Bowden story deserves a good ending

By Charlie Barnes, Executive Director - Seminole Boosters

The legend of John Henry vs. the steam hammer is the best kind of story because it's true. It is the iconic American tale of rugged individualism vs. encroaching technology with its worship of efficiency and production.

John Henry was the best. He was the best one among all those steel-driving men, and after him there were no more like him.

There are, I think, comparisons to be made between John Henry and Bobby Bowden. John Henry was a tough, hard man who was the best at swinging a hammer, driving steel spikes to build railroad tunnels through the Appalachian Mountains. To him, old ways were the best ways and the steam-powered hammer was a threat, a soulless contraption to steal the livelihood of hard working men.

This April and May Coach Bobby Bowden will again navigate amiably among loyal Seminoles across all the familiar landscapes from Atlanta to Miami, from Jacksonville to Pensacola. This will be the thirty-fourth spring of the Bobby Bowden Tour.

Last May we visited Lake City, as we have every year since 1976. An established businessman in Lake City, Seminole Club President Derril Cribbs relaxed at the head table and enjoyed his last few hours in office, smiling as he watched his young daughter sashay through the crowd showing off her garnet & gold Seminole cheerleader outfit.

Cribbs tuned to Coach Bowden and asked, "Is it true that the Lake City Seminole Club was the first visit you made?" Coach Bowden said yes that's true. "We came here to Lake City I think right after I signed on to be Head Coach, and that might have been early January, 1976."

Cribbs shook his head in wonder. "Gosh," he said. "I was born only two months after that, in March of '76." Generations of Seminoles have literally grown up with the Bowden legend.

Thirty-four years is a long time. More than 70% of all the alumni who have ever graduated from Florida State - going all the way back to 1851 - have matriculated since Bobby Bowden became Head Coach here. He has already coached the sons of some of his Seminole players (Ponder, Piurowski, Simms on this team alone).

Eighty years is also a long time, and Bobby Bowden will be eighty years old this fall. He had already been the Head Coach at three other universities before he retuned to FSU in 1976.

The way things used to be, and the way it was for a long time, has changed at the top of the college football pyramid. Bobby Bowden's enduring strength across the decades has been his remarkable skill at adapting to the changing social and cultural landscapes.

Bobby Bowden saw the most remarkable changes in college football. He knew football at a time when the toughest guys on the field would simply fight, within the rules, and win. We remember the story of Bear Bryant's infamous "Junction Boys" and the iron rule of Woody Hayes. We've heard the stories, but Bobby Bowden was part of that world.

When Bowden first began coaching as an assistant in 1954, an assistant coach didn't have to be much more than mean; a Head Coach had to be able to talk to alumni. A well liked coach had a job for life, even if he didn't win many more than half his games.

There wasn't so much money on the table then; there weren't so many frightening financial consequences at stake.

Bowden saw the introduction of complex strategy and offenses built around the forward pass. Bill Peterson is credited with introducing the pro passing game to college, and Bobby Bowden was his receivers coach. Bowden was a southern boy who saw the dawn of integration and was smart enough to understand its potential and move beyond the culture. He learned how to motivate student-athletes rather than simply yell at jocks. Eventually, he embraced the value of a professionally managed recruiting program and became an excellent closer.

All college coaches are aware of the truth that there is no loyalty. Coaches are much more aware of it than we fans, and that truth is much more pronounced today than ever before.

Coaches know there's no loyalty, but sometimes they forget. Johnny Majors had a Heisman Trophy winner and a national championship at Pitt, but when alma mater called he returned to Tennessee to shore up their sagging fortunes. He did well for awhile but suffered a heart attack about the same time the program hit a thin patch. An assistant named Fulmer took over as the interim coach. Fans decided they'd rather have Fulmer and while Majors was in the hospital fans amused themselves by chanting, "Block that artery! Block that artery!"

There is simply too much money on the table now for the old ways to stand. For the coaches and for the universities that employ them, the financial rewards for winning and the consequences of losing are too great. The game will never again see a Head Coach with the tenure of a Bobby Bowden or Joe Paterno.

As little as ten years ago, football coaches would tell you that no one goes into the business for the money, but that seems no longer to be true. Where it was once rare for a Head Coach to become rich, now there is so much money in the game that the profession has begun to draw men who might otherwise become trial lawyers or corporate CEOs.

This modern breed of coaches is more apt to construct a business model for their football programs. They stay abreast of all the latest technology. They text, they Facebook, they Twitter. They hire recruiting coordinators and personnel directors to assist in evaluating recruits. They hire proven professional assistant coaches and require all of them to be relentless recruiters.

The idea of spending decades at one school is a fading dream. Assistants who don't coach their position players to success, who don't evaluate and recruit their positions effectively, are dismissed. Good assistants want to become coordinators, and good coordinators want to become Head Coaches. The fastest route to those goals is to work for a wining program with its attendant television and internet exposure. Good assistants don't expect to stay on a championship staff; they expect to get noticed and then move out, and up.

The world of college football has changed. The steam hammer has arrived.

Many things contribute to the soaring cost of college athletic programs. Title IX expenditures are mandated by law; NCAA academic normal progress rules require student-athletes - even A students - to go to classes 12 months a year rather than nine; so the cost of scholarships seems to increase exponentially. Add to those things the costs of energy and maintenance of first class athletic facilities.

Winning has its price. Seminole Boosters are always concerned about the price. Your generous gifts provide the money to meet that challenge. We depend on our fans and our friends to supply the money that winning requires.

Only two sports make money for the schools, and so it is upon the backs of football and basketball that intercollegiate athletics budgets are balanced. Top coaches command top money, but top coaches can also bring in millions of dollars to pay for an entire skein of men's and women's sports.

Seminole football is close to reclaiming its rightful place at the front of the ACC. February's recruiting class was championship caliber. It is of great importance to everyone - to the broadcast networks, to our Conference, to the health of our overall Seminole athletic program and most especially to our fans and alumni - that our football program consistently performs at the championship level. There's too much at stake these days to accept anything less.

John Henry challenged the steam hammer to a contest, to preserve a way of life. You remember that he beat the infernal machine, but you know the sad end of the story as well. You and I want very much for Bobby Bowden's story to have a great ending. He still has some time to beat the metaphorical steam hammer of the new coaching order.

Bobby Bowden is the living proof that character does count. For all the good he represents, for all the values and virtues that he's instilled in generations of Seminole players and fans, we want to see him stand on the champion's platform again.

Emerson mused about the nature of great men more than one hundred years ago: "When nature removes a great man, people explore the horizon for a successor; but none comes, and none will. His class is extinguished with him..."

So, come join us at one of the Bobby Bowden banquets this spring, or play in the Bobby Bowden golf tournament. Come shake the hand of a great man while you can; a man who has swung the hammer better and longer than just about anyone.