Cox: My one chance meeting with Coach Bowden, plus more staff memories
Following the passing of beloved Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden, the Warchant.com staff got together for a live roundtable conversation and took calls to remember the legendary Florida State icon.
If you scroll down, you can read a portion of the thoughts in the video from Gene Williams, Ira Schoffel, Corey Clark, Jeff Cameron and plenty of callers as they shared memories of the legendary coach.
Being that I'm a little younger than others on the staff and just graduated from FSU a couple of years ago, I didn't get the chance to cover Coach Bowden. But I was honored to meet him one time, and I also wanted to include my cherished memory with him.
And be sure to read below for more highlights from the video tribute.
Growing up in Tallahassee, I had heard plenty of stories about folks meeting Coach Bowden. They were always so positive.
By the time I was around, Coach Bowden had already taken FSU to the mountaintop and had already endeared himself to Tallahassee in the process. And most of all, through my lens, he had brought three different generations of my family together when we would come out to Stadium Drive for games on Saturdays.
At least a few members of my family, if not many of them, were in the stands for every game from the time Coach Bowden signed on to be FSU's “offensive ends coach” in 1963 until his final season as head coach in 2009. I started going to games as a toddler during the last few years of the incredible "Dynasty" run that Coach built.
To myself and others who grew up around FSU my age, Coach Bowden wasn’t just the singular face of FSU and the only head coach we had known – he was all our parents' generation had even known too!
Growing up, I felt like it was a rite of passage for me as an FSU fan to meet Coach Bowden. Years went by, and I waited and waited.
Some got the chance to meet him in a setting like an organized function at church or a speaking engagement, and they knew they would be face-to-face with the charismatic legend ahead of time.
Others were simply lucky enough to bump into him by chance somewhere around town. I was one of them. The summer after I graduated high school, I worked as a golf camp instructor at a course in Tallahassee.
One of the amazing things about Coach Bowden was that even after all those years and all those lives he touched, he still made time for anyone who stopped him throughout his day. Decades after many other fans’ stories of meeting him, and all the good that he did for Florida State and this community, he headed out for a quiet round of golf in 2014.
Just a hole behind him, I was chaperoning a group of about a half-dozen campers. Outside of a few other camp groups, there was hardly a soul on the course. We gradually advanced up the fairway, and once I saw a figure on the green before us, I motioned for the group to stop hitting.
The older golfer up ahead had laid out a few balls and was practicing his chipping. I walked up to let him know our group was going to pass him and move on to the next hole. It was just a routine moment that might happen on any day at any course.
As I walked closer and closer to the green, I began to realize this was much more than just another golfer. His hat gave it away.
There I was, self-proclaimed “biggest FSU fan” in town, and I had just a few brief moments to mentally prepare myself to meet the icon who built the program that caused me to fall in love with sports.
I don’t know what Coach Bowden did to make every person feel special and significant, but to me, he genuinely made me feel like it was the most important moment of his day. It felt like he had lived his entire coaching career, and I was the first fan to ever approach him and thank him for everything.
Coach completely stopped what he was doing, put his club down and stopped working on his short game. He asked me about my family, where I went to school, and more about being a fan. I told him that everything Florida State has done -- or will ever do -- in athletics, they owe to him. And that he’ll never know how much he means to everyone.
By the time we finished our conversation and took a picture, I was on cloud nine. Then the rest of my group, which I sort of left standing in the fairway, came walking up to Coach. As you would expect, he stopped and took a picture with each kid.
By that time, I felt like we should move on as to not impose any more than we had.
When we were still within earshot on the next hole, I heard that each of the other camp groups had also come over to meet Coach Bowden. By the time he got done talking with everyone, it must have been close to an hour. He wanted to make sure every kid that wanted to meet him got a chance.
Even though I was a little bit older than them, meeting Coach made me feel like a kid as well. I finally got to meet the legend in person, and he was nicer than I imagined -- even though this same scenario had probably played out tens of thousands of times before.
Highlights from Bowden remembrance roundtable
Gator Kirk (caller): “My condolences to the Bowden family. Thank you seems inadequate to describe what Coach Bowden means to so many people in college football and FSU. Rest in peace, and Go 'Noles.”
Jeff: “Most of the things that are talked about with Coach Bowden are very little to do with the football … It’s all been about the man that he was.”
Ira: “Nobody talks about the wins, its almost like an afterthought. That’s not the thing most people want to talk about. They want to talk about the personal relationship they feel like they had with a coaching legend.”
Corey: “He was such an easy person to cheer for. You knew he was a good person. I know in the realm of college football, it's not supposed to matter, but by god it did matter. It mattered to me. It mattered to me that I could feel proud of the coach that I cheered for and he was a good human being. …That’s what’s so cool about being able to say that was your coach. That’s the guy you grew up cheering for.”
