More Top Picks 3d Printers
player ready...For years, Bobby Bowden joked that his tombstone should say “But he played Miami.”
After repeated heartbreaks, Bowden finally gained the upper hand on Florida State’s bitter rival. So it’s time for a new epitaph: “He was as good as any of them and he didn’t cheat.”
“They could bury me on that one,” Bowden said last week as his second-ranked Seminoles prepared to meet No. 1 Tennessee for the national championship Monday night in the Fiesta Bowl.
Don’t bring the backhoe out just yet. Though he turned 69 in November, Bowden insists he has no intention of walking away from football anytime soon. In fact, he would prefer to be carried away.
“I’d just as soon die out on that field,” Bowden said, motioning to the sun-splashed turf at Sun Devil Stadium. “If I’m at home (in retirement), my wife is going to make me pull weeds. I don’t want to pull weeds.”
But if ever there was a season that could have made a man decide to take up gardening permanently, it would be this one.
The patriarch of college football’s first family saw everything his profession has to offer in 1998–the good and the bad, the peaks and valleys, the power and the gory.
In October, son Terry resigned under a cloud of controversy at Auburn. Meanwhile, son Tommy led once-woeful Tulane to an undefeated regular season and parlayed that achievement into a lucrative head coaching position at Clemson.
“I think it gives you great perspective about this business,” Terry Bowden said as he watched his dad’s team work out here. “When I took the job at Auburn (in 1993), Tommy was about to be fired as the offensive coordinator. He was the outsider who pretty much couldn’t get it done. Then coach (Pat) Dye resigned and I came in and retained him, and we set offensive records.
“Now he’s undefeated,” Terry Bowden said. “He deserves it.”
As for Papa Bowden, his Seminoles opened the season No. 2, only to suffer a shocking loss to unheralded North Carolina State in September. But a succession of miracles–losses by Ohio State, UCLA and Kansas State–cleared Florida State’s path to the Fiesta Bowl.
Bowden can win his second national title here Monday night.
Or he can have his heart ripped out again.
“Those are the things, the ups and downs, that make you leery of having your children go into coaching,” Bowden said.
But what else would they go into? Bowdens emerge from the womb clinging a clipboard and whistle.
Three of Bobby and Ann Bowden’s four sons went into college coaching (Jeff coaches Florida State’s wide receivers, while the fourth son, Steve, is a financial planner). One of the Bowdens’ two daughters is married to a college football assistant coach. The other is married to a former college football player.
Bowden’s children knew what they were getting into. They had grown used to waving goodbye to their father as he set out on his endless recruiting trips. They had heard neighbors in Morgantown rip him when he went 4-7 at West Virginia in 1974.
The nastiness could have driven them away from the game. Instead, it gave them thick skins, which come in handy when the clan gathers for holiday golf outings.
Tommy Bowden’s scoring technique always draws comment. And Terry Bowden is known as “Terry toe-wedge.”
“He’ll go into the woods with a Dunlop and come out with a Titleist,” Jeff Bowden said.
But it’s one thing for the Bowdens to mess with each other. It’s another thing for strangers to do it.
Consider the family’s response to Terry Bowden’s departure from Auburn in October. Bobby Bowden won’t discuss it at length; instead, he cryptically says he’s grateful to have loyal assistants. Terry Bowden’s staff at Auburn was rife with turmoil.
“The word out there is that Terry quit,” Jeff Bowden said. “He’s the farthest thing from a quitter I know. To hear that makes me sick.”
Terry Bowden was swarmed by reporters when he visited a Florida State practice last week. He joked that he wasn’t there to provide tips about attacking Tennessee, which struggled to defeat Auburn in October; he was merely letting his wife, Shryl, enjoy some quality time with their six young children back at the hotel.
“I’ve done field trips and PTA meetings and watched a lot of soccer and basketball games,” he said.
Terry Bowden said he bears no ill will toward Auburn, and he said he’s hoping to land a television gig next season.
There will be an opportunity to repay the Tigers when they visit Tallahassee for next fall’s opener. Bobby Bowden has said he’s not taking that game personally, but Jeff Bowden is.
More Top Picks Best Motorcycle Helmets
“There’s not going to be any animosity for dad because he’s older and mature,” Jeff Bowden said. “I’m younger and angrier.”
While the family recovers from the shock of the end of Terry Bowden’s run at Auburn, it also is celebrating the start of Tommy Bowden’s run at Clemson. Tommy Bowden didn’t make it out here because he’s recruiting and trying to revive a program that lags far behind the Seminoles in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Clemson has a long way to go. The Tigers went 3-8 last year and lost to Papa Bowden’s Seminoles 48-0.
Next season’s Clemson-Florida State game figures to test Ann Bowden’s loyalties. But Jeff Bowden said he could guess for whom she’ll be rooting.
“Mother cheers for the son who has the most to lose,” Jeff Bowden said.
Someday, Bobby Bowden will leave the game to his sons. But not yet. None of them can picture him as a retiree; he golfs and is an avid student of World War II history, but he gets restless in the off-season.
“He told the (staff) three years ago that he’s not going to fizzle out like some old boxer,” Jeff Bowden said. “When he goes out, it’ll be with a bang: it’ll be 6 feet under.”
Added offensive coordinator Mark Richt, who is in his 13th season on Bowden’s staff and is considered a candidate to succeed him: “I think he has as much if not more enthusiasm as when I got here in 1985. He still gets jacked up for these games. I think if he stays healthy, he’ll continue to coach for a long time.”
Bowden’s longevity might be attributed to his reliance on a trusted, veteran staff. Bowden’s assistants handle much of the day-to-day duties of running the team. Richt calls the plays, though Bowden occasionally will insist that he try one of the head coach’s treasured “barnyard” trick plays.
“Coach Bowden calls them `pacifiers,’ ” Richt said. “We have them so Coach Bowden can calm down.”
By delegating, Bowden is free to spend time closing recruiting deals and serving as the head of state for a football factory that has finished in the top four 11 straight years. Bowden is at his best when he’s entertaining reporters or alumni with his homespun bits of wisdom, peppering his remarks with “dadgum” and “gosh golly.”
“I’m not going to get into a storytelling contest with him,” Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer said.
Bowden has plenty of stories. And plenty of victories: His 292 career wins (against 84 defeats and four ties) is second among active coaches; Penn State’s Joe Paterno has 307 after defeating Kentucky in the Outback Bowl Friday.
Bowden is closing in on Bear Bryant’s major-college record 323 victories. Of course, Paterno likely will get there first. Paterno, who turned 72 last month, has said he isn’t close to retiring.
Bowden said the same thing last week–and he said it doesn’t matter what happens Monday night.
“People have asked, `If you win it, will you retire?’ ” Bowden said. “Oh, no. I’d want another after that. There’s no satisfying.”