3/14/2023 football Edit

Join FSU legends for dinner, golf to honor Billy Sexton in April

Jerry Kutz • TheOsceola

Publisher

A dinner and golf tournament will be held for longtime Florida State football running back coach and Seminole Booster development officer Billy Sexton to lift his spirits and lighten the load of an arduous rehabilitation following a massive stroke.

The dinner will be held on Sunday, April 16 at Glory Days Grill, a fitting name for the venue where five decades of dedicated service to Florida State will be celebrated. The golf tournament will be held on Monday, April 17 at Seminole Legacy Golf Club, where Billy was once a member of the FSU golf team.

In the 1960s, Leon High School’s Billy Sexton could do it all, whether it was pitchin’ a football or baseball, shooting a basketball, or striking a golf ball, Billy made the difficult look easy. Then suddenly, in August 2022, after enjoying lunch with friends, Sexton suffered the stroke and nothing has been easy since.

The uber-talented athlete lost the use of the right side of his body, use of his left leg and our loquacious friend also lost his ability to speak.

Seven months into this challenging rehabilitation, in which therapists work to retrain the brain to control the muscles, the man who ran or swam most every day is now able to use a walker – with assistance – and is in speech therapy to improve his ability to speak.

Throughout the struggle, Billy has remained alert, cracking smiles during managed visits with friends.

His wife, Joy, has been by his bedside every day, sleeping in a bedside chair every night.

"Billy is still fighting the good fight," Joy told the Democrat’s Jim Henry. "The last couple of weeks he has gotten a little stronger and seems to be improving a little.

"We just take one day at a time."

What the couple has endured is more taxing physically and emotionally than anything endured in sports. Think about two-a-day football practices in Florida’s August heat, run by legendary taskmasters Gene Cox at Leon High School and Bear Bryant at Alabama. Those of you who have gone through it know those 30 days were designed to test your will. Rather than just the month of August, the Sextons have been tested every month since, with more to come in this day-to-day journey towards improvement.

Billy is living the “get 1 percent better each day” mantra the Bowden staff preached daily to FSU’s football players.

To lift Joy and Billy’s spirits, and to lighten the financial burden of their journey, former Seminole Booster President and CEO Andy Miller decided to organize a golf tournament and asked The Osceola to help organize a dinner.

“For more than five decades, Billy served Florida State University, first as a quarterback in the early 1970s, then as an assistant coach under the legendary Bobby Bowden and most recently he served Seminole Boosters with distinction as a dynamic fundraiser and ambassador,” Miller said. “As an expression of our love and support, friends of Billy Sexton have organized events to recognize Billy’s legacy and contribute to his recovery. The goal is to lift Billy and Joy’s spirits and to lighten their load.”

The response to the golf outing and dinner has been stunning, which is a testimony to the friendships the Sextons have developed as well as to what players, coaches and fans think of as “the Seminole Family.”

High school friends, neighbors, college teammates, former players and coaches, Seminole Booster donors and neighbors have rushed forward to express their love for Billy and Joy by participating or donating.

Golf, dinner event

Join us as we honor Billy Sexton's contributions to FSU with two events in mid-April. (FSU sports information)

The Billy “G.O.A.T.” Sexton Dinner, presented by TheOsceola.com, will be held on Sunday, April 16 at Glory Days Grill in Tallahassee from 6:30 – 9:30 p.m. The Billy “G.O.A.T.” Sexton Golf Outing will be held at the Seminole Legacy Golf Club on Monday, April 17. Registration is at 11 a.m. with a 1 p.m. tee time. There will be a reception following with a check presentation.

Many of our Osceola subscribers have already registered for the golf tournament and/or dinner. If you have not registered yet and wish to play golf, click here. There are foursomes available.

If you haven’t registered for the dinner and would like to attend, click here. The seats range in price from $75 to $250 per seat based on location. Many of our subscribers have already purchased seats, so the the Osceola will stream portions of the event to subscribers who cannot attend. Stay tuned for more information.

