Florida State Seminoles, '77-'79
This afternoon my heart was saddened at the announcement that legendary Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden was going to retire effective at the end of the Seminoles' bowl game. I experienced a myriad of emotions at that moment, for you see, Coach Bowden is a hero to me.
I had the privilege of playing under Coach Bowden at Florida State. The year was 1977 and Coach Bowden had already achieved legendary status at FSU by guiding a team that recently had the distinction of boasting the nation’s longest losing streak. In 1976, this new coach from West Virginia guided the Seminoles to a five-win season. My goodness, could it get any better than this? Little did the Seminole nation know what lay ahead. Little did I know what was in store for me.
In the spring of 1977, I wrote Coach Bowden about the possibility of being a walk-on at Florida State. I soon received a letter inviting me to try out. In August, I stepped on to the campus, received my equipment, and headed out to my very first practice. As I jogged onto the practice field, the thought raced through my mind, "What in the world am I doing here?" That question would soon be answered in a way I would never have anticipated.
That practice started out with a traditional stretching and warming-up routine known to all football players. What set that practice apart from anything I had ever experienced was what occurred after that warm-up.
Coach Bowden blew his whistle and the entire team sprinted to him in the middle of that practice field. In what would become a normal routine each practice session, Coach would lay out what his expectations were for that particular practice... nothing new there. What he did next impacted me for life. He prayed.
What?
I was used to saying a rote prayer before a game or occasionally after a game but before a routine practice? This prayer also seemed different –- it seemed to come from his heart. Coach Bowden was a man of God, and Coach Bowden cared deeply for his players.
That moment started me down a life-long path of desiring to follow God. The rest of the practice was a blur but that prayer and what it meant was not. Even today, I can close my eyes, and in my mind's eye, I can see that moment as clearly as if it occurred this afternoon.
The word "hero" in my humble opinion is one of the most overused and missused words in the English language. As a culture, we assign hero status to rock stars, actors, and athletes simply by a talent with which they were blessed. A hero is so much more. A hero is a hero by who he is. The Bible puts it succinctly: "as a man thinks in heart so he is." A hero becomes a hero because of what is in his heart.
Several stories come to mind thinking about Coach Bowden's heart. First and foremost, he didn't just talk about being a Christian; he lived out in his day-to-day life what it means to be a Christian. I was never a star athlete and quite honestly was shocked every day I was able to walk on that practice field as a member of the team. Coach not only knew me by name but was a constant source of encouragement to me. He always treated me as if I were an All-American. He was that way with everybody.
I never once heard him cuss or belittle a player. I never saw him drink an alcoholic beverage. He would, however, magically make an unlit cigar disappear from the start of practice to the end of practice without ever lighting it, but, hey, he was a coach in the South! Anything he asked of his players, you could guarantee he would be doing himself. He is a man of character.
He truly was concerned for each person on his team –- not as a player but as a man. To him, character conditioning was just as important as strength conditioning. He was always available to talk to any of his players. His door was always opened to each one of us at any time.
I recently heard a radio interview of Georgia head coach Mark Richt on locally based FamilyLife Today. During that interview, Coach Richt was asked to give a tribute to Coach Bowden. From the depth of his heart, Coach Richt said the following:
I want to thank you for blessing my life. You gave me the first opportunity to coach at the college level. You allowed me to coach the quarterbacks when everyone else said you were crazy to allow a graduate assistant coach do that.
Most importantly, you led me to the Lord. My life truly changed from that point. But it is your example, the environment you provided for me and my family that really attracted me to that end. You were bold enough to preach Christ that day after Pablo died. Pablo didn’t die in vain in that regard.
Also, I want to thank you for all the years I got to spend at Florida State in a very stable environment in a very unstable profession. You believed in me and my family and now even as I move forward to be the head coach at Georgia, you are still with me.
I don’t always call you as often as I should but I can reflect daily on the way you handled situations, and quite frankly there were a couple of times I thought you handled things improperly, and after being a head coach and sitting in the seat and living through some of the experiences I’ve lived through, I can understand completely why you did some things you did and I can respect you more now than the day I left.
I can guarantee you that a tribute such as that can be repeated by just about every player who has ever had the privilege of being coached by this remarkable man. It was not so much what he said but how he lived in the day to day.
As a graduation gift to my son, I was collecting letters of congratulation from friends and family to celebrate this major achievement. I had asked Coach if he would mind writing a letter, offering a word of advice to celebrate another step toward manhood for my son. Within a week, I received his reply.
One paragraph stood out as I read these words of wisdom to my son:
The ultimate success in life is not how much money you made or how many children you had or how big a house you got. That is not the measure of success. The measure of success is whether you made Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior and are living trying to serve His purpose for your life. I think the best way to do this is to get your priorities in order. Make God your number one priority, which knowing your dad, I imagine that is the way you were raised. Second, keep your family as your next priority, and then third, your education. Remember they can take your athletic playing days away but they can’t take your education away. Then, of course, after that go after your profession with the same vigor that you have gone through life.
Coach, your legacy lives through me in many different ways. I find myself saying "Dadgummit" in moments of frustration. I see a bottle of Pepsi and I think of pouring a bag of peanuts into it before drinking it. But Coach, I also see those around me and try to think of ways I can help to make their day better. I try to be an encouragement to all I come in contact with in the course of the day, and most importantly, I try to keep God as my top priority in life.
Coach, your days on the FSU football field may be coming to a close, but your influence in the lives of your players will live on. They live on not only in our lives, but in the lives of our families and in the lives of all we come in contact with each day. To me, that is the legacy you leave. To me, you are always in my Hall of Fame. You are a hero to me.
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