TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -As the sun rises over Doak Campbell Stadium, Bobby Bowden settles in for another day like so many he’s had over the last five-plus decades.
His belly is full – he woke at his usual 4 a.m. and stopped by Waffle House on his way to work – and he’s surrounded by all the remnants of a long, fulfilling life.
The numerous gifts from Burt Reynolds – some serious, some not so much. The trophy of Bear Bryant that looms just above the coach’s left shoulder. The picture of Bowden jabbering away with the Rev. Billy Graham, who knows how many years ago.
“Let me tell you something about that,” Bowden says, letting loose a hearty chuckle. “He was a great listener. Look at him right there. I’m the one doing all the talkin’. I should be the one listening.”
Bowden isn’t listening, either, to those who say he should have hung up his coaching whistle years ago, stepped aside when Florida State was still one of the country’s elite football programs.
d of the 2010 season, Bowden comes across as someone who believes he can avoid the inevitable if he just doesn’t talk about it.
But what about that arrangement with offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher, who would get $5 million if he’s not the head coach by 2011?
“Well, it looks like that’s it,” Bowden conceded in an interview with The Associated Press that lasted more than an hour. “But my answer is I’ll decide after each year. I’ve got a one-year contract and I’ll decide whether I want to return each year. I don’t want to nail it down to a day because I just don’t want people keeping score. I don’t want ’em saying ‘he’s got seven games left’ or ‘this is his next-to-last game’ or ‘this is the last time he’ll play in this stadium.’ I don’t want that if I can help it. I’d rather just walk out when it’s time to walk out.”
Bowden’s critics will say that moment has already come and gone. The Seminoles once enjoyed one of the greatest runs in college football history – 14 straight seasons with at least 10 wins, two national championships, eight consecutive Atlantic Coast Conference titles, no finish lower than fifth in the AP rankings.
ave ended with losses to hated rival Florida, by such ugly scores as 45-15, 45-12 and 34-7.
Since Urban Meyer arrived in the Sunshine State, the Gators have won a pair of national titles. Florida State has been relegated to a supporting role it doesn’t wear well.
But Bowden coaches on, convinced that his program is on the verge of turning things around, on the verge of giving their ol’ coach one more glorious season before he fades away. All things move in cycles, he points out. Nobody can stay on top forever, but there’s no reason the Seminoles can’t complete the circle.
“I still have that hope,” he said. “We’re getting mighty close to getting back there. I’m sure hoping we can have a great year or a couple of great years before I leave here.”
Bowden hopes that will be enough to make him the winningest major-college coach ever, a personal ambition that seems to loom over everything he does. He’ll go into his 44th season as a head coach – 47th if you count a stint at South Georgia Junior College back in the 1950s – just one behind Penn State’s Joe Paterno on the career victory list. JoePa has 383 wins, Bowden 382.
For now.
e university accepted its punishment, except for the part about giving up those wins. They would be wiped away from Bowden’s record, as well, leaving him little chance of catching Paterno so late in the race.
Even in his younger days, Bowden came under criticism for his loosey-goosey approach, especially when trouble cropped up – remember that free shoes scandal in the 1990s? But he largely escaped critical media scrutiny through much of his career, a sort of Teflon Bob who seemed able to charm everyone from the media to NCAA investigators.
But this latest bit of trouble has surely tarnished Bowden’s image, coming across as nothing more than a way to protect his mano-a-mano with the 82-year-old Paterno, each man intent on leaving behind a final number that may never be broken.
Bowden does little to quell the perception that Florida State’s appeal to the NCAA, which is still pending, is all about him.
“There ain’t nobody but me and Joe involved in this thing,” he said. “If you had me and Joe up here, and coach so-and-so was right there with us, then it wouldn’t bother me. But it’s just the two of us. It’s a two-man race. Don’t wipe the race out. Joe’s probably going to win the thing anyway, and that’s all right. But let us play. Let us play! They’re taking away our play time.”
mixed in with a “dadgum it” or a “how ya doin’, buddy?” He insists that he won’t lose a minute of sleep, no matter what the NCAA decides. But it’s clear that he wants to keep his wins – all of them.
Paterno shows no signs of fading away. He had hip replacement surgery in November to alleviate the pain that forced him to coach from the press box most of last season. A month later, he signed a three-year contract extension that would keep him around until he’s 85.
For the record, Paterno believes that Bowden should be able to keep his wins. At the same time, Joe Pa dismisses any talk of this being a personal race.
“If they try to say one is better than the other, I would resent that. I don’t think I’m better than Bobby because I got (one more) win,” Paterno said. “I think people are making more of it than they should. When they put me underneath, I’m not going to know whether he had more wins, or if I had more wins, and who cares? Who cares?”
Bowden clearly cares, and one must ask if Florida State has sacrificed its place in the national order for the sake of one man? If so, was that necessarily the wrong thing to do?
fore there was such a thing, willingly taking one brutal road game after another just for the sake of paying the bills.
Bowden, a native of Birmingham who always dreamed of coaching Alabama, figured Tallahassee would be merely a stepping stone to his ultimate goal. He took note of a schedule five years off in the distance, one that included consecutive road games against Nebraska, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and LSU, but wasn’t too concerned.
“I actually thought to myself, I better be gone by that year,” Bowden said. “I was hoping to get back to Alabama.”
He was still at Florida State when 1981 rolled around – and the Seminoles won three of those five games that looked so daunting when he took over. By the time Ronald Reagan left office, they were firmly established as one of the nation’s top programs, led there almost single-handedly by their homespun coach.
These days, that flimsy stadium has grown to more than 80,000 seats, all of them filled on Saturdays and surrounded by what Bowden proudly describes as “the biggest brick structure in the South.” There’s a statue of him in front of the athletic headquarters, with a plaque that says simply, “I was born to coach.”
Linebacker Dekoda Watson said Bowden deserves to go out on his terms.
“I don’t care what other people think,” he said. “With as much as he’s done at this place, who are we to say he needs to leave?”
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