When most people think about the integration of the athletics programs at Florida State University, the first assumption is that it was the football team who saw the first African-American player on the roster – when, in fact, the FSU baseball team had the first person to have that honor nearly three years before.
While the school had integrated and admitted African-American students for the first time starting in the summer of 1962, it would be a full three years before the athletics program would follow along.
In 1965, a Tallahassee native and freshman name Fred Flowers would be the first one when he suited up for the Seminoles on the diamond – the same season a transfer outfielder from North Carolina named Mike Martin joined the FSU baseball roster.