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For the past three decades, whenever the campus community of Rollins College walked into one of the athletic facilities to work out, the first face they saw was that of Mike Bourbonnais.
Known for his long flowing hair, wavy gray beard, and charismatic smile, Bourbonnais will open up the Alfond Sports Center one last time before officially entering retirement on July 2. He first started with the College in December 1972 as a groundskeeper, moved to the Athletics department the following year and has served the Tars ever since.
Bourbonnais grew up in the suburbs of Detroit and in 1972 at the age of 26, he and his brother decided to move south.
"We wanted to ride our motorcycles year round and in Michigan you could maybe get five months in," Bourbonnais said. "We were still young and mostly carefree so we hitchhiked to Florida, found a place to live, hitchhiked back home, packed up our families and came back. All of that only took a few weeks."
After settling in the College Park neighborhood of Orlando, Bourbonnais started at Rollins briefly working in grounds.
"Back then, Cliff Peoples ran a couple of departments on campus and saw me, still being in my mid-20s, bouncing around campus. He said he needed someone to work in shipping and receiving - I jumped at the chance to get out of the heat and work inside."
Bourbonnais happily worked in the College's shipping and receiving department for the next 11 years until the Alfond Baseball Stadium was built at Harper-Shepherd Field in 1984. The beautiful new facility included a state-of-the-art weight room and workout area for campus use.
"I became very close with Gordie (Howell) and Boyd (Coffie) while working in receiving the previous few years. They offered me the opportunity to supervise the facility and that's how I moved to the Athletics department."
When the campus workout equipment was moved to the Enyart-Alumni Field House in 1996, Bourbonnais came with it. The construction of the Harold & Ted Alfond Sports Center in place of the Field House displaced the entire Athletics Department and Bourbonnais ran the weight room out of the old Rudy's Garage - now the location of the Marshall and Vera Lee Rinker Building.
The Alfond Sports Center was completed in the year 2000 and Bourbonnais has been the one to unlock the doors each morning at 7 a.m. for the past 12 years. He also oversees the fleet of Athletics vehicles, runs the mail for the department and assists in event set-up.
When asked what he will do in retirement, Bourbonnais looked up, stroked his trademark beard and said with a smile, "I'm going to follow the herd and travel with the seasons - just like the Native Americans."
"Honestly, I never had a big-time job, grand office, secretary or made much money but all this time, whenever anyone asked, I was always very proud to say I worked at Rollins."
The Athletics Department and entire campus will miss Bourbonnais for his reliability and wisdom. Rollins College and it thousands of athletes, students, faculty and staff who were lucky enough to have known him over the past four decades will forever be grateful.
ROLLINS Athletics
