Even Bobby Bowden ‘s fiercest rivals could not help but like him.
“It’s hard to get mad at coach Bowden,” said South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier, whose Florida teams faced off against Bowden’s Florida State squads throughout the 1990s, including once for a national title.
The 80-year-old Bowden retired Tuesday as the second-winningest coach in major college football. He won 388 games in 44 seasons with Samford, West Virginia and Florida State, but he’ll be most remembered for his 34 years with the Seminoles.
From 1987-2000, Bowden’s Seminoles won at least 10 games each season, finished ranked in the top five of the AP poll and won national championships in 1993 and ’99.
During that time, Florida State’s rivalry games with Miami and Florida often helped settle the national title race. The games were intense and the rivalries bitter, but Bowden never took it personally.
ome words that year. But after that everything was all right.”
Spurrier’s Gators went 5-8-1 against Bowden’s ‘Noles.
Jimmy Johnson went 4-1 against Bowden in his five seasons at Miami, losing the first game and winning the next four meetings.
Johnson didn’t get to know Bowden until after he left Miami to coach the Dallas Cowboys, and Johnson made a visit to Florida State.
“He was just so gracious and so kind and threw out all kind of accolades my way,” Johnson told the AP in a telephone interview Tuesday. “He just impressed me as being such a good human being.”
Back in the late 1970s and early ’80s, when Bowden was first starting to build Florida State into a national power, Howard Schnellenberger was doing the same at Miami.
“He and I go way back to 1979 and I can’t think of a better friend or competitor,” said Schnellenberger, currently the coach at Florida Atlantic. “He and I worked together in improving the football situation in the state and I think we were successful in doing just that.”
Schnellenberger said the end of Bowden’s career at Florida State should have been handled better by the school. Bowden was faced with the option of coming back next season with diminished control over the program, giving coach-in-wating Jimbo Fisher more power.
‘ Schnellenberger said. “I am happy that he will not be in that situation anymore.”
Others also were not happy with the way Bowden’s tenure at Florida State ended.
“I think it’s a bit of a disgrace for those making the decision for Bobby Bowden to retire,” CBS analyst Gary Danielson said. “If Bobby Bowden wanted to stay one more year, I don’t understand why the Florida State nation could not come together and pull in the same direction to make that happen.”
Former Nebraska coach and current athletic director Tom Osborne is another rival and friend to Bowden. Florida State beat Nebraska in the Orange Bowl after the 1993 season to cap Bowden’s first national championship.
“I’ve been in communication with Bobby Bowden over the last few weeks and realize that this has been a difficult situation for him,” Osborne said in statement released by Nebraska. “Football has lost a great representative, but at the same time Bobby, and all of us who know him and care about him, can reflect with admiration on his remarkable career. “
Bowden trails only Penn State Joe Paterno on the career victories list for major college coaches.
When Bowden was at West Virginia, his teams played Penn State every year from 1970-75. After Bowden went to Florida State, he and Paterno matched up twice in bowl games and each won one.
The two became close as their careers progressed. As the elder statesmen of college coaching, they often said they would spend time together at clinics and conventions because they could relate to one another.
“Bobby has been a tough competitor. He has meant an awful lot to the universities he coached and to the game of football overall,” Paterno said. “He and his wife, Ann, have dedicated their lives with untold hours to better the teams and universities they cared so much about. They will be missed by the coaching profession and college football.”
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