FSU coach Bobby Bowden to retire after bowl game

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — 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 in history.

Bowden said Tuesday he will end his 44-year coaching career after the Seminoles play in a bowl game. Bowden was done in by a combination of off-field woes, too many defeats and coach-in-waiting Jimbo Fisher ready to take over.

"Nothing lasts forever, does it?" a relaxed-looking Bowden asked during video interview conducted by school officials. "But I’ve had some wonderful years here at Florida State, you know it. Hadn’t done as good lately as I wish I could have, but I’ve had wonderful years, no regrets."

The 80-year-old Bowden will retire as the second winningest coach in major-college football behind Penn State’s Joe Paterno. The folksy coach has won 388 games at Samford, West Virginia and Florida State, where he spent the last 34 seasons.

Bowden was faced with the option of coming back next season with diminished control over the program, giving Fisher more power.

"We’ve got one more game and I look forward to enjoying these next few weeks as the head football coach," Bowden said earlier Tuesday in a statement released by the school.

The Seminoles are bowl eligible at 6-6, and were awaiting word on where they will play. They’re also awaiting word from the NCAA on whether 14 victories in recent seasons will be vacated because of an academic cheating scandal.

Bowden won two national titles at Florida State, in 1993 and 1999. Among his top achievements is a string of 14 straight seasons ending in 2000 when the Seminoles won at least 10 games and finished ranked in the top five of the AP poll. Florida State was 152-19-1, an .864 winning percentage, during that span. He has a 315-97-4 record with the Seminoles, but his teams were 73-42 the past nine seasons.

"He set records of achievement on the field that will probably never be equaled," Florida State president T.K. Wetherell said. "Bobby Bowden in many ways became the face of Florida State. It was his sterling personality and character that personified this university."

FSU officials announced after the 2007 season that Fisher, the offensive coordinator, would succeed Bowden.

The end of the Bowden era has been brewing for years, and the call for change only grew louder this year, when loss after loss, many coming in the final minutes, began piling up. The regular season ended with a sixth straight loss to bitter rival Florida, a 37-10 blowout.

A football lifer, Bowden modeled his career after his idol Paul "Bear" Bryant, the legendary Alabama coach who died shortly after he retired in 1982.

"After you retire, there’s only one big event left," Bowden has said over the years. "And I ain’t ready for that."

Bowden seemed to be in good humor during the video interview, saying his family doesn’t have to worry about his well being.

"Now, you know I have to go out and get a job. Can you believe that?" he said. "I’ve got to go get a job. I ain’t had a job in 55 years."

Paterno called Bowden a tough competitor who "has meant an awful lot to the universities he coached and to the game of football overall.

"He and his wife, Ann, have dedicated their lives with untold hours to better the teams and universities they cared so much about," Paterno said. "They will be missed by the coaching profession and college football."

Bowden relished the spotlight and his "aw shucks" approach was well received everywhere he went. It was during the rare losses when Bowden was at his best, relying on his favorite phrase "Dadgumit" when discussing all those wide-right and wide-left field goals against Miami in the late 1980s and early 1990s that knocked so many of his teams out of national title contention.

Bowden also got caught up in NCAA investigations. The cheating scandal is the just the latest. The school was hit with five years’ probation for a 1993 incident when several of his players were given free shoes and sporting goods from a local store. That led to former Florida coach Steve Spurrier calling Florida State "Free Shoes University."

Bowden and winning, though, go hand in hand. He goes into a final bowl game with an overall 388-129-4 record. After his first Florida State team went 5-6 in 1976, the Seminoles never had a losing season.

Among the stars who played for Bowden were Heisman Trophy winning quarterbacks Charlie Ward and Chris Weinke, defensive backs Deion Sanders and LeRoy Butler, running back Warrick Dunn, receiver Peter Warrick and nose guard Ron Simmons.

"There’s been so many great players through our program," Bowden said. "I’ve had quite a few calls today from them. And then somebody says, any great game? Well, they’re all great. Well there were some pretty dadgum big ones. We won our share, we didn’t win them all, but we did win our share."

