Not a seat at the Wakulla Springs Lodge was empty, nor did one stir, when the “Sons of the 60s” gathered to reminisce on the magical decade under former head coach Bill Peterson. Those years from 1960 to 1970 produced the first wins over Florida, Georgia, Penn State, Oklahoma, No. 5 Kentucky and more. The national media began to acknowledge FSU players with All-American honors as attendance grew and Doak Campbell Stadium expanded.

While not a seat stirred, they did jiggle with laughter as former players and coaches recited their favorite “Peterson malapropism,” those quizzical statements that were the result of a tongue that was not as quick as Peterson’s brilliant mind.

In one excited locker room prior to a rare, televised game, Peterson wanted his players to look uniform when the national anthem was played, so he ordered the players to “stand on their helmets with the sideline under their arm.”

To establish who is in command, Pete shouted: “I’m the football around here and don’t you remember it.”

His evaluation of why a receiver was dropping passes across the middle: “He hears footprints.”

And of course there was the time he asked defensive end Ronnie Wallace to: “Lead the team in a few words of silent prayer.”

Or when he said, “Nobody goes to the Silver Slipper anymore. It’s too crowded.”

And the seat that jiggled with laughter the most was occupied by three-time Super Bowl champion Joe Gibbs whose giggle was unrestrained, guffawing at every memory told by fellow assistant Dan Henning, Don Breaux and Bobby Jackson, who have eight Super Bowl rings among them.

A 21-year veteran of the NFL, Jackson would remind you of former offensive line coach Rick Trickett in stature, and with the cowboy hat and an even bigger personality.

Jackson developed a collection of nearly 150 of Coach Pete’s malapropisms, which he gladly shared to the amusement of the crowd.

Gibbs shared a story about his first day on campus, Peterson invited him to attend a high school sports banquet where Pete was to speak. He made a call to the person who had written his speech, complimenting him on the content but asking, “Now which guy was Goliath?”

The coaches reminded the players that while Peterson stumbled over his words, everyone got his point and that’s why the results were so good.

Like this statement: “When our little boys saw the inside of the astronomical bowl, their eyes were as big as sausages.”

Those four Pete assistants, who have enjoyed long and successful careers in major cities throughout the country, were here in Wakulla County and completely engaged in reminiscing with the players on the improbable wins they had conjured against far more established opponents.

It was easy to understand why the former players were so engaged. These were the formative years of their lives, boys leaving their homes and the adulation of their high school years to navigate the unrelenting demands of the college game while earning a degree.

But what compelled Gibbs to make the trek back in time and back to the Lodge, let alone Henning, Breaux and Jackson?

Apparently, the NFL Hall of Fame coach and his assistants, found their years at Florida State to be as formative to their lives as those years were for the players.

“I was 26 years old. I wasn't much older than these guys,” Gibbs said, “so when I meet them like this, the first thing I have to do is apologize, because I was 26. I'm not sure how good of a job I did, but you know, you're working at it, you're young, and so I just always start off by telling them I appreciate them and what they were willing to do.”

“I think it’s because Coach Gibbs loved Coach Pete as much as all of us did,” said Bill Cappleman succinctly.

Cappleman also pointed to a very poignant moment when Gibbs testified that the most important decision in his life was made during those years, when he re-committed his life to Christ.

“He’s been to the top in a couple of areas, football and racing, and that isn’t the important thing in his life anymore,” Cappleman said.

“Florida State was a very instrumental place in our life when we were changing from teenagers to young men, trying to make a living, starting families, a lot of important decisions were being made,” Cappleman said. “All of those (coaches) were trying as hard as they possibly could to make us the best we could be on and off the field; better football players and better people.

“I didn’t realize it was that short of an age span between us and them at the time. We all believed what they said. We were going to do it that way or give it our best effort to do it that way. Thank goodness they told us the right things.”

And it’s not like Gibbs lacks anything to do. Inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2020, the Joe Gibbs Racing team has won five NASCAR Cup Series Championships and 230 Cup races and its sprawling North Carolina campus is reportedly valued at $786 million.

“When talking about Florida State in those days, some of those victories against some of the biggest and most powerful schools, Alabama, Texas A&M, Florida, I think back to all that. Just really, really, it was great to be a part of it,” Gibbs said.

Toughness and belief

Gibbs finds it rewarding to see those players have gone on to success in life.

“That program was hard,” Gibbs said. “If you went through that program, just like they talked about ‘the room’ and everything we had in place … all the guys I talked to that were a part of that time at Florida State, they're really successful in life. First of all, if you stayed there for five years you played for sure, I don't care what your physical ability was.”

Gibbs believes the trust, belief, persistence and toughness those players exhibited in their college years later spilled over into their careers.

“I think in life those guys have just proven to be very, very successful in what they've ventured out into,” Gibbs said.

Gibbs spoke of how gifted Peterson was at evaluating not just the quality of very young assistants but also in evaluating the character of his players.

When he first arrived from San Diego State, he said he remembered thinking the players weren’t very big or very talented and wondered if he had made a mistake. But after watching how the players responded to coaching, including unmerciful wrestling matches in “the room” under Doak Campbell stadium he saw an uncommon toughness and belief.

