Bobby Bowden To Coach One Last Game At Florida State

Bobby Bowden To Coach One Last Game at Florida State

Bobby Bowden orchestrated one of the great runs in college football, building Florida State into a powerhouse that produced two national titles, dozens of All-Americans and some of the most memorable missed field goals ever. After 34 years as Florida State’s football coach, the road for Bobby Bowden will soon come to an end. When the Seminoles play West Virginia on Jan. 1 in the Gator Bowl, Bowden will be looking to retire with his 389th win. 389 will fall short of Joe Paterno’s all-time winning record but Bowden will go down as one of the greatest college football coaches of all-time. Paterno and he have been great ambassadors for the game of college football and will forever be linked to each of their respective universities as they both have a combined 74 years at one institution. For the sake of Bobby Bowden and Florida State, let’s hope that this eighty-year old man goes out with a victory against one of his former teams and rides off into the north Florida sunset. Bobby Bowden joined 790 The Ticket in Miami  with Dan LeBetard to talk about whether he felt like he was done wrong by FSU in the end, him being graceful about accepting FSU’s decision, what will his fondest memory be at Florida State, and what was his most crushing defeat.

Whether he felt like he was done wrong by FSU in the end:

“Well I was wanting to get another year but it was going to be this year or next year.”

Whether he is angry about how it ended:

“Well, disappointed I think that was a big thing. Ann and I talked about it and the one thing that we are not going to be is bitter. Just disappointed.”

Why he isn’t bitter and why his wife can speak her mind and he can’t:

“Well you know Ann says what is on her mind and if I knew what was going to happen I wouldn’t have had her interviewed. She didn’t want to in the first place but I had told her that I didn’t want anything discussed about my leave and of course once they got her going she wound up.”

On him being graceful about accepting FSU’s decision:

“Well Dan , I never believed in burning bridges because I just don’t believe in that. What is what is and like I said it is a year earlier than I had planned and that is the way the ball bounces. Yeah I don’t want to make it an issue at all. I just don’t want to do that.”

Whether he cried:

“No. Heck no! I don’t want to do that. If I can survive this next week I will get by without it.”

On what will his fondest memory be at Florida State:

“Well I think it was the fact that I was able to stay for 34 years and there never was a day that I dreaded to go to work. I enjoyed going to work every day. I think that is the biggest thing. I think what would be awful is if you had a job and you dreaded to go to work. That never happened to me.”

Whether the biggest win would be the championship wins:

“Well those are good but not… I think the biggest win, I have said this before, I think the biggest win in the 34 years that I have been here was when we beat Nebraska at Nebraska in 1980 where they were number three in the nation and they were heavily favored and we went in there, back in those days you didn’t beat them there, lately they had been beat there. We won that and I felt like that kind of put Florida State on the map.”

What was his most crushing defeat:

“The worst ones would probably be the wide rights and lefts at Miami. Those probably hurt just as much as any. We have got beat worse than that by Miami several times and by Florida but when you miss field goals that not only loses you a game but maybe a national championship. Those have got to be the bitterest.”