Bowden’s national titles came in ‘93 with Ward guiding the Seminoles to a 12-1 record and a title-clinching win over Nebraska in the Orange Bowl. The next national crown came six years later, with Weinke and All-American Warrick leading the ‘Noles to a perfect 12-0 record capped by a win over Michael Vick and Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl.

The ‘93 title was perhaps Bowden’s greatest moment. It came after near misses in 1987, 1988, 1991 and 1992 — thanks to missed kicks against Miami. In ‘87, it was a missed field goal, missed extra point and failed 2-point conversion in a 26-25 loss; in ‘88 the ‘Noles only loss was 31-0 against Miami in the season-opener; in ‘91 Gerry Thomas was wide right in a 17-16 loss; and in ‘92, Dan Mowrey was wide right on a game-tying attempt in a 19-16 loss. Wide right III occurred in a 2000 loss against Miami, but Florida State still made it to the title game before losing to Oklahoma, 13-2.

Bowden’s lone perfect season in ‘99 made history as the Seminoles became the first team to go wire-to-wire in AP ranked No. 1 from preseason to final poll.

"The first championship was more of a relief," Bowden said. "I think I was able to enjoy the second one a little more."

A few more failed field goals against Miami followed. In 2002, Xavier Beitia was wide left on a last-play, 43-yard attempt in 28-27 loss and Beitia was wide right late in the fourth quarter in a 16-14 Orange Bowl loss to Miami in 2004.

Other than Miami, Bowden’s Seminoles were a dominant force. They won the Atlantic Coast Conference 12 times in their first 14 seasons after joining the league in 1992.

Bowden built Florida State’s program by scheduling tough opponents — usually on the road. He was dubbed "King of the Road" in 1981 after playing consecutive road games at Nebraska, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and LSU. The Seminoles won three of the five.

Other rough patches under Bowden included Randy Moss being kicked out of school for smoking marijuana, Warrick’s suspension in 1999 for his involvement in a shopping scam and quarterback Adrian McPherson’s dismissal in 2002 amid rumors of gambling.

Bowden, a native of Birmingham, Ala., also is the patriarch of college football’s most famous coaching family. Sons Tommy and Terry have been head coaches — Tommy at Tulane and Clemson; Terry at Auburn and currently at North Alabama. Another son, Jeff, was FSU’s offensive coordinator in 2005-06, but the team had its lowest production in a quarter-century and lost 11 times over those two seasons. He was forced to resign after working for his father for 13 seasons.

Bowden’s oldest son, Steve, did not get into coaching but was arrested in 2003 on a multimillion investment scam that cost his father $1.6 million.

Bowden made friends of rivals

Even Bobby Bowden ‘s fiercest rivals could not help but like him.

"It’s hard to get mad at coach Bowden," said South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier, whose Florida teams faced off against Bowden’s Florida State squads throughout the 1990s, including once for a national title.

The 80-year-old Bowden retired Tuesday as the second-winningest coach in major college football. He won 388 games in 44 seasons with Samford, West Virginia and Florida State, but he’ll be most remembered for his 34 years with the Seminoles.

From 1987-2000, Bowden’s Seminoles won at least 10 games each season, finished ranked in the top five of the AP poll and won national championships in 1993 and ‘99.

During that time, Florida State’s rivalry games with Miami and Florida often helped settle the national title race. The games were intense and the rivalries bitter, but Bowden never took it personally.

"I didn’t like when they were talking about hurting quarterbacks," Spurrier said Tuesday, recalling some of the boasts Florida State players made when the Gators had a high-powered passing attack. "We (he and Bowden) had some words that year. But after that everything was all right."

Spurrier’s Gators went 5-8-1 against Bowden’s ‘Noles.

Jimmy Johnson went 4-1 against Bowden in his five seasons at Miami, losing the first game and winning the next four meetings.

