Like all of the greats, Bowden succeeds on his own terms

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. John Henry was the greatest of all the steel-driving men, and after him there were no more like him.

There are, I think, comparisons to be drawn between John Henry and Bobby Bowden. John Henry saw the steam-powered hammer as a soulless contraption to steal the livelihood of hard-working men and he challenged it. Bobby Bowden has watched college football grow more corporate and less forgiving, sometimes indifferent to the virtues the game is supposed to teach.

Bobby Bowden

This will be the thirty-fourth spring of the Bobby Bowden Tour and 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 received their degrees 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 returned 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 has been his remarkable skill at adapting to the changing social and cultural landscapes.

When Bowden first began coaching 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 as there are today.

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.

There is simply too much money on the table now. 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. 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 each one of them to be a relentless recruiter.

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 is to work for a winning 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.

We demand winning and 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.

Two sports make money, 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 the entire skein of men’s and women’s sports.

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 also know the sad ending of the story. You and I want very much for Bobby Bowden’s story to have a great ending.

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.