A few years ago I traveled with the family to Estes Park, Colorado for a week long family vacation which coincided with the Ole Miss vs. Wyoming game in Laramie, Wyoming. We drove and on the way out there we toured the University of Kansas and got to walk inside Allen Fieldhouse to take some pictures. On the way back we came through Lincoln, Nebraska and I was able to walk right in to Memorial Stadium, take the elevator down to field level, walk through the lockerroom (even brush shoulders with Coach Callahan in the hallway), go out on the field and take pictures from inside the stadium.
These kind of things just don't happen to everyone. Most people don't get the opportunity to travel like that, and when they get that opportunity they don't get to just waltz right into one of these stadiums or athletic facilities for a free tour. Fortunately, I am a blessed individual because it not only happened on that trip...it happened again this past weekend.
After the Rebels' sweet victory over the #4 Florida Gators in The Swamp (I just love typing that!), the family and I drove to Tallahassee to stay the night before heading on to Orange Beach, AL for a vacation. As you might imagine the folks in Tallahassee (FSU fans) were very complimentary of the Rebs and their win. I even got a few high fives in a restaurant that night.
The next morning we drove over to Florida State University to see the campus and get a look at their athletic facilities. We went by Doak Campbell Stadium and took a few pictures of the outside of the stadium. It has obviously been added onto over the years with some gothic-looking architectural buildings that appear to house offices and possibly even classrooms. There are some really nice sculptures outside the stadium of Bobby Bowden, one titled "Sportsmanship" showing a player helping another player up from the ground, and one titled "Unconquered" with the Seminole on horseback and spear in hand.
The cool part of this story happened when I was snooping around the stadium to see if there was a way I could get in to take a couple of pictures of the inside of the stadium. You know, just a peek through a tunnel or a gate that was open so I could walk up one of the ramps to snap a shot or two. Unlike Kansas and Nebraska where I essentially walked through an unlocked door or snuck onto an elevator, at FSU I actually received a grand tour from the head athletic trainer. Of course, my Ole Miss Law t-shirt didn't hurt after beating the Gators.
I caught the trainer unloading his truck (he still had all his bags packed from their game the day before against Colorado in Jacksonville at Alltel Stadium) and asked him if there was a way to get into take a few pictures. He saw my t-shirt and said, "Ordinarily, no...but since you guys whipped that other school for us, come with me."
He punched a password into a key pad and unlocked a steel door behind the building and we walked right into the athletic training room. There's nothing really special about an athletic training room...a bunch of patient tables, some exercise apparatus, and so on...but I was impressed with their aquatic training center. They had three endless therapy pools, two hot pools and two cold pools, and one of the endless therapy pools had a treadmill on the bottom.
After he set his bags down at his office, he walked me through another security door and we walked down a short hallway and into the lockerroom and player's lounge. From there we walked through yet another security door, down a tunnel, under an awning and onto the field!
What a cool experience!? My host was kind enough to take my picture for me just so you know I didn't make this stuff up.
The inside of the stadium is very nice. It's a uniform bowl all the way around with nice luxury skyboxes behind me in this photo. There is another set of skyboxes on the opposite sideline with a full length pressbox on the top floor. On the top of the bowl on the opposite endzone from where I am standing they have an open air club with awnings...similar to the Budweiser lounge at Ted Turner Field. The brick lining the walls around the field dress things up quite nicely, too. They have a Daktronics jumbotron that appears similar to the widescreen video board at Arkansas. Our HD jumbotron at Ole Miss is probably the only thing I could say is nicer (no ribbon boards at either Florida or Florida State).
And if all this wasn't enough, my host led me back through the lockerroom and out through the trophy room where I got to see Charlie Ward and Chris Weinke's Heisman Trophies along with the Seminole's National Championship Trophies. The funny thing was I told the guy that I wasn't a big fan of Weinke so I'd take a picture of Charlie Ward's Heisman. He responded with a sarcastic comment about Weinke saying "Well, he played here so we display his trophy, too." It was obvious he wasn't a big Weike fan, either.
All in all I was very impressed with Florida State. The athletic facilities are top notch (I walked onto the baseball field, too.) and the campus itself is very nice. The architecture is fairly uniform and the landscaping is well done. There is a lot more undulation to the terrain in that part of Florida, too, so the campus has a little more character than Gainesville. I look forward going down there for an Ole Miss game one of these days.
edge of the beach to chase fish. We saw blue herons, crabs, hermit crabs, and even caught a pancake ray and a jelly fish in a net so the girls could take a look close up. It was like an Animal Planet show all week long.
edge of the beach to chase fish. We saw blue herons, crabs, hermit crabs, and even caught a pancake ray and a jelly fish in a net so the girls could take a look close up. It was like an Animal Planet show all week long.