At the same time, Gibbs found Peterson’s demands as unrelenting of the assistants as it was of the players.

He told a story of his first week, when Peterson kicked his quarterback in the rear end after throwing an interception, dressed down Gibbs at the staff meeting the following morning, and threatened a fate worse than being fired. But in Gibbs voice you could feel the love for Peterson, the same tough love you could feel from the players who talked about how “the room” turned them into men.

And that appreciation for Pete’s contribution to building the foundation of their careers is what drove Gibbs, Henning, Breaux, Jackson and all these players and wives back to the Lodge at Wakulla Springs.

Icing on the cake

“It was very special the four coaches, who are such popular figures in the sports world both college and pro football. They were a special icing on the cake,” said former defensive back John Crowe, who organized the event along with linebacker Dale McCullers, Stan Walker, offensive guard Larry Pendleton and Larry Green.

“The coaches made it very special,’ Crowe said. But the other thing that is very special is these are people who came together who have done something special that wasn’t easy. Playing football is not easy, especially at Florida State when we played it. But it is something we did together and it has bonded us in something nobody can ever take away from us, so when we come together it is very special moment.”

A decorated U.S. Air Force pilot, and a former CEO of Buckeye Technologies, who majored in mathematics and chemistry, Crowe said there were many other guys who wanted to attend but could not be here because of their age or their ability to travel.

“Bobby Jackson said you better do it soon before someone takes the keys to my car away and I can’t come,” Crowe said.

The Lodge

The event location was significant to all who attended.

Once the scene of Tarzan episodes, and reportedly “Creatures of the Black Lagoon,” the Lodge at Wakulla Springs is where Peterson brought his football teams on the Friday night before home games.

The players would have a short practice on Friday, then load up the bus for the 30-minute drive south. They would have film sessions with the coaches, free time to walk the grounds and feed the squirrels before dinner and a movie. Saturday was breakfast before boarding the bus for an afternoon game or lunch then board the bus for a night game.

More than 60 years later, those players arrived on canes, walkers or wheel chairs. One commented, “Have you noticed we all walk alike.”

And they are the healthy ones as Crowe said a number of players, who now have caretakers, are unable to travel.

After a hysterical two-hour session of tale telling, the group enjoyed dinner with guest speakers Gene Deckerhoff and Charlie Barnes. After the dinner, the room turned somber as teammates read off the names and jersey numbers of 75 fellow teammates who have passed away, along with a list of 25 former coaches and staff members no longer with us.

The roll call included a number of the assistant coaches Peterson hired including Don James, Bobby Bowden, Gene McDowell, Wayne McDuffie, Bob Harbison, former teammate and academic advisor TK Wetherell, who later became FSU President (2003-10) and more.

Records galore

Ron Sellers still holds some 17 receiving records, along with many other offensive records, but the Sons of the 60s also hold many defensive records as well. Fellow teammate and 1st team All American Dale McCullers tops the FSU record books for most tackles in a game with 29 against Texas A&M. McCullers is also ranked 2nd and 5th, with 26 against Florida and 21 against Texas Tech. Teammate Chuck Elliott also had 21 against South Carolina. McCullers is ranked 2nd for most tackles in a season.

And remember, all of their season records were set at a time college football played a 10 games season and during three year careers as freshmen were ineligible back then.

Don James was the defensive coordinator of the 1964 Magnificent Seven and secondary coach for the Forgotten Four, which still holds many school records, among them for fewest points in a season (66), in a game (6.6), fewest touchdowns (8) as well as fewest yards in a season (1,181), avg. per game (118.1) and per play (3.3).

“Don James was a special person, he was secondary coach my first two years here, and really a great coach,” said Bill Cox (1964-68). “I got to know him later in coaching, because when I was coaching at the University of Tampa back in 1972, he was the head coach at Kent State, and so I saw him then. And then he went to Washington as head coach.”

James would win a national championship at Washington (1992). And of course Bowden, who was Pete’s receiver coach from 1962-65, won championships in 1993 and 1999.

“I never realized when I played and coached for Coach Peterson how he really was as good as he was,” said Cox, who would later serve as an assistant for Earl Bruce and Johnny Majors. “I thought he just hired a bunch of really good assistant coaches, but he was in charge of it all. I always underestimated him, but he had to be so much more than what we all realize, because the coaches we had. The assistant coaches were just phenomenal young guys that had never really coached anywhere else before, and worked with all of them, they've done, you know, just amazing.”

The Room

Throughout the story telling, there were multiple references from the players and the coaches to “the room.”

While some were open to admitting they remain haunted by memories of being thrust into the room to wrestle fellow teammates, many cited those challenges as fundamental to the program and their growth from boys to men.

“Nobody resented it. Nobody held a grudge,” Cappleman said. “We tried to do what they told us to do.”

Except maybe the time Peterson told them to line up “Alphabetically by height.”

