seminole Boosters, Inc. “You can’t go to an athletic event of any kind that you don’t see both Jim and Betty Lou Joanos together. They love their university as much as they love each other.”