JD Wiener
Mat Wenzel
ENC 2135
10 July 2018
Doak Campbell Stadium
As I walk past the “Unconquered” horse statue named “Renegade” and into the “largest brick structure in the United States”, according to the Orlando Sentinel, I imagine 85,000 fans cheering as I run out of the tunnel for my first game as a Florida State Seminole. It is massive, the 14th largest college football stadium in the whole country. I look up into the empty student section and picture thousands of my peers screaming and cheering as we get ready to play our first game. I look up into the middle of the stands and picture my parents and family, sitting in the bleachers, proud to watch me accomplish my goals. I sit and picture the smoke coming out and the fireworks shooting off as the team runs out of the locker room as one unit. I picture everyone screaming and then becoming silent at once as the captains do the coin toss. As I sit inside the empty stadium, I realize this is what all these years of training were for, for these moments, in this place, in the near future.
The field is freshly mowed, different from the astroturf I am used to playing on in high school. The goal posts are a shiny yellow with garnet and gold “Florida State” covers wrapped around the bottom. The lines are freshly painted up and down the field and the endzones are painted garnet with gold lettering saying “Florida State” in one end zone, and “Seminoles” in the other. The seminole head is also painted directly on the 50 yard line, where mascots Renegade and Chief Osceola will plant the spear before every home game. This is the same field where Florida State has been playing since its football team was founded in 1950. This is the same field that Heisman trophy winners, Charley Ward, Chris Weinke and Jameis Winston made a name for themselves. This is the same field that has sent over 250 players to the National Football League (NFL), according to seminoles.com. This is the same field where hundreds of games have been played by some of the best athletes around the country. This is also the same field that I hope to be playing on myself one day, being apart of the Florida State football community.
As I look up into the North end zone, I see the second largest jumbotron for any college in the country, spanning 120 feet wide and over 78 feet tall! I get butterflies as I imagine my picture being up there in the future as I get prepared for a game in front of thousands and thousands of people. As I look around the top of the stadium I see all the championship banners, like the 3 National Championships from 1993, 1999 and 2013 or the 18 ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference). It gives me chills when I think of all the traditions and accomplishments I am going to be apart of. It makes me think of success, that in this stadium, teams have won championships and accomplished their goals and it gives me motivation to one day be apart of that, to add to the banners.
As I leave the stadium I come across the sod cemetery. The sod cemetery is a very important tradition in the Florida State football community. Every big away game, whether it be a championship or an upset, that FSU comes out victorious, a player cuts out a piece of the grass and soil and brings it back to the sod cemetery. It is set up like a graveyard, having plates of the score and the game for each piece of sod in the sod cemetery. This is another tradition that only Florida State does to separate themselves from other schools around the country.
Whether it be the countless bricks around the stadium, the massive jumbotron, or the one and only sod cemetery, Doak Campbell Stadium is a unique and special part of Florida State football. Visiting Doak Campbell Stadium helped me learn about some of the traditions Florida State football has to offer and it got me even more excited about being apart of the football community here. The stadium is not only where Florida State football plays but it symbolizes the community as a whole and I can’t wait to one day get a chance to be apart of the community and get a chance to play in Doak Campbell Stadium.