Bobby Bowden, whose homespun charm and coaching savvy turned the Florida State Seminoles into a football superpower, died Sunday morning. He was 91.
Terry Bowden, son of the legendary coach, confirmed to The Associated Press that his father died at home surrounded by family. “It was truly peaceful,” Terry Bowden said in a text message to AP.
Bowden won more major-college games than anyone except Penn State’s Joe Paterno. He retired following the 2009 season with a record of 377-129-4, but the numbers don’t reflect the impact he had on college football in general and FSU in particular.
A public funeral service is scheduled for the Tucker Civic Center on the Florida State campus for Saturday, Aug. 14 beginning at 9:30 a.m. A private service will be conducted in Trussville, Alabama on Sunday, Aug. 15.
The Bowden family is asking that in lieu of flowers, charitable contributions be made to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
The school was ready to drop football when Bowden arrived in 1976. He quickly transformed it into a football brand name with appeal far beyond Tallahassee.
Bowden was a combination coach, preacher and public-relations guru. As college football exploded into a multibillion-dollar business, Bowden’s folksy demeanor put a spell on recruits, fans and even the dadgum media.
Dadgum.
That was Bowden’s go-to expression and as salty a term as his Baptist tongue would allow him to speak. He was unique, unassuming and probably the only major-college coach in America who had his name listed in the local phone book.
Bowden and his wife, Ann, had six children and spawned a coaching tree. Tommy was the head coach at Tulane and Clemson; Terry coached Auburn and Akron.
Bowden was born in Birmingham, Ala., at the dawn of the Great Depression. His father, Bob, was a bank teller and managed to keep the family in its home, which was located just over some bushes from Woodlawn High School.
Bob Bowden would sit on the roof with his son and watch football practice in the afternoons. Bobby grew into a fast, mischievous kid.
A few lights on the street had unfortunate encounters with his BB gun, and peaches sometimes disappeared from a neighbor’s tree, but Bowden’s God-fearing Baptist parents would not tolerate serious trouble out of their only son.
Most of Bowden’s attention was devoted to sports. He became the neighborhood whiz at just about everything he tried but then, one day, his legs ached terribly after a YMCA basketball game.
His mother drove him to the doctor’s office and cried all the way home. The doctor said Bowden had rheumatic fever.
At age 13, the liveliest kid on the block would have to be confined to a bed for a year. The doctor said Bowden would never play sports again and might not even live past 40.
The pastor at Ruhama Baptist Church started telling the congregation to “pray for little Bobby Bowden.” While they waited on a miracle, Bowden would pass his days listening to the radio.
Two things occupied his ears — World War II and Alabama football.
Bowden would draw maps of Europe, tracking troop movements. He’d imagine playing for coach Frank Thomas, who was the Dwight D. Eisenhower of Alabama’s football forces.
Football, history and religion became his lifelong passions, though not necessarily in that order. The prayers for little Bobby Bowden were answered, and he felt forever indebted.
“All I’ve wanted to be is a winner and to help influence others to either find Christ or live a better life,” Bowden said. “That’s what I hope.”
He became the youth minister at Ruhama Baptist, which led to his debut as a public speaker. Four or five people came up afterward and told Bowden he should become a preacher.
“To be honest, I didn’t think I was a good enough person to go into the ministry,” he said. “And football took over.”
He’d taken up the trombone in his downtime and was first chair in the school orchestra. But the instrument was quickly retired, and Bowden became the star quarterback at Woodlawn and headed to Alabama.
Wearing a Crimson Tide jersey was his childhood dream, but another emotion soon overwhelmed him.
Bowden had met Julia Ann Estock at Woodlawn. Tuscaloosa was an hour’s drive from Birmingham, but that was still too far from his high school sweetheart.
He returned home after one semester, and they sneaked across the Georgia state line to get married on April Fools’ Day of 1949.
“My wedding didn’t cost me five bucks,” Bowden said.
He was 19 and his bride was 16. Their love affair would never grow old.
They moved in with Bowden’s parents, and he enrolled at Howard College, which eventually became Samford University. He played baseball, ran track, became a Little All-American quarterback as well as president of his Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity chapter and had two kids with Ann.
Four more would soon follow. Bowden became an assistant coach at Howard and got his first head coaching job at South Georgia College when he was 29.
He returned to Howard as head coach two years later and went 31-6 in four seasons. He wanted to climb the coaching ladder and took a job as the receivers coach at FSU, where Bill Petersen was doing innovative things with the passing game.
