Former Florida State linebacker Kendrick Scott has started a petition to rename Doak Campbell Stadium over Campbell’s pro-segregation views while serving as university president.
Campbell transitioned the school from Florida State College for Women to Florida State, serving as president from 1941-57. He also spearheaded the construction and completion of the football stadium that now bears his name.
But Campbell was also against the admission of black students on campus and was adamantly against integration, information that has started to resurface over the past several weeks, including on the Twitter page of former fullback Freddie Stevenson.
Campbell was admitted into the FSU Hall of Fame in 1977, and there is no mention of his pro-segregation stance on the bio found on the school website. Florida State had no comment on the petition Friday.
Scott, who played at Florida State from 1991-94, says in the petition that Campbell’s “non inclusive views of blacks as a segregationist is divisive, therefore his name should be removed from a stadium that has been home to many black football players helping to build the school and the tradition to what it has become today: a national treasure.”
Scott suggests renaming the stadium after Bobby Bowden, who turned Florida State into a national power and won two national championships during his 34 years at the school. The field at the stadium is currently named for Bowden, so Scott suggests naming the field after Heisman-winning quarterback Charlie Ward.