FSU superfan Dr. Betty Lou Joanos shares lifelong love of Seminoles football

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — As college football season returns, one Florida State University fan in Tallahassee is preparing to keep a decadeslong tradition going at Doak Campbell Stadium.

Dr. Betty Lou Joanos is a Florida State Seminoles superfan whose connection to the program stretches back to the school’s earliest days of football. She described how her family’s ties to Florida State began with her husband’s childhood connections to what was then Florida State College for Women, and continued as the school became Florida State in 1947.

“My husband, his Dad was a huge sports fan, he was a businessman here in Tallahassee and my husband one of his best friends in the first-grade Mother was a librarian at Florida State College for women, so as a little boy he used to play on the grounds of FlorisA State College for women which of course turned into Florida State in 1947 and being a great lover of sports, his whole family was they all went to FSU’s first football game and that was in October of 1947,” Joanos said.

Joanos said she grew up in Quincy and came to embrace Florida State through her relationship with her late husband, Judge James Joanos.

“I knew Florida State, I grew up in Quincy next door, but I did not know it to love it until after He and I dated and were married and were just. Florida State has been a major part of our lives and the lives of our family,” she said.

Now 90, Joanos said her knowledge of Seminoles football goes back to the beginning, including personal connections to the program’s first coaches.

“Both my husband and I knew Florida States first two football Coaches. Most people know about Ed Williamson, His daughter was a high school classmate of my husband and a sorority sister of mine. He and Jack Haskin were actually the first two football coaches. I knew coach Haskins quit well because he was the founder of FSU Circus and I was a four-year member of the circus and so I guess we have known FSU Football since the very beginning,” Joanos said.

She also recalled attending an early road game in New England after she and her husband married.

“We were married in 1957 and my husband was in the Airforce and he was stationed up in the Boston area, and we went to FSU’s first game playing Boston College and there probably were about 25 FSU Fans there,” she said.

Judge James Joanos died in January 2024, but Joanos said she continues the family’s fall traditions as Florida State heads into the 2026 season.

“My husband and I had been married 69 years, and he has not been here the last two years but I still try to keep the traditions,” she said.

Joanos, a retired FSU associate alumni director, said she looks forward to attending games again this season at Doak Campbell Stadium as the Seminoles prepare to host New Mexico State.