That eventually caught the eye of West Virginia coach Jim Carlen, who hired Bowden to rev up the Mountaineers’ offense in 1965. When Carlen went to Texas Tech four years later, Bowden took over and compiled a 42-26 record in six seasons.
That got FSU’s attention. Bowden accepted the school’s job offer, but he didn’t think he’d be in Tallahassee very long.
After winning four games in the previous three seasons, the proud football program Bowden once knew had gone on life support.
In his autobiography, “Called to Coach: Reflections on Life, Faith, and Football,” Bowden said the only worse jobs than coaching FSU in 1976 were being the mayor of Atlanta after Gen. Sherman destroyed the city or being Gen. Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn.
The upside was that Tallahassee was warmer than Morgantown and a lot closer to Alabama. In the back of his mind, Bowden always thought he’d end up coaching the school he cheered for as a bedridden boy.
FSU started 0-3 under its new coach, including a 47-0 loss to Miami, but finished the year on a 5-3 roll. Bowden hauled in a recruiting class that included future All-Americans Ron Simmons, Bobby Butler and Ken Lanier.
FSU went 10-2 in 1977 and beat Florida 37-9 in Gainesville. It was the Seminoles’ first win over the Gators since 1967. Three more would follow as Bowden’s rebuilding project quickly turned into a football machine.
In 1979, FSU became the first major Florida school to win 11 games and go unbeaten in a regular season. The Seminoles went 10-1 the following year.
Both seasons ended in Orange Bowl losses to Oklahoma and were near-misses in the national championship run. That exit strategy to Tuscaloosa rummaging in Bowden’s head was getting complicated.
Not only was he winning, he was doing it in style. It was a heaping helping of Southern Good-Ol’-Bobby with dashes of mischievous daring.
FSU played five straight away games in 1981 against Nebraska, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and LSU. Bowden became King of the Road when the Seminoles slew three of those monsters.
The Seminoles may have lost, but they were rarely boring. Bowden had a fondness for trickery and passing. And that speaking ability that wowed the congregation back at Ruhama Baptist Church worked just as well in the living rooms of recruits.
The 1985 signing class featured Deion Sanders, Sammie Smith and Pat Tomberlin and laid the foundation of a dynasty. What it almost missed was somebody to guide it.
When Ray Perkins resigned from Alabama in 1986, Tide boosters knew whom to call.
Bowden agreed to meet with school president Joab Thomas but said he did not want a formal interview. He figured a glowing résumé and Alabama roots would speak for themselves.
Thomas apparently thought differently. When Bowden went to meet the president, there were 16 other people in the room.
They went through the motions, but Bowden felt duped and disrespected. That was obvious enough to the Alabama brain trust, which offered the job to Bill Curry.
He lasted three seasons, then Alabama again called Bowden, this time with a firm offer. It was too late.
By then, FSU was on a tear unlike any in college football history. From 1987-2000, the Seminoles won at least 10 games each year and finished in the top four of the Associated Press poll every season.
It was a golden era of Heismans, rooskies, “St. Bobby” bumper stickers, Burt Reynolds cameos, ACC titles, tomahawk chopping and Games of the Century. There were two national titles, and Bowden might have had a handful of championship rings if not for Wide Rights and Lefts against Miami.
“They’re going to chisel on my gravestone,” Bowden said after FSU missed a last-minute field goal and lost 17-16 in 1991, “‘He Played Miami.’”
The Preacher’s methods were sometimes questioned. Sanders skipped just about every class during his senior season but still made the game-saving interception in the 1989 Sugar Bowl.
Steve Spurrier dubbed FSU “Free Shoes U.” after an agent bought players $6,000 worth of sports gear. Bowden’s belief in forgiveness and second chances did not always jibe with critics or the NCAA.
The organization stripped Bowden of 12 wins as part of an academic-cheating scandal in 2006-07 involving 61 student-athletes in an online music appreciation course. Bowden had bigger worries.
The dynasty was running out of steam. By 2009, FSU was a .500 team and fans were grumbling that time had passed Bowden by.
FSU brass agreed, and the final act was a messy one. Bowden wanted to coach one more season, but school officials wanted to promote Jimbo Fisher and name Bowden “Ambassador Coach.”
He recoiled at that. Though everybody put on happy faces, it took a while for the hard feelings to subside.
Bowden always had vowed to stay out of his successor’s hair and he kept that promise. He didn’t attend a game until 2013.
It was Bobby Bowden Day and, after 417 games as coach, he finally got to plant the flaming spear during the pregame ceremony against North Carolina State.
