Original Publish Date: February 20, 2026
Article Link: https://www.thefamuanonline.com/2026/02/20/flowers-legacy-lives-on/
Baseball came easy for former Florida State baseball player Fred Flowers.
He uttered the statement with a calm assurance. Not for himself, but for all whom assume the opposite. Sports presented a buffet of options for a young Flowers as he grew up in Tallahassee. The local recreation center and a large field encouraged the sampling of everything.
“Anything with a ball we played,” Flowers said. “Baseball, football, basketball, ping pong. We played everything.”
Flowers and his peers’ athletic ability knew no bounds.
“We had great athletes all around us coming up,” Flowers said. “All the great football players were on the Highest of Seven Hills at that time, remember? All the great athletes, so that’s kinda how I grew up.”
The presence of baseball surrounded Flowers from a young age. Tallahassee’s minor league team, the Capitals, ended before his time. There were no opportunities for Flowers to watch FSU baseball growing up, so radio was his main medium of experiencing college baseball. Flowers says he was fascinated by Santa Clara pitcher Bob Garibaldi , who won Most Outstanding Player in the 1962 College World Series.
But, in his opinion, the best ballplayers were Black.
“We had plenty of idols,” Flowers said. “There were guys like on our high school team—sensational baseball players. We all had idols, but we all had a certain natural ability that we just played ball.”
In an era where specialization in baseball is rampant, Flowers and his peers trained with free reign, taking directions from those who coached everything.
“Today they have pitching coaches,” Flowers said. “Coaches for this; coaches for that. We scrimmaged. It was based on natural ability. It was just to imitate other professional players. So, the coaches didn’t have much to coach. That ain’t true, but there was a lot of natural talent there.”
An ever-present emphasis on education meant Flowers didn’t take his studies lightly. Flowers excelled on the gridiron as a football player, on the diamond as a pitcher and in the classroom as he graduated as salutatorian of his class from Lincoln High School in 1965.
Barriers to professional roles left many college-educated African Americans to return to the classroom to teach the next generation. Prejudicial circumstances meant Flowers received an education from whom he describes as “fantastic teachers.”
“It was a segregated school,” Flowers said. “Same thing could be said for white schools. They were segregated. They [his teachers] could always resort to education and teach because other avenues unfortunately were closed to them.”
The son of a principal turned postal worker and a seamstress who taught tailoring, Flowers says his environment instilled values such as “thou shall not steal” which influenced him to take education seriously and pursue law despite the absence of Black lawyers around him growing up.
This statue of Flowers, along with a statue of his sister, Doby Flowers and Maxell Courtney make up the Integration Statue located along the Legacy Walk on the campus of FSU. (Khalil-Lullah Ballentine/FAMUAN)
“He was the smartest man I ever knew,” Flowers said. “My daddy was absolutely brilliant and was like a lot of other Black men in his era who were absolutely brilliant but they had no real outlet for the intellectual talent. We were expected to do well in school. It was just a part of our upbringing. That came with the Flowers household. You gon’ get your homework.”
Flowers received an academic scholarship to Florida State University upon graduating from Lincoln. While he fielded offers from Florida A&M University and other historically black colleges, Flowers felt “it was just time” with a growing awareness of the need for civil rights spreading nationwide.
“Some of my classmates went to the Army, came back, different people,” Flowers said. “Some of them went to college. I can remember, specifically, integrating Tallahassee.”
Nine other students accompanied Flowers to campus as freshman when they integrated the undergraduate side of the university in fall 1965. . The ten created community and networks that lasted long after graduation.
One of Flowers’ classmates was John Marks, who served as Tallahassee’s mayor from 2003-2014. Others pursued professional degrees in physics and law like Flowers. The community, didn’t, however, shield Flowers from the racism he endured while in campus.
“It was shocking,” Flowers said. “It was shock to the conscience. Becoming aware. How could these people be so racist? How could they be so brutal? How could they be so animalistic? I didn’t understand it.”
Flowers was a member of the freshman team for the Florida State baseball team in ‘66 and ’67, becoming the first Black athlete in the school’s history. He says the experience on the diamond and with his teammates different from the classroom.
“The athletic world is different,” Flowers said. “I mean, you get kind of treated fairly except for a few guys. In the athletic world, I think the players tend to get along. So that was not a bad experience as a player.”
Flowers did feel, however, that he was ahead of his time.
“They was not gonna let a Black boy pitch,” Flowers said. “That’s just the way it was. So, I felt a lot of isolation, alienation and anger that lasted for decades. That anger propelled me to be a leader on campus in terms of initiating and starting things.”
Flowers used his activism to elevate Black power on campus. Flowers, along with his sister Doby, the first Black Homecoming Queen at FSU and Maxwell Courtney, FSU’s first grad were honored with the Integration Statue located along the Legacy Walk on FSU’s campus. The Statue led the way for the Civil Rights Institute on campus established by Flowers and others in the early 2000s.
Extensive research into a history of civil rights at FSU led Flowers to believe in a need for the University to teach what he discovered. Flowers says it took five years from idea to implementation when the president at the time decided to sign it.
Flowers paved the way for Black players to don Garnet & Gold today. (Khalil-Lullah Ballentine/FAMUAN)
A continuation of programming and participation from the student body is what Flowers believes is necessary to continue to receive funding from FSU.
“I’m on the outside now,” Flowers said. “We have an executive director and he has an entire agenda. He’s gotten the students to buy in, to participate in the Civil Rights Institute. So, it’s much to be done. Much has to be done in order to maintain the confidence of the president, the provost and to continue the funding.”
Flowers keeps up with all sports, including baseball, for which he’s paved the way for players such as J.C. Flowers and Myles Bailey to don the Garnet & Gold. Just in a chronological sense, according to Flowers.
“I came first and everything after that was after me,” Flowers said. “And so, whenever they say you’re “first” that means there’s a division, a separation, between the two entities. So, there has to be a “first.”
Nowadays, Flowers runs his law practice, Flowers Law LLC in Northeast Tallahassee. Doby is right by his side, assisting in the day-to-day operations. While Flowers has stepped away from the activism that highlighted his college and post-grad life experiences, his legacy is forever cemented on the Legacy Walk and in FSU history.