Why Bobby Bowden Has Been a Blessing

The last time Florida State head coach Bobby Bowden had a losing season, Gerald Ford was running the country and Peyton Manning was being born.

Oh, yeah. And Microsoft was applying to be a company. Applying.

In his 41 years as a head coach in Division-I football, Bobby Bowden has compiled 366 wins. In his 31 years at Florida State, he has earned the program two national championships and 12 conference championships with only one losing season.

And to top it all off, only three of his 31 seasons at Florida State have not ended in a bowl game appearance.

Bowden's remarkable career is even more impressive when you consider the fact that he took over an FSU program in 1976 that had won four total games over the previous three seasons.

But his wins and losses, his bowl appearances and national championships pale in comparison to what he has done for the game of college football and the men who have graced his practice fields.

Bowden has always believed that parents should stick to parenting and coaches should stick to coaching. But it's unrealistic to think that every player under a coach's wing has grown up with a father or father-like figure and Bowden knows that. He has always been able to make that personal connection to a player that helps them succeed in not just athletics, but in manhood, especially if that player has never had a strong male influence in their lives. He is as honest as he is encouraging and his warm and engaging personality helps him walk that fine line between motivator and mentor.

From his first coaching gig at Southern Georgia College where his players were quoted as calling him "a father figure" to years later at Florida State where players commented on his blue-collar, father-like work ethic.

His first quarterback at FSU, Wally Woodham, said it was easy to play for Coach Bowden because he reminded the players of themselves and their families: "He's the type of guy they (the players) can relate to. A guy who's willing to go out and work."

But Bowden almost didn't even have a chance to make such an impression on Wally Woodham. After his freshman year in '75, the year previous to Bowden coming in as the new head coach, Woodham had doubts about his ability to play at FSU and was losing his desire.

"I went in and talked to Coach Bowden, and he just sat there and listened to me," Woodham said. "Then he talked me into just hanging in there and not doing something at that moment."

Quarterback Wally Woodham was an inductee into the Florida State Football Hall of Fame in 1985.

LeRoy Butler, the creator of the Lambeau Leap and an all-pro safety for the Green Bay Packers, credits Bobby Bowden for rescuing him from a life of insecurity and dead-ends.

"I was a Proposition 48 (at Florida State), and no one really wanted me," recalls Butler. "And the day I was ineligible, Bobby Bowden came to the projects and told my mom, 'I don't care about football; I want him to get an education and get out of this place.' If he doesn't do that, I don't know how else I would have made it. He made it clear it wasn't about football, it was about life."

Bobby Bowden's Alabama-drawl and permanent smile tells the world more than where he was born. It speaks volumes about who he is and what he's about. To the man who has been a decent and kind man for his thousands of players over the decades, there is no better representation as to what a coach should be. I see no better coach to have at the top of the NCAA mountain. He has been more and done more for college football than arguably any coach in the history of the game. And the fact that his wins are the least of his testimony to that fact speaks even more about the man known in Tallahassee as "The Riverboat Gambler."

... And that's saying a lot when it comes from an author who bleeds Orange and Blue.