“It is like former Peterson assistant Bill Proctor said, ‘You will never go through anything any tougher than what you are getting ready to go through but everybody appreciated it in the end.’ ”

Proctor would serve as President of Flagler College for 25 years and later serve as an interim athletic director at FSU.

“Going down memory lane with so many great memories and longtime friends. I’m beyond words for what a great show they did put on here tonight,” Sellers said. “I haven’t been back to the Wakulla Springs hotel since 1968. I don’t know why I did that but I’ll be back.”

Barry Smith was among the last players recruited by the Peterson staff, initially by Gibbs. Players like Fred Biletnikoff and Sellers were his heroes.

“I wanted to be here because I’m a die-hard Seminole and love the place,” Smith said. “I wanted to be here because of the history. They built the foundation and we kept building on it. I’m here out of respect to these guys and those coaches.”

Jack Fenwick (1964-68) was recruited by Bowden along with five others out of Ohio.

“Joe Gibbs was the assistant offensive line coach and asked me, well, he didn’t really ask, they wanted to shift me from tight end to left tackle,” Fenwick said. “I was probably 6-5, 215, but my playing weight during my playing years was about 225 and 230. I was the third or fourth biggest guy on the team.”

Although Fenwick said he wasn’t recruited by anyone else, he became one of FSU’s first offensive linemen to earn All-American honors, including being featured in the Playboy Preseason All-American team issue.

“I always show that issue to my sons and ask, “Have any of you ever been in Playboy magazine?”

If it weren’t for an early enlistment in the Navy, Fenwick might have signed an NFL contract. But he made the commitment to be a Navy aviator. The war in Vietnam wound down a few years into his commitment and he was discharged. He considered an NFL opportunity until he heard linemen were making $16,000 per year. Instead, he chose what became a long career in law enforcement as a special investigator, primarily on organized crime and smuggling, then working his way up through the Governor’s office to inspector general for Department of Health and Human Services.

Upon retirement at age 51, Fenwick and a fellow former special agent went into private business before retiring in his mid 70s.

“The experience at Florida State changed me totally,” Fenwick said. “My mom and dad had grown up on small farms so coming down here opened my eyes.”

Return to Doak and facility tour

The Sons of the 60s enjoyed breakfast at the Lodge, where they were presented with a 50-year Emeritus Award medallion by the Alumni Association, before taking the drive to Doak where they returned to the scene of so many fond memories.

As they were walking off the field, one former player noticed the H-shaped goal posts, reminiscent of the goal posts Peterson’s teams ran through when entering the field at FSU, and at LSU, where he previously coached.

In tribute to Coach Pete, and the players who played for him, the Peterson Family arranged to have the H-shaped goal posts reinstalled at Florida State in 2002. It is believed that Florida State and LSU are the only two schools not currently using T-shaped posts.

In addition to visiting the gameday locker room, they enjoyed a full tour of the new Albert and Judith Dunlap Football Center, where Mike Norvell met them in the lobby to tell them how important they were to the foundation of the program and invited them to return on the Fridays before home games to share their stories with the current players.

The facility tour included a tribute to every All-American past and all draft picks, which included Sellers and Smith from the tour group.

Upon entering the weight room, a voice asked, “Is it OK if he pump some iron?” There were private conversations comparing the vast expanse of weight racks to what they had back in the day.

Yet they remembered offensive guard/linebacker Phil Arnold, who didn’t weigh more than 220, locking out 500 pounds on the bench press.

The highest tech room was the virtual-reality room. The artificial-turf room and screen above is 53 yards wide, the same as a football field. The tour guide asked the former players to imagine the walk through practices they used to have before games, whether on Friday on the practice field or in the parking lot of the Wakulla Lodge. Well, now coaches can do those walk throughs in this room, with the screen above showing exactly how will look when lined up in their formation.

You could see the heads nodding in appreciation of how that would help.

What they didn’t demonstrate was the technology’s ability to show the opponent in full movement after the snap, something the players can work against year-round.

The group was taken into the team meeting room where FSU General Manager John Garrett presented a PowerPoint on the organization of the recruiting and portal staff structure, as well as cells on the 10 commands of player evaluation, four of which are physical characteristics and six of which address the intangibles a player must have to be considered recruitable. The final slides in the deck drilled down on the physical and intangible qualities required at each position.

Hope for the future

With the advent of NIL and the transfer portal, the players wonder whether future players are experiencing the same personal impact or whether they will form similar lifetime bonds.

“I just hope the kids that are playing today can get that feeling because too much of it is about money,” Crowe said. “We had the ability to focus on an education because we knew we had to have it. That was the foundation. These guys are smart people, they are not just football players. The foundation for my career was built on the toughness I developed playing college football here and a quality education. If you have those two things, you can lose your fortune and earn it back. You can’t take it away from us.“

And on this, the eve of America’s 250th Anniversary, we’ll leave you with one last Petersonism – “This is the greatest country in America.”

Photos courtesy Rylas Lee. Thanks for reading the Osceola. Subscribe now for 40 percent off to enjoy a full year of coverage of FSU athletics. You’ll also earn a $15 gift card at the Osceola’s merch store.