Gene: “Before I ever did Florida State as media, I was a fan. Just got to meet him once as a fan with my dad; he made a big impression. Then a year later, we all remember The Fifth Quarter in the French Quarter in New Orleans. The next day, we’re at the team hotel and Coach Bowden comes out of the elevator with his entourage. He sees myself and my best friend. He sees us and comes right to us. Asks how my dad is doing. Says, 'Thank you so much for coming out to support the team, have a safe drive back to Tallahassee.' And it's genuine. It wasn’t just coach speak -- 99 percent of coaches would have just gotten off that elevator with their entourage and left.”
Wes (caller): “Want to give my condolences to the Bowden family. I want to keep it quick and lighthearted. I’ve got a quote here everybody can appreciate. Bobby Bowden was asked once about the toughness of his players. His reply: ‘That boy don’t know the meaning of the word fear. In fact, I just saw his grades, and that boy don’t know the meaning of a lot of words.’”
Jeff: “I think about my dad going to meet his best friend in Lake City, and every year Coach Bowden would do the [booster] tour. My dad would get so giddy, because he’d get to take a picture with Coach Bowden and shake his hand. … When I visit my dad, he has those pictures in his man cave. He must have 30 of them. It was always special. It was always great.”
Ira: “Everyone has a Bobby Bowden story if you lived in Tallahassee or were around the program. Then the way he was with the media, which was more my perspective. Just having those Sunday morning breakfasts that we used to go to. I don’t know how many fans realize or even know happened. Sunday morning before church, Coach Bowden would meet all of the media in a hotel in Tallahassee for an hour. Ask him whatever questions you wanted. Even at the end, when it wad getting difficult and people were asking tough questions ... still those Sunday mornings, he would talk with us and was very classy. It was a testament to how people handle adversity. He was really classy.”
Democratic Edward (caller): “It’s been an emotional day for me. In 1976, I was in the ninth grade. FSU was in the dumps when Coach Bowden came here. It wasn’t just beat Miami, beat Florida ... it was beat anybody. We were fresh off of 0-11. You talk about Yankee Stadium, the house that Ruth built? That stadium is the house that Bobby Bowden built. And you know all know this. I love Bobby Bowden.”
Phil (caller): “The Bobby Bowden call-in show was so great. I would call in regularly. Any time I would call in, my heart would race and I’d sweat and I’d ask my question. He was such a graceful guy, no matter how stupid my question might be. It was always the best answer. That’s what I remember.”
Ira: “When Odell was interim head coach, he told the story about why he became a Florida State fan. He said it was growing up watching Coach Bowden’s highlight show over the weekends. He would watch it with his mom and tell her, ‘I’m going to go play for him.’”
Nick (caller): “My dad loved everything Bobby ever did. … This program and this Seminole family that Bobby built is what I want to reflect on. This fan base, community in Tallahassee, emulating Bobby’s example is what’s most important.”
Tyler (caller): “I took so much solace in the fact that our coach was such a great guy. We would watch every special, every speaking engagement that we could of him. We just respected him so much.”
Corey: “Another thing I want to touch on real quick. It was fun to root for him because of the person that he was. But man, his offenses … Florida State would have a double-reverse, going for it on fourth down, fake punts, blocked punts, it was such a fun style of football that we grew up on too.”
ALSO READ: Corey Clark: Rest in peace, coach... Thank you for everything!
Jeff (caller): “Heart and mind and strength for the Bowden family. He’s given us so many great memories. The great legend he left behind … the coaching that he gave the players.”
Michael Langston: “I think with Bobby, the main thing why it’s so crushing is the way he connected with the city was different when he got here. He changed people in the way they viewed FSU. They weren’t anything before he got there. He changed the whole concept of what the standard of what FSU was going to be. I remember as a young kid, we’d have Junior Seminoles. The end zones were wooden seats back there. You just saw everything changing. There was just a feeling where, it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, you got the right guy in charge who is going to take us home.”
Ralph (caller): “My mother and my aunt both worked at Florida State in the 1990s. I joined the Marine Corps in 1989. My aunt came home one day with a handwritten note from Bobby Bowden to me thanking me for being a Seminole and thanking me for joining the service and giving to my country. It just meant the world to a 16-year-old kid. He didn’t have to do that.”
Gene: “His adaptability too ... why he was able to be good for so long. He would change. A lot of coaches, this is the way they’re going to do it, they’re not going to adapt. He was intense in his coaching style and micromanaged everything [before] going to a CEO, and both worked. He was successful in both levels. He also adjusted in how he coached.”
