Three Special Men

By Jim Joanos

In the past several weeks, three men, very important in the history of Florida State University athletics have passed on.

Bill Roetzheim

WILLIAM HENRY ROETZHEIM died on February 26th. Bill Roetzheim had the honor of being the team leader of Florida State's first ever athletic national championship.

After being a women's college for a long number of years, in 1947, Florida State again became coeducational and began participating in intercollegiate athletics. Sometime during the 1948-49 school year, Dr. Hartley Price was hired to start a men's gymnastics team at FSU. He did not waste any time. By the next school year, he had the gymnastics program going. Several seasoned gymnasts who had planned to go to the University of Illinois where he previously coached, instead followed him to Tallahassee. Among them was Bill Roetzheim, who at eighteen years of age, had already been a member of the 1948 USA Olympics team. Soon FSU's new men's gymnastics team was the best in the country. Bill's obituary pointed out that "In 1951 while a sophomore at FSU, William Roetzheim single handedly outscored all gymnastic teams in the National Collegiate Gymnastic Championships, winning FSU the first national athletic team championship in any sport." That same year, Roetzheim won a gold medal at the Pan American Games and in 1952, he again represented the United States in the Olympics, this time in Helsinki, Finland. In all, Roetzheim won nine national championships in AAU and NCAA competition. After FSU, Roetzheim went on to coach gymnastics in high school and college and eventually was the athletic director at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He was inducted into the Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 1975, and into the initial FSU Athletics Hall of Fame Class in 1977.

Lenny Hall

LEONARD R. HALL died on March 12th. As the Tallahassee Democrat stated, Hall was "FSU's first black (basketball) player and believed to be among the first at a predominantly white university in the Deep South."

Lenny Hall grew up in Camden, New Jersey. He came to Florida and at some point enrolled at St. Petersburg Junior College where he became a basketball star. For the 1965-66 season he was selected as an All-American Junior College player. At the time, Southern colleges were just beginning to admit small numbers of black students and athletic scholarships to black athletes were extremely rare. At FSU head coach Bud Kennedy and assistant Hugh Durham were so impressed with Hall that they decided it was time to set aside the barrier and they recruited Hall. It was not an easy decision and as a consequence they had to endure lots of controversy, nasty letters and even death threats. But they were successful and Hall came to FSU. He immediately fit in with the team.

FSU's season opening game for the season took place against Valdosta State in old Tully Gymnasium on the first day of December 1966. That game was remarkable for another reason as it was the first game in which Durham was FSU's head coach. Bud Kennedy had died of cancer shortly after the recruitment of Hall and Durham had been elevated to the top job.

In the game against Valdosta State, Hall shot twice and made two baskets. He also collected two rebounds. It happened in less than four minutes. Then, Hall came down hard and twisted his knee, forcing hime to leave the game. Shortly, thereafter, he re-entered the game and tried to play but the knee would not support him. He fell and his career as an FSU basketball player had ended. It would later be determined that there was cartilage damage. Brief as they were, those few minutes changed athletics at FSU forever. Those four minutes opened the door at FSU for the black athletes that followed who have accomplished so much.

After FSU, Hall returned to New Jersey. He first worked for the Camden City Health Department and then joined the Camden Police Department. During the years he won numerous honors as a police officer and served on a number of task forces. After retirement from the police department he worked in security and as a homeless coordinator for the family service of Camden. He came back to Tallahassee in 2007 when FSU honored him at a special ceremony in which he was presented with "the" letter jacket that he did not stay around to receive when he played.

Reubin Askew

REUBIN O'DONOVAN ASKEW died the next day on March 13th. Former Governor Askew has been regarded as FSU's number one alumnus and big time fan.

In 1950, when FSU had ceremonies to celebrate the opening of its new Doak Campbell Football Stadium, the student events were presided over by the student body president, Reubin Askew. Askew, born in Oklahoma and raised in Pesnsacola, after serving a couple of years as an Army paratrooper had become a student at FSU. Indicative of his later life, his leadership qualities had made him a very popular student leader and eventually he had been elected president of the student government association. At FSU he was in the ROTC program and at graduation was commissioned an officer in the Air Force. After two years in the Air Force he went to the University of Florida law school. Upon receiving his law degree he went back to Pensacola and began a career in the law. It did not take him long to get into politics. He rose from position to position. Ultimately, he became Governor of the State of Florida and at one point was even a candidate for President of the United States. Throughout his life he has had a most illustrious career as a teacher, lawyer, public official and all-round most outstanding human being. As a graduate of FSU, in a study done a few years ago, he was designated as the most outstanding of all FSU alumni. Throughout his adult years he has been a fantastic supporter of all things FSU.

We lost some very special people in the last few weeks.