I Opened a Whole Barrel of Seminoles!

I thought that I had written an interesting and thought-provoking article, one of historical value, a story of the sea and of family life, a tale of higher education and the beginning of an athletic dynasty that has set records during its relatively short time in existence.

The story of “Cousin Ed and the President of Gatorland” was published last week in the Jackson County Times. I was certain that my telling of the first football coach of the Seminoles would bring reactions aplenty from my reading friends.

And I was right!

A resident of Tallahassee, who was one of the early members of the Flying High Circus, a cheerleader and, before you get the wrong idea, a Marine, was at the Seminole Boosters’ Luncheon at The Gazebo Saturday, and I wanted him to see the article. I walked in and I was descended upon, not by happy Seminoles but by ones who gave me the message that “you didn’t go far enough”. George Cone reached me first, but before he could say anything Earl Williams elbowed him to one side and, loud and clear, asked “What about the basketball team in 1946? Ed coached that, too” Of course Earl was on the team, and he probably pitched horseshoes also, and maybe was point man on the curling team, but this was before Florida State University. It was still a girls’ school.

So here is a tenuous connection with that first basketball team, coached by Cousin Ed and made up of celebrities and near celebrities and plain ole’ boys, with at least one of them from Jackson County.

Jim Pavy was also a player. Jim was good with the hoops, and better at coaching. He finished school and began his coaching career. I met him when he was at Chattahoochee High School. He told me one day that “Ed taught me everything I know”, which I somehow doubt, because Jim came from a part of the country that glories in roundball. It is rumored that a birther there, whether a medical doctor or a midwife, catches the newborn, slaps his bottom and hands him a basketball.

I believe that Jim Pavy coached Malone to a state championship and ended up at Chipola. My daughter Meredith the Baseball Coach, who lettered in four sports in high school, received a scholarship for basketball, and Jim may have coached her.

My other daughter, Ashlee the Nutritionist, who had been a cheerleader in high school and a very good one, had to take a physical education course, so she and her friend Michelle, also a cheerleader, decided that golf was their game, probably because the outfits were cute. Their instructor was Jim Pavy. Last week Ashlee visited me and stocked my refrigerator with low fat, saltless, bland foods that may well still be there when she makes her next visit at Christmas. When I asked her about her golf experience, she told me that all she remembered was picking up golf balls by the bucketsful, and that she learned to keep score. She mentioned “eagles” and “birdies” and “mulligans”, but did not recall that the clubs were numbered or had individual shapes. I think that she got a B grade.

Other famous folks? D. L. Middlebrooks played on that first football team, and was later a Federal judge. Chris Kalfas, a Tallahassee native whose father began the Silver Slipper restaurant, where more legislation was passed than in the Capitol, was somewhere in the lineup. Chris and I hunted together on occasion and once I attended a family wedding. Let me tell you that the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” does not do justice to the real thing.

Ken McLean had played for the University of Florida before World War II, and was on the first Seminole team. I understand that he held records at both schools. Ken later coached at several high schools in the Big Bend. I knew him when he was assistant principal at Sneads High. He was still a Seminole “All the Damn Time”, as the famous yell went.

Saturday night I and my grandson Stuart went to Jerry’s Restaurant in Chattahoochee so that he could stoke up on fried shrimp. This seems to be one of his purposes in life, even though I have warned him of the very real possibility of his becoming the reason for making this sea creature an endangered species. Ben Dudley and his family came in, and Ben’s son complimented me on my articles.

Then Ben, who had been at the Seminole Boosters’ meet in Marianna, suggested that I had been incomplete in my describing the glories of the Seminoles. He ended up by reminding me that the first Renegade had been raised by a family from Chattahoochee, but that the patriarch of the family was a Gator by birth and upbringing. He mused that perhaps it was the girls in that clan who actually brought the steed up not to fear unruly crowds, and to stand firm while a steadfast young man, clad in full Indian regalia, rode out onto the field and hurled a lance into the Astroturf or Bermuda grass or Zoyzia or whatever the groundskeepers had placed there.

I said nothing, but nodded thoughtfully, and we took our leave since our waitress said that there was no more shrimp. She may have told us this because we were talking too much football, but probably because it is impossible to reach full capacity of a teenage boy. I certainly hope that she did not mean no more shrimp “in the Gulf”.

So here I sit, trying to please every Seminole fan or graduate or jock, knowing that as soon as the Times is placed in the newsstands I will get more calls, and that I will hear, as I walk the streets or try to sleep or dine or otherwise recreate, “Why don’t you tell about…….”. I intend to ignore each suggestion and go back to writing about rivers, or runners, or medals.

Unless I get confirmation that Army coach Red Blake recommended an assistant for FSU, and that assistant, whose name was Vince Lombardi, was turned down because he did not have head coaching experience.

That could be worthy of another Seminole column.