TALLAHASSEE — The BCS championship game was a thrill, especially from the sidelines.
Just ask Samantha Pettis, a 2010 Mosley High School grad and captain of the Florida State University coed cheerleading squad.
Pettis had flown to Pasadena on a chartered jet with FSU boosters. Almost as soon as she was on the ground she was whisked from one appearance to another.
“Right when we landed on Saturday we went straight to Disney Land,” Pettis said.
They did an appearance and spent a few hours enjoying the park. She later recorded a brief clip that she said aired on Good Morning America.
“I wasn’t up to watch it the next morning, but apparently it was on TV,” she said.
She’s a fan of country star Jake Owen, so it was a thrill when she got up on stage during his performance of “Barefoot Blue Jean Night” at a pep rally for FSU fans.
“We got to get up on stage and sing that with him,” Pettis said. “It was fun.”
But the trip wasn’t all celebrities and fun.
Pettis said she was choked up and holding back tears in the first-half as the Seminoles trailed by as many as 18 points.
“We were about to lose,” the accounting major said Thursday.
But Pettis’ “rollercoaster ride of emotions” had not reached the end of the track yet, and when the ‘Noles closed and eventually took the lead with only 13 seconds left it was all she could do not to celebrate prematurely, she said.
It’s not over until it’s over, and she remembered their opponent was the same Auburn team that ran a missed field goal attempt more than 100 yards for a game-winning touchdown against Alabama barely a month earlier. When those last 13 seconds ticked away, “I was just crying,” Pettis said.
It was a memorable end to her football cheerleading career, which included four years at both Mosley and FSU. She’ll be on the sidelines during men’s basketball games though. Pettis warned basketball fans not to sleep on the Seminoles this spring.
“We’re good. We haven’t had that many games yet … I think we’re better than expected,” she said.
Pettis recently found out she’s been accepted for an internship with Ernst and Young, a large international accounting firm. When she’s not cheering, she spends what time she can with her boyfriend and her sorority sisters from Chi Omega.
“I don’t really have much free time,” Pettis said.
See a special section commemorating FSU’s season in Tuesday’s newspaper.