Mike Norvell speaks on significance of players being chosen to carry FSU sledgehammer

No. 23 Florida State is off to its first 4-0 start to a season since 2015. The Seminoles are ranked in the AP Top 25 for the first time since just prior to the 2018 season, in the preseason poll. It feels like the potential start of something special in the Mike Norvell era, the kind of thing that might be signified by the swing of the now-famous-inside-the-program FSU sledgehammer.

Sledgehammer, you ask?

The Seminoles, since Norvell arrived, have marked the coming and going of certain milestones in the program with a ceremonial breaking of a rock or brick with an FSU sledgehammer. Its purpose? Outlining progress.

“It continues to point to that process of, ‘Where is our focus? What are we here to achieve for this opportunity?'” Norvell explained. “We want to be a process-driven team that’s action-based. When you put in the work and you get selected to carry the hammer before a game I mean it’s a great sense of pride.”

Various players have carried the FSU sledgehammer over time. Defensive tackle Robert Cooper was awarded with a sledgehammer swing after offseason workouts and just before the start of fall camp.

Quarterback Jordan Travis got his swing when fall camp wrapped and FSU headed into game week prior to the season opener against Duquesne. It’s become a tradition inside the program.

FSU sledgehammer signals recognition, achievement

The easiest way to explain the FSU sledgehammer is that it’s an outward token of the hard work Norvell has seen individuals in his program put in.

“Our guys want that recognition to know that all the things that we talk about, those program characteristics, that they’re being able to apply that and it’s action-based,” he said. “That their coaches, they see that on a daily basis, that consistency. And then what they’re doing in the games.”

Find ways to fight through adversity? Great. Provide some leadership during a tough moment for the team? Excellent. Fight through the pain of bumps and bruises to make a key play? Even better.

Norvell has created a way for his players to achieve some internal recognition within the program for a job well done.

“Then after the game when guys put it on display and play at a very high level and they get the chance to have that moment or that symbolic gesture of, ‘We’ve accomplished what we came here to do,’ I think it’s big,” Norvell said. “Going back to those small, detailed processes of focusing on the things you can control there in the moment.”

Sledgehammer at the ready, Florida State heads into a pivotal stretch of the schedule that begins this weekend. Saturday it’s No. 22 Wake Forest at home. A week later it’s off to No. 10 NC State. After that? No. 5 Clemson is headed to Tallahassee.

The Seminoles hope they’ll earn the right to keep swinging that sledgehammer.