FSU legend Ron Sellers recalls ‘60s era, impact of coaches, teammates
· Yahoo Sports
Ron Sellers excelled at football’s highest levels.
Visit turconews.click for more information.
He was an All-American receiver at Florida State, a Super Bowl champion with the Miami Dolphins and a College Football Hall of Famer. Yet decades later, Sellers still speaks about the Seminoles’ 1960s teams with the kind of pride that only comes from having lived it.
“I had the pleasure of playing with some of the greatest players in FSU history,” Sellers told the Tallahassee Democrat. “Unfortunately, we’ve lost too many of them. But that’s what makes weekends like this so special — bringing everyone back together, along with the coaches and the people who meant so much to us.”
Now 79, Sellers has returned to Tallahassee for a highly anticipated reunion honoring coach Bill Peterson’s teams of the late 1960s — a stretch widely regarded as the foundation that lifted FSU into national relevance.
Close to 100 attendees — including roughly 45 former players, coaches, spouses and friends — are expected June 19–21 at The Lodge at Wakulla Springs, the same site where those teams stayed on the eve of home games at Doak Campbell Stadium.
A centerpiece of the weekend for “Pete’s Boys” will be a three-hour session Friday devoted to revisiting — and poking fun at — the personalities and stories that defined Bill Peterson’s program.
Among those expected are former assistants Joe Gibbs, Bobby Jackson, Dan Henning and Don Breaux. In all, the group includes 10 Super Bowl winners.
Legendary Florida State coach Bobby Bowden — who later led the Seminoles to their first two of three national championships before his death in 2021 — also served on Peterson’s staff, as did future Super Bowl-winning coach Bill Parcells.
Ron Sellers considered one of finest WRs in college football history
Sellers, a Jacksonville native and one of the most decorated receivers in college football history, still lights up when discussing the coaches who shaped his career.
“Bill Peterson was a genius,” said Sellers, who thrived in Peterson’s pro-style offense, finishing with 212 receptions for 3,598 yards — an NCAA record at the time — and 23 touchdowns.
“He brought in great coaches and installed an offense he learned from Sid Gillman with the San Diego Chargers. When I got to the Patriots, they handed me the playbook and said it’d take three or four weeks to learn. I came back the next morning and told them I already knew it. It was the same offense, the same terminology, everything we’d run at Florida State.”
Nicknamed “Jingle Joints” for his lanky frame and smooth running style, Sellers also emphasized the significance of FSU’s success in that era — often overshadowed by later achievements.
“In the 1960s, FSU went to four bowl games,” Sellers said. “My class only played three years because freshmen couldn’t play varsity, and we went to three bowls — the Sun Bowl, Gator Bowl and Peach Bowl. Back then, there were only eight or nine bowls in the whole country. I am probably as proud of that as anything that we accomplished.
"That was so special."
Even now, Sellers' competitive edge surfaces when he talks about his game.
He was a consensus All-American as a junior in 1967 after leading the nation with 1,228 yards and finishing second in receptions with 70. His number 34 jersey was retired by the athletics department in 1968, only the second in school history to be so honored.
“I loved catching the ball and making something happen after,” Sellers said. “That’s what separates you. Today they call it yards after catch. That’s always been part of who I was.”
For Sellers, the reunion is about more than nostalgia.
It’s about honoring a shared past — and preserving the foundation that helped build FSU football.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: FSU great Ron Sellers highlights 1960s bowl success, brotherhood