TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- It’s 40 minutes before another season-opening spectacle in one of college football’s celebrated outposts and a crowd of nearly 81,000 is shepherded into the staggered bleachers, anxious for another Florida State season.
Florida State’s side of the field is absent any players, though. The Seminoles idly stand on the end zone’s boundary, leaving coach Jimbo Fisher and Payton Poulin alone on the greens of Doak Campbell Stadium. Poulin, his garnet book bag swinging from the back of his wheelchair, hurries toward the 10-yard line.
The band’s brass section strikes up the Florida State fight song, and Poulin uses his stronger arm to follow with the tune.