How ironic.
Florida State University had arguably been going through the worst of times. Call it the trifecta from higher ed hell.
It’s what you get when you combine a malignant football culture, enabling police departments and a rigged search that ultimately rubber-stamped a career politician-lobbyist for president.
And then it got worse.
FSU experienced one of those increasingly familiar rites of horrific passage: an on-campus shooting. This one resulted in a paralyzed victim and a dead shooter, an FSU graduate.
And then, in an emotional catharsis, everything coalesced into a healing, coping context that changed all conversations.
No longer was the university, let alone the media, all consumed with the countdown to Jameis Winston’s student-code-of-conduct hearing, which is a polite way of referencing rape charges. No longer was the focus on scandalous double standards for football players.
Indeed, it gave head football coach Jimbo Fisher a forum to do something other than “put it behind him” and defend the indefensible.
“I really don’t know if we really appreciate how much athletics holds a community, universities, cities together because they rally behind them so much,” said Fisher. “Hopefully we can give a little comfort to some folks.”
As a result, Jameis and the lads, sporting ribbon decals on their helmets for the Boston College game, came to the rescue–and won with a vintage, last-second field goal. Also caught up in group therapy: FSU alum Burt Reynolds, who pitched in and planted that Seminole spear at mid-field at the end of pre-game ceremonies.
Then there’s the police, previously seen as football-culture collaborators. Not long ago, they were being vilified for treating certain sexual-assault and female-battery cases with less urgency than jay-walking. Now they’re being lionized for a speedy response that likely saved lives at FSU’s Strozier Library.
In fact, University Police Chief David Perry got a standing ovation the next night at a candlelight vigil on campus.
But Chief Perry wasn’t the only FSU official at the vigil. New President John Thrasher was a towering presence of reassurance. Relying on well-honed, political-leadership skills, Thrasher led the calm call for unity in the “Seminole nation.”
“We’re stronger. We’re more passionate, and we care about each other,” said Thrasher between choruses of Amazing Grace and the Hymn to the Garnet and Gold.
Moreover, he also greeted students at the re-opened library the following morning. The omnipresent president–who had been on the job less than a fortnight–also delivered a message of unity and resilience on the Doak Campbell Stadium video screens on Saturday.
Thrasher was, by all accounts, pitch perfect to a student-and-faculty constituency that had, on balance, wanted anyone but him as their president. Thrasher will still be the president associated with climate-change skepticism, the Koch brothers and Rick Scott’s re-election campaign, but he will always be remembered as the president who stood tall when FSU needed nothing less from its leader.