PASADENA, Calif. - Mike Walsingham was present for the first BCS championship game when Florida State lost to Tennessee in the Fiesta Bowl in 1998. On Monday night in Pasadena, Calif., he was there for the final BCS title game before a playoff system is initiated next year.
The Bay County businessman and longtime Seminole booster flew out of Tallahassee on Saturday with an FSU Booster charter flight. Nine family members in the Walsingham contingent made the trip.
Walsingham has attended all but one of FSU’s national championship games, the lone exception in 2001 when the Seminoles fell to Oklahoma. Even in the “down years,” when the Seminoles were losing an almost unspeakable five or six games a season, Walsingham was optimistic about another title quest.
“If we got the right people back in place and recruited, well, I felt like eventually it would happen,” Walsingham said.
Another factor prompting his trip was the location of the game.
“This is the first time I’ve ever been out here,” Walsingham said. “This is the only place none of us have ever been, and we always wanted to go to the Rose Bowl.”
Walsingham said that a fleet of more than 20 buses left the property where the family is staying about noon on Monday, heading for the Florida State tailgate party.
“I’ve heard it’s sold out. They’re expecting 10,000 people,” he said.
Bay County Commissioner Guy Tunnell was among them. Tunnell’s only other experience with FSU in the national championship spotlight previously came when the Seminoles defeated Virginia Tech to complete an undefeated season in 1999.
“I was planning on watching (Monday’s game) from the comfort of my recliner in front of my big-screen TV,” Tunnell said.
Instead, his son, Brad, surprised him with a Christmas present of a trip west.
“I was real glad because I’ve never been to this part of the country and it’s been really nice,” Tunnell said. “I got in late (Sunday) and we walked Hollywood Boulevard and saw the stars.”
Tunnell said he never gave up on Florida State’s return to national prominence.
“I knew it was a matter of time; everybody has ups and downs,” Tunnell said. “It’s FSU’s turn. It’s a cycle, and was exciting as the season wore on. I starting thinking this is it. Maybe this is the year.”
Tunnell and Walsingham joined a contingent of an estimated 100 Bay Countians in Pasadena. Tunnell also was en route to the tailgate party earlier Monday.
“I heard Auburn’s is being held adjacent” to the FSU celebration, Tunnell said.
Dave Trepanier, owner of Firefly restaurant in Panama City Beach, came to his Florida State allegiance through marriage, his wife a Seminole alum. When it appeared at midseason that Florida State was heading for a breakthrough year, Trepanier decided to roll the dice.
“I got tickets about three months ago,” he said. “Florida State was playing well and Alabama was playing pretty well, and I’d never been to one.”
Trepanier had another motive. He’s a native of Southern California and combined the football connection with visiting his parents in San Diego.
He said his relatively young loyalty to FSU football came with a caveat when he relocated to Bay County.
“They (FSU) had just started to falter a bit when I moved to Panama City,” he said. “I was a USC fan when I moved to Florida and they were riding high then. But I didn’t want to ruffle any feathers in the Southeast.”
The Trepaniers’ trip coincided with the restaurant’s slowest time of the year. Unlike other travelers from here, however, his journey wasn’t entirely smooth.
“They lost our luggage, three of four pieces of luggage, and we had an hour delay,” Trepanier said. “When you have a 4-year-old and a 15-month-old, that can be” disconcerting.
Trepanier said the rest of the luggage arrived the following morning.
John Cannon, a local resident employed by the Florida Department of Education, said he started thinking about the national championship spotlight a little earlier than most.
“When we were taking it to Clemson, the way we dominated them I was thinking we could run the table,” Cannon said.
He came by his FSU loyalty when his friend, Graham Shaw, took him to the Florida-Florida State game in 1986 when Cannon was 16. Because his sister-in-law is connected to FSU boosters in Tallahassee, Cannon said that “tickets fell in my lap. All I had to do was transportation.”
Cannon, who attended the game with Shaw’s son, Paul, flew out Sunday from Atlanta and didn’t encounter any travel mishaps, although his flight included a majority of Auburn fans.
He said he’d been enjoying the sights in the Los Angeles area, including a ride down Route 66.
Cannon and his friend, Paul, arrived at a consensus over Monday night’s final.
“We were talking about it and settled on 42-17” Florida State triumph. “I think we’re gonna spank ’em.”
Tunnell wasn’t as convinced.
“I think it will be a close one,” he said. “I think the key will be the defense. I’m looking at 37-29” FSU.
Whatever the final score, another interested observer will be Harold Conrad Sr., a longtime FSU booster who watched the game from his home in Panama City.
Conrad was among five Bay County High School graduates who played on the first Florida State football team in 1947 and is the lone survivor.
“Yeah, I’m excited about it,” Conrad said. “They won before, but this happens to be, I think, the greatest game they’ll ever play.”
Conrad recalled the circumstances when Bill and E.J. Quigley, Truby Shaw and Howard Stevens joined him in Tallahassee. All were enrolled at the University of Florida, and when it became so crowded because of World War II veterans making use of the G.I. Bill, the university system decided veterans could attend what was then Florida State College for Women and the credits they earned would apply to Florida.
“Then when we got there, they said then why don’t we change the university’s name to Florida State University,” said Conrad, now 86.
“The university decided to have a football team, so 90 percent of the guys who went out for the team were veterans. Ed Williamson was the intramural director for the college and agreed to coach the team for one year. Afterward he said, ‘get somebody else.’ ”
Conrad recalled a sellout crowd in Tallahassee when FSU hosted Stetson in one of the school’s first football games.
He also remembers the results of that first season, which 66 years later would evolve into Florida State’s sixth appearance in a national championship game.
“We had five games and lost all five.”