If you are unable to attend either the golf or the dinner, but would like to help, you may consider making a contribution through Nole Legends Inc., a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit company. You can write a check to Nole Legends Inc. on behalf of Billy Sexton and mail it to P.O. Box 181165, Tallahassee, FL 32318. If you’d prefer to do it online, you can do so through the golf link above.

The Glory Days

Sexton was one of the nation’s top quarterback prospects in 1968 and was signed by Alabama’s Bear Bryant. One of Billy’s best buddies, and the first black basketball player to play at Leon High School, was Tommy Curtis, who signed a scholarship with UCLA legend John Wooden.

Those of you who remember the 1972 National Basketball Championship game, an 81-76 loss to undefeated UCLA (30-0), may remember Curtis, who deftly led the Bruin offense against his hometown team.

Yeah, that Tommy Curtis who shared the scoring spotlight with Sexton in middle and high school.

Recruited to be a drop-back passer in the manner of Joe Namath and Kenny Stabler, Sexton played three seasons at Alabama until Bryant converted to a run-oriented Wishbone offense, which was ill-suited to the drop-back quarterback.

Sexton did what so many college players do today, coming home to a program where his skills were a better fit. Forced to sit out one season, Sexton ran the scout team before becoming the starting quarterback in 1973. An injury halfway through the season ended his career and likely contributed to FSU’s 0-11 season.

The two-sport athlete also played on the FSU golf team in 1974.

Billy's coaching career

The son of a college (Wake Forest) and high school football coach, Sexton began his career at Leon High School under Gene Cox, who became Florida’s winningest high school coach. When Bobby Bowden arrived in 1976, he invited Sexton to be a graduate assistant coaching quarterbacks. In 1977, Sexton was hired full time and worked with quarterbacks until 1983, when he took over the running backs (and held that role until 2006).

Think about that lineage. A coach’s son, Billy played for, or coached with three Hall of Famers — Cox, Bryant and Bowden.

Between 1983 and 1999, Sexton-coached running backs averaged nearly 6 yards per carry and over 10 yards per catch.

Nineteen of Sexton’s running backs were drafted by the NFL, including four first-rounders. Six Sexton coached running backs earned All-American honors: Greg Allen (1983, ‘84), Sammie Smith (1987, ‘88), Dayne Williams (1988), Dexter Carter (1989), Amp Lee (1991) and Warrick Dunn (1994, ‘95, ‘96). Sexton also coached the kick return team, where Tamarick Vanover earned All American honors in 1992 and 1993. Sexton also recruited All-American kicker Sebastian Janikowski (1998, 1999), among many others.

The 19 NFL selections include: Greg Allen, Billy Allen and Rosie Snipes in 1985, Cletis Jones in 1986, Sammie Smith in 1989 (1st round), Marion Butts, Victor Floyd and Dexter Carter 1990 (1st round), Edgar Bennett in 1992, William Floyd (1st round) and Sean Jackson in 1994, Zack Crockett in 1995, Warrick Dunn in 1997 (1st round), Lamarr Glenn in 1999, Travis Minor in 2001, Greg Jones in 2004, Leon Washington in 2006 and Lorenzo Booker in 2007.

A number of those and other players will return to Tallahassee to lift their coach’s spirits and to lighten Billy and Joy’s load.

Hall of Fame running back Sammie Smith, who has been an integral part of putting the dinner together, said the evening will be an opportunity for the players to come together to say thank you to their coach and mentor.

“I believe an important part of a coach's legacy is produced by the impact he or she has had on athletes and colleagues away from the sport he coached,” Smith said. “Coach Sexton touched my life in many ways athletically, but I love him more for the man he is as a husband, father and mentor.

"This gathering of former players and friends is a great opportunity to impact Coach and his family away from the field of play, and personally for me to say thank you for helping mold me into the man I am today.”