Barbara Jo Palmer (born 1949) is an American sports advocate.
Palmer earned her Bachelor of Arts and master's degree at Florida State University (FSU) in 1970 and 1974. [1]
After earning her master's degree, Palmer accepted a position at Impact Enterprises Inc., and later became a recreation supervisor in Merritt Island. [2] On August 3, 1977, Palmer replaced Marlene Furnell as FSU Women's Athletic Director. [1] Upon her appointment, Palmer also inherited the $1 million deficit as she struggled to financially support women's intercollegiate teams without a full-time coach. [3] As a result, she was an active lobbyist with the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women which eventually convinced the Florida government to budget $2.8 million towards women collegiate programs at eight universities. [4] Under her directorship, FSU women's collegiate teams won five national championships and 226 All-American awards. [5] By 1982, she was inducted into the Florida Women's Hall of Fame for her lobbying activities. [6] From 1984 until 1985, she sat on the board of directors for the Council of Collegiate Women Athletic Administrators. [7]
In 1990, she was inducted into Florida State University's Hall of Fame. [8] [9] Five years later, she was shortlisted for the opportunity to become FSUs Athletic Director. [10] In 2007, she was recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators. [11]
In 2011, Palmer was appointed to Chief of Staff with the Agency for Persons with Disabilities. She later became its director upon appointment from Governor Rick Scott in August 2012. [12]
Fort Walton Beach, often referred to by the initialism FWB, is a city in southern Okaloosa County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the population was 20,922, up from 19,507 in 2010. It is a principal city of the Crestview−Fort Walton Beach−Destin, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Florida State University is a public research university in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Chartered in 1851, it is located on Florida's oldest continuous site of higher education.
Robert Cleckler Bowden was an American college football coach. Bowden coached the Florida State Seminoles of Florida State University (FSU) from 1976 to 2009 and is considered one of the greatest college football coaches of all time for his accomplishments with the Seminoles.
The Florida State Seminoles are the athletic teams representing Florida State University located in Tallahassee, Florida. They compete as a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level, primarily competing in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) for all sports since the 1991–92 season; within the Atlantic Division in any sports split into a divisional format since the 2005–06 season.
Doak S. Campbell Stadium, popularly known as "Doak", is a football stadium on the campus of Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is the home field of the Florida State Seminoles football team of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).
The Emerald Coast is an unofficial name for the coastal area in the US state of Florida on the Gulf of Mexico that stretches about 100 miles (160 km) through five counties, Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton, and Bay, which include Pensacola Beach, Navarre Beach, Fort Walton Beach, Destin, and Panama City Beach. Some south Alabama communities on the coast of Baldwin County, such as Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, and Fort Morgan embrace the term as well.
The Florida State Seminoles football team represents Florida State University in the sport of American football. The Seminoles compete in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). The team is currently coached by Mike Norvell, and plays home games at Doak Campbell Stadium, the 15th largest stadium in college football, located on-campus in Tallahassee, Florida. The Seminoles previously competed as part of the ACC Atlantic Division.
Niceville Senior High School (NHS) is a public high school in the city of Niceville, Florida. It is ranked as the top high school within its high-performing Okaloosa County School District. In 1996, NHS was selected as one of 226 secondary schools to be designated as a Blue Ribbon School of Excellence. NHS was also named a New American High School in 1999, one of only 13 in the nation to earn that honor that year. The State of Florida Department of Education rated the school an A+ in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2005.
Robert Goin was an American football and baseball coach and college athletics administrator. He was the head football coach at Bethany College in Bethany, West Virginia from 1963 to 1972, compiling a record of 45–32–2. He was also the college's head baseball coach and athletics director. Goin was the athletics director at California University of Pennsylvania from 1979 to 1981, Florida State University from 1990 to 1994 and the University of Cincinnati from 1997 to 2005
Cecile Reynaud is an American volleyball educator and retired coach of the Florida State Lady Seminoles volleyball team. After her retirement from coaching she was an associate professor with the sport management program at Florida State University until August, 2015. She also served as an interim assistant athletic director and senior women's administrator at Florida State University from 1994-95. She has served as a television color analyst for collegiate volleyball matches on ACCN, Fox Sports Net South, Sunshine Network and ESPN.
The 1992 Florida State Seminoles football team represented Florida State University in the 1992 NCAA Division I-A football season. The team was coached by Bobby Bowden and played their home games at Doak Campbell Stadium. The team was selected national champion by Sagarin.
The 1947 Florida State Seminoles football team was an American football team that represented Florida State University as an independent during the 1947 college football season. In its first and only season under head coach Ed Williamson, the team compiled a 0–5 record and was outscored by a total of 90 to 18. The team played its home games at Centennial Field in Tallahassee, Florida.
The 1959 Florida State Seminoles football team represented Florida State University as an independent during the 1959 college football season. Led by Perry Moss in his first and only season as head coach, the Seminoles compiled a record of 4–6.
The Coastal Collegiate Sports Association is an NCAA Division I college athletic conference.
The 1994 Florida State Seminoles football team represented Florida State University in the 1994 NCAA Division I-A football season. The team was coached by Bobby Bowden and played their home games at Doak Campbell Stadium.
The Florida State Seminoles women's softball team represents Florida State University in the sport of softball. Florida State competes in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) and the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).
Louise Jones Gopher was the second Seminole and the first woman from the Seminole tribe of Florida to earn a bachelor's degree. Gopher, a former director of education for the Seminole Tribe of Florida, was the first female Seminole to earn a bachelor's degree when she graduated from Florida Atlantic University in 1970. Born May 25, 1945, in a chickee at a tribal camp in Fort Pierce, Jones spoke no English when she entered school at age 6. Because they were considered neither black nor white, none of the segregated schools of the day would willingly take her as a student, but at the pleading of her father, Lucie County Schools Superintendent Ben L. Bryan chose to allow her to enroll in the Fairlawn School. In 2014, she was granted an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Florida State University. She is the third Seminole to receive an honorary degree from FSU, after Betty Mae Tiger Jumper and Jim Shore. The Palm Beach Post named her one of the most 100 influential people in Florida in the 20th century.
Jessica "Jessie" Lynn Warren is an American, former collegiate All-American, professional softball player. She played college softball for the Florida State Seminoles, winning the 2018 Women's College World Series national title as a senior, and was subsequently named Most Outstanding Player for the series.
JoAnne Graf is an American former softball coach and Associate Professor in Sport Management at Florida State University. As coach of the Florida State Seminoles women's softball team from 1979 to 2008, she logged more wins than any coach in the history of NCAA Division I softball. On April 2, 2005, Florida State University renamed their softball stadium in her honor as the JoAnne Graf Field at the Seminole Softball Complex.
Jenna Gray Nighswonger is an American professional soccer player who plays as a left back for NJ/NY Gotham FC of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) and the United States women's national team. She played college soccer for the Florida State Seminoles, winning the NCAA championship in 2021. Drafted in 2023, she was named the NWSL Rookie of the Year and lifted the NWSL Championship trophy with Gotham in her first season.