The spear stuck in the field named after him. The 40,500-seat erector-set stadium he’d walked into in 1976 had turned into an 82,300-seat brick palace.
There was a 9-foot-tall statue of Bowden outside the entrance to the athletic center, which also had a 30-by-20-foot stained glass window featuring the man who saved the program.
“He made Florida State. He was Florida State,” Fisher said that day. “That’s why we have this stadium, these facilities.
“That’s why we have academics. That’s why we have the school. That’s why we have everything.”
The band went into a new formation and spelled out a word that echoed for decades around Tallahassee:
Dadgum.
Bowden retired from football, but he never stopped pursuing his other lifelong interests. He spoke regularly to churches, youth groups and corporations.
He never moved out of the home he bought in 1976. He’d get up at 4:30 a.m., read the Bible as well as the newspaper, skim a few books and watch war documentaries, Animal Planet and ESPN.
Since his phone number and address were listed, fans had no problem finding where to send memorabilia for Bowden to sign. He would spend hours a week autographing everything he found in his mailbox.
Bowden loved to golf and had a hole-in-one when he was 86. His ace was at the Golf Club of Quincy, an unpretentious club about a half-hour north of Tallahassee.
He was paired with a friend and two strangers who just happened to show up that day. Afterward, Bowden skipped the hole-in-one tradition of buying a round of drinks for everyone in the clubhouse.
“I’m too cheap,” he told the Tallahassee Democrat, “and I don’t visit bars.”
Bowden’s Alabama roots made him a disciple of Bear Bryant, and he often brought up the fact that Bryant died shortly after retiring in 1982. It was one reason Bowden hung on to his job as long as he did.
“After you retire, there’s only one big event left,” he’d say. “And I ain’t ready for that.”
His retirement lasted a lot longer than Bryant’s, but that one big event has finally arrived. About all that’s left now are the memories, the accolades and the gravestone.
Whatever it reads, the person buried there did far more than just play Miami.
Friends, former colleagues and current coaches paid their respects after hearing the news of Bowden’s passing.
“Coach Bowden was one of the greatest coaches ever, but more than that he was an incredible man,” current FSU coach Mike Norvell said in a statement. “He was a special human being who earned an enduring legacy because of his wonderful heart, faith and values he lived. It was the honor of my lifetime to know him and beyond anything, I could dream to have a relationship with him.”
“Coach Bowden built a football dynasty and raised the national profile of Florida State University, and he did it with class and a sense of humor,” FSU President John Thrasher said in a statement. “While he leaves an incredible legacy as one of the best football coaches in collegiate history, he also will be remembered for his great faith, his love of family and his mentorship of countless young people. He will be profoundly missed.”
“Prayers for Ann and the Bowden family! Much love and respect and thankfulness for Coach’s influence on my life,” former FSU assistant and former Miami coach Mark Richt posted on Twitter.
“Today, we lost a legend. Bobby was a great friend and mentor to me, and his impact transcended the coaching profession in so many ways. Sending love to Ann and the entire Bowden family. Rest In Peace Coach Bowden,” former Florida coach Urban Meyer posted on social media.
Added current Miami coach Manny Diaz on Twitter, “Coach Bowden, Thank you for showing this young coach how to lead a program with the Christ-like principles of selflessness, grace, and humility. You won a ton of games but transformed countless more lives, including mine. Rest In Peace in God’s eternity.”
“Megan and I send our deepest condolences to the Bowden family,” tweeted UF coach Dan Mullen. “Coach is a legend in our game and will be remembered as an even better person. Well beyond his monumental career, he touched everyone he met with his kindness. It was an honor to call him a friend.”
“Our game lost one of the best to ever do it today. Coach Bowden was a great role model for so many coaches, a true Man of Faith, and I am thankful for that example he set and the legacy he leaves,” Central Florida coach Gus Malzahn posted on social media.
South Florida coach Jeff Scott, whose father, Brad, was an assistant coach under Bowden at FSU from 1983-93 and grew up around the program, stated on Twitter, “Coach Bobby Bowden’s legacy lives on each day thru the countless people that he impacted. The 10 years I spent running around the FSU locker room/practice fields as a kid gave me the incredible experience to watch him in action. He set The Standard! Faith, Family, Football.”
“Bobby Bowden was one of the all time greatest coaches in the history of college football,” former Gators coach Steve Spurrier posted on Twitter. “He’s the second winningest coach of all time behind Joe Paterno. We had some good battles during my 12 years at Florida. He won most of them and we won a few.”