Johnson didn’t get to know Bowden until after he left Miami to coach the Dallas Cowboys, and Johnson made a visit to Florida State.

"He was just so gracious and so kind and threw out all kind of accolades my way," Johnson told the AP in a telephone interview Tuesday. "He just impressed me as being such a good human being."

Back in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, when Bowden was first starting to build Florida State into a national power, Howard Schnellenberger was doing the same at Miami.

"He and I go way back to 1979 and I can’t think of a better friend or competitor," said Schnellenberger, currently the coach at Florida Atlantic. "He and I worked together in improving the football situation in the state and I think we were successful in doing just that."

Schnellenberger said the end of Bowden’s career at Florida State should have been handled better by the school. Bowden was faced with the option of coming back next season with diminished control over the program, giving coach-in-wating Jimbo Fisher more power.

"I don’t think that the situation was handled very well and shouldn’t have happened but he did the very best he could," Schnellenberger said. "I am happy that he will not be in that situation anymore."

Others also were not happy with the way Bowden’s tenure at Florida State ended.

"I think it’s a bit of a disgrace for those making the decision for Bobby Bowden to retire," CBS analyst Gary Danielson said. "If Bobby Bowden wanted to stay one more year, I don’t understand why the Florida State nation could not come together and pull in the same direction to make that happen."

Former Nebraska coach and current athletic director Tom Osborne is another rival and friend to Bowden. Florida State beat Nebraska in the Orange Bowl after the 1993 season to cap Bowden’s first national championship.

"I’ve been in communication with Bobby Bowden over the last few weeks and realize that this has been a difficult situation for him," Osborne said in statement released by Nebraska. "Football has lost a great representative, but at the same time Bobby, and all of us who know him and care about him, can reflect with admiration on his remarkable career. "

Bowden trails only Penn State Joe Paterno on the career victories list for major college coaches.

When Bowden was at West Virginia, his teams played Penn State every year from 1970-75. After Bowden went to Florida State, he and Paterno matched up twice in bowl games and each won one.

The two became close as their careers progressed. As the elder statesmen of college coaching, they often said they would spend time together at clinics and conventions because they could relate to one another.

"Bobby has been a tough competitor. He has meant an awful lot to the universities he coached and to the game of football overall," Paterno said. "He and his wife, Ann, have dedicated their lives with untold hours to better the teams and universities they cared so much about. They will be missed by the coaching profession and college football."

-- Ralph D. Russo

Shannon saddened to see rival Bowden retire

CORAL GABLES, Fla. — Bobby Bowden was the mainstay of Florida State-Miami games, the unquestioned central figure in one of college football’s premier rivalries.

Hero to the Seminoles. Villain to the Hurricanes.

"We hate them," former Miami defensive end Calais Campbell said in 2007. "And they hate us."

True, but unnoticed amid all those Wide Rights and Wide Lefts, the "Game of the Century" in 1987, the No. 1 vs. No. 2 game that carried Miami to the 1991 national championship, meetings in the historic Orange Bowl stadium and even one matchup in the Orange Bowl game, was the often-unspoken sense of respect that Bowden and the Hurricanes always extended toward the other.

And when the 80-year-old Bowden announced his retirement Tuesday, Miami coach Randy Shannon was clearly disappointed to see an era end.

"He is college football," Shannon said Tuesday. "The respect is always going to be there. When you look at Coach Bowden, he was a man who always had a lot of integrity. No matter which coach it was at the University of Miami, you could always talk to him and have a good time with a man with a lot of wit, learn a lot from him.

During Bowden’s time at Florida State, he went 14-21 against Miami. He coached against Florida 36 times during his tenure in Tallahassee, but Miami goes down as his most-faced rival because he squared off with the Hurricanes twice while at West Virginia in the early 1970s, going 1-1 in those games.

"With Florida State being so visible and such a great football team and with the Miami teams being along the same lines, we attracted national attention," said former Miami coach Jimmy Johnson, who was 4-1 against Bowden from 1984-88. "Even though it was two teams from the same state, everybody in the country watched that game. It caught the nation’s attention."

