FSU seeks privacy ... at Waterfront Park

I looked outside at the beautiful fall afternoon on Wednesday and decided to go for a run. I was on River Road, maybe 100 yards past the Big Four pedestrian bridge on the downtown side, when a parks employee driving a golf cart screeched to a halt next to me.

"Do you like football?" he asked.

I told him that I did like football.

"Florida State is practicing in the park over there. Go heckle them."

He didn't know that I was a journalist, and clearly I wasn't going to heckle them, but I was going to take a look. So I kept jogging until I came to the large, flat field near Joe's Crab Shack. And there was Florida State, going through a walkthrough practice to prepare for Thursday night's game against Louisville.

There was quarterback Jameis Winston. There was coach Jimbo Fisher. And there were Florida State staff members, sort of guarding the perimeter so they wouldn't be disturbed. A security guard asked me to step off the edge of the grass and onto the sidewalk, and I did.

Then I took out my phone to take a picture, and two FSU staff members started freaking out.

"No pictures!"

"Put that away!"

I calmly told them that this was a public park, and that anyone can take pictures at a public park. They told me they had reserved the field. I said that I wasn't trying to use the field they had reserved. I was just taking a picture of it.

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They told me to talk to the police, and then pointed me toward a Waterfront Park staff member, who was clearly not a policeman. I explained my situation to him, and he understood. He just asked that I stay back from the practice, and that was reasonable.

I sat on a metal bench, and an elderly woman sat on the bench next to me, and we watched. The Seminoles worked on some basic formations. Winston spiked the ball a few times. As we sat there, more passersby began to trickle in, and the FSU staff-member perimeter widened.

At one point, someone started taking pictures from somewhere behind me, far from the field, and two FSU staff members screamed and started sprinting toward the person as if there was an imminent danger.

As I sat on the bench, not taking pictures, another staff member walked over and told me not to take pictures. I told him the same thing I had told the other staff members. I said I didn't plan to take any more pictures, but told him that this was a public park and they really had no right to tell the people in the park what they can photograph.

Then I noticed two members of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office standing near the field. I asked them about what was transpiring, about the FSU staff members flipping out on people taking pictures. I assumed they knew the laws, and they did. They said people were allowed to take pictures, and that's why they hadn't told anyone otherwise. And that's true, the officers had not.

They said FSU was within its rights to ask people not to take pictures, but people didn't have to listen. Of course, chasing and screaming at someone is a bit different than asking. It seemed like the members of the Sheriff's Office could have told FSU to ease up a bit.

Anyway, at about 4 p.m., the walk-through ended and the players headed back to their team hotel on this beautiful afternoon. Yes, they walked past Joe's Crab Shack, and social media has exploded with obvious Winston jokes, but no, they did not go inside to eat.

I called FSU associate sports information director Kerwin Lonzo on Wednesday evening, and he was surprised this event had caused such a stir. He said the team routinely holds walk-throughs in public areas, and that news helicopters and other media members didn't usually converge. That didn't really explain the staff members aggressively telling people not to take pictures, of course.

Nevertheless, after the walk-through had ended and the field had cleared, you couldn't help but wonder: If the Seminoles had wanted a private moment, why had they picked such a public place?

Adam Himmelsbach can be reached at 502-582-4372 by email ahimmelsbach@courier-journal.com and on Twitter @adamhimmelsbach