By Jennifer Brooks Agwunobi
FSU Office of University Relations
Despite having signed to attend Miami, I visited the Florida
State campus. Why not? The rush parties the university threw
for prospective athletes were great. And with fourteen scholarship
offers, I got to be pretty good at being entertained. I expected
to see a pretty little campus covered with ivy, but not such
a charming little town.
Then I met one of the slickest, most charismatic men I have
ever met, and did he do a number on me.
Tom Nugent, the new head coach, was on a mission. Florida
State was going into big-time football. He was an innovative
genius; he gave football the I-formation, the typewriter huddle,
the lonesome end.
He was just as clever a recruiter of talent. Behind his desk
hung a beautiful, wide-angled photo of the FSU campus. I didn't
pay any attention to it when we first started talking about what
Miami was giving me.
"Buddy, will they give you that?" he asked, swiveling
around in his chair and pointing at the school picture.
"With your athletic ability and charm-well, son, you'll
own this entire campus. You'll start for me as a freshman.
You won't start as a freshman at Miami, but that's beside
the point. Do you know how many girls there are here?
"No, sir, I don't," I answered.
He said, "Well, this was a girl's school up until 1948,
not that this would have any effect on your decision. But there
are fourteen girls for every guy." -Burt Reynolds (1954-55)
Cherished stories like that one are among many in the new
book, "FSU Voices: An Informal History of 150 years."
A beautiful, 224-page pictorial coffee-table book, "FSU
Voices" tells its vignettes of history in chronological
order.
"It is not intended to be an official document, but an
informal history of Florida State University told by the people
who lived it," said "FSU Voices" editor, Maxine
Stern. "The chances are good that you will know, have been
taught by, or are related to some of the voices telling this
story."
"FSU Voices" is the first book that spans the entire
150 years of FSU's history.
It will be available by mid-November. FSU's 2002 Home-coming
Weekend will officially launch the book's release.
More information about "FSU Voices" is available
at (850) 644-1000 or www.fsu.edu.
|
CHARLIE
BARNES