Bowden acknowledged many times in the last few years that no opponent gave him more trouble than the Hurricanes, noting that losses to Miami along the way likely cost him at least two more national championships.

"From 1983 until, oh, nearly 2000, the lead game in the nation was Florida State and Miami," Bowden said in 2007. "That was one of the biggest games. I mean, it was national, boy. Kind of like those old Southern Cal and UCLA games back when O.J. (Simpson) was there. But then of course, since then, Miami and us both have gone down. We’re trying to get back."

Miami finished this regular season 9-3, suggesting it is closer to what Bowden would define as "back."

The Seminoles finished 6-6, their season dominated by talk about whether Bowden would be back.

The long-expected word on that front came Tuesday, and it wasn’t a moment savored by many of those linked to the Hurricanes’ side.

"Coach Bowden, he’s a legend in football," Miami quarterback Jacory Harris said earlier this season. "That’s why they named their field for him, I guess."

Indeed, it is Bobby Bowden Field at Doak Campbell Stadium, and that ground was the scene for some unforgettable Florida State-Miami moments.

Florida State lost on a field goal — wide right — at home in the 1991 game, then met the same fate a year later in Miami. In 2000, it happened again, another potential game-winning kick sailing past the right upright and giving the Hurricanes a 27-24 win.

"It can’t happen any more, can it?" Bowden would later ask.

Oh, but it could.

Two years later, another missed kick cost Florida State. Wide left that time, on a hot Saturday afternoon in the Orange Bowl, giving the defending national champion Hurricanes a 28-27 victory. And Wide Right IV came the following season in the Orange Bowl game, the only time Bowden faced Miami in a postseason matchup, a missed kick with about 5 minutes left helping Miami escape 16-14.

Bowden and the Hurricanes met for the final time this past Labor Day, another down-to-the-wire affair. Florida State had a chance on the final play but Miami won again, 38-34.

It would be the final time Robert Cleckler Bowden coached against the Hurricanes.

"When we play them next year," Shannon said, "I think it’ll be very strange for everybody."

-- Tim Reynolds

Quotes on Bobby Bowden’s retirement

Reaction to Florida State coach Bobby Bowden announcing he will retire after 34 seasons with the Seminoles.

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"Bobby has been a tough competitor. He has meant an awful lot to the universities he coached and to the game of football overall. He and his wife, Ann, have dedicated their lives with untold hours to better the teams and universities they cared so much about. They will be missed by the coaching profession and college football. Sue and I wish them well." — Penn State coach Joe Paterno.

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"Bobby Bowden is undoubtedly one of the greatest football coaches of all time. Throughout his career, Coach Bowden always led his team with heart and character. As a loyal ‘Nole, I think the world of him and wish only the best for him and his family. Florida State University’s football program has been blessed to have him as their coach for the past 34 seasons. God bless you, Coach!" — Florida Gov. Charlie Crist.

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"You’ll never see a guy (with the) wins he has, 300-something. He’s great for college football. I think him and Joe Pa, enjoy it because you won’t see that one again. At one school and that long a career in this day and age, you just won’t see it. You just admire a guy that had the stamina and did it the right way. That’s the thing you always admire about coach Bowden. He’s always done it the right way." — Florida coach Urban Meyer.

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"I’ve been in communication with Bobby Bowden over the last few weeks and realize that this has been a difficult situation for him. Football has lost a great representative, but at the same time Bobby, and all of us who know him and care about him, can reflect with admiration on his remarkable career. Bobby accomplished a standard of excellence that is unparalleled in major college football. Having played his teams on several occasions, I can attest to the excellence of his coaching and his preparation. On top of his outstanding won-loss record, Bobby has always been an excellent role model and has stood for the highest standards in athletic competition. I wish Bobby and his family well." — Former Nebraska coach and current athletic director Tom Osborne.

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"Few people have meant as much to college football as Bobby Bowden. He is a legendary figure in the truest sense of the word and a great ambassador for the game itself. There will be very few that will ever win as many games, but more impressive are his values and the impact he has had on those that have played for him and those that have had the privilege of working with him. Coach Bowden leaves a legacy that will be missed not only at Florida State, but in the Atlantic Coast Conference and all across college football. He is a gentleman and a true sportsman and I consider it an honor to have him as part of the ACC family." — ACC commissioner John Swofford.

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"He is college football. The respect is always going to be there. When you look at Coach Bowden, he was a man who always had a lot of integrity. No matter which coach it was at the University of Miami, you could always talk to him and have a good time with a man with a lot of wit, learn a lot from him." — Miami coach Randy Shannon.

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"Coach Bowden has done everything you could do. Nobody but Joe (Paterno) could ever come close to it. When we came into existence here, Florida State was everything in college football. They kind of gave us the example of what you shoot for over the long term. He’s been great for college football." — Southern California coach Pete Carroll said.

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"I hope he finds out there is another life out there beyond football. I hope he enjoys it. (Wife) Ann deserves it and he deserves it. He was one of the great ones. What he accomplished only a few have ever accomplished." — Former Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer.

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"He put Florida State on the map, and you would have to know what was there football-wise to appreciate what he did. He’s a legendary coach and a great guy." Former Michigan coach Lloyd Carr.

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"I think it’s a bit of a disgrace for those making the decision for Bobby Bowden to retire. If Bobby Bowden wanted to stay one more year, I don’t understand why the Florida State nation could not come together and pull in the same direction to make that happen." CBS college football analyst Gary Danielson.

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"If you spend 34 years at the same place, you’re doing something right." South Carolina and former Florida coach Steve Spurrier.

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"I’m certainly happy that Bobby has found a solution for this most unneeded situation he was put into because Bobby Bowden is truly one of the greatest coaches not only for the state of Florida but in the nation." — Florida Atlantic coach Howard Schnellenberger.

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"The reason I attended FSU is because of Coach Bowden. His legendary leadership, wisdom and faith motivated me throughout my life and football career. Indeed, it’s a sad day for all of FSU and the football world. Now, I can only hope the next coach can leave an indelible impression on young men the way Coach did when he sat in my living room." — New York Jets running back Leon Washington.

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"It’s a sad day for college football and especially for so many coaches like me who Coach (Bowden) reached out to and had been such a good friend to for so many years. Coach Bowden is a person that I’ve always looked up to, sought guidance from and have such great respect and admiration for. He definitely gave more to college football, and those of us who love it so much, than he could ever have taken from it. He’s a great man and coach and will be sorely missed." — Texas coach Mack Brown.

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"It was a great privilege to coach for, and be mentored by, coach Bowden, who many would consider the greatest college coach in the history of the game. I’m thankful for my relationship with him and the lesson I learned that not only is winning games important, but also keeping the game in the proper perspective. I can only imagine how many lives have been impacted by him in a positive way including my own. Other than my father, he’s been the most influential man in my life." — Georgia coach and former Florida State quarterback and offensive coordinator Mark Richt.

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"He had an unbelievable career and he’s such a good person. I almost hate to see it come to a close. What they accomplished in the ‘90s, nobody will ever come close to that again. It was unbelievable. He meant so much to college football. I consider it an honor to have had a chance to coach against him. That’s how much I respect what he’s done. I wish things had worked out the way he wanted them to. But sometimes they don’t." — Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson.

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"I think it’s the right decision for him. I don’t think there’s any question. He had been so good for so long. You just get compared to what you had and that just made it more difficult. I think he also wanted to have another real good year if he possible. That just makes it more difficult." — Former BYU coach LaVell Edwards.

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"I have a great deal of respect for Bobby. Over the past few years, I had the opportunity to meet and spend some time with Bobby. He’s one of the most genuine people I know. Bobby has been great for college football and has been very well respected by everyone." — Cal coach Jeff Tedford.