Bowden legacy strengthened by fans’ personal memories

By Charlie Barnes, Executive Director - Seminole Boosters

Consider the bright, braided cord. Its wisps and strands wrap around each other, each with its own tale of Bobby Bowden and the Seminoles, each story upon story enriching the texture and strength of the long cable.

Bowden has moved both toward and away from Tallahassee and Florida State most of his life, like a planet in long orbits, never quite able to break gravity’s pull, always a little surprised to discover the central object around which his journeys always seem to revolve.

As a young man he quarterbacked the Howard College Bulldogs in their futile jousts against Dixie Conference rival FSU. A decade later he was part of Bill Peterson’s legendary staff, the position coach of Fred Biletnikoff and T.K.Wetherell.

In his prime, he returned to Tallahassee as the Seminoles’ head coach, never expecting to stay. In fact, for at least a decade beyond his first season in 1976, Bowden entertained any number of job offers, some seriously, some less so. LSU was a sincere suitor, as was Alabama, and their overtures were not met outright with rejection. But always he returned.

Across the next several years, Florida State Seminole faithful will celebrate the career of college football’s all-time most winning head coach, looking ahead to his landmark 30th season at FSU in 2005. It is a story that will be told largely from the periphery, a picture that emerges only as each of many tales adds its own richness to the portrait. We see Bowden glimpsed obliquely through the memories and experiences of many fans and friends.

There are lots of good stories about FSU people, stories woven around Bowden and the university we all love. For the next year or so they’ll be retold from time to time. Here are two.

Kenneth R. MacLean was a freshman running back for the University of Florida in 1944 who earned his Gator spurs with a 91-yard touchdown run against Georgia in that annual Jacksonville clash. After his World War II military duties were completed, MacLean retuned to his home in Quincy. He followed his girlfriend to Tallahassee in the fall of 1947, enrolling as one of the first men on the new Florida State University campus.

“That summer of 1947,” he smiles, “most of us spent our time at The Mecca and at The Sweet Shoppe just playing cards and pinball, and one day somebody said, ‘Let’s see if we can’t get up a football team.’” MacLean told how five of the men went see Dr. Howard Danforth, the director of physical education and recreation. “I don’t think anyone believed that we could get a team so soon.”

Ed Williamson volunteered to coach, Jack Haskins assisted, and they put together an abbreviated schedule that included Stetson, Cumberland, Tennessee Tech, Troy and Jacksonville State.

“There was a lot of campus spirit. People really began to get excited,” MacLean said. “Of course, the coaches didn’t get any pay and there were no scholarships for the players. I think we may have gotten an extra carton of milk in the cafeteria line.”

MacLean led the newly minted Seminoles in rushing, punting and receiving for two years.

But on that crisp October night in front of 8,000 fans at old Centennial Field, when MacLean saw the white-painted football loop through the air and land in his hands as he raced down the sideline he gave no thought at all to what he had just done. He had caught the first completed pass in Seminole football history. All Ken MacLean knew was that he had gained yards and that Florida State was rolling against a stunned Stetson team.

In the second quarter, quarterback Don Grant lofted a pretty pass to Charles McMillan in the end zone, and FSU was ahead 6-0 at the half. Stetson won the game, barely. FSU rang up 65 yards in the air. MacLean ran for 45.

After the first winless season, Florida State flashed early echoes of the greatness to come. Each of the next three years they were Dixie Conference Champions and, in 1950, FSU was the first major college team in the state to record an undefeated season.

Ken MacLean became the freshman football coach under Bill Peterson and later served as head recruiter for three years, helping young wide receivers coach Bobby Bowden acquire the likes of Biletnikoff and Wetherell.

That undefeated 1950 season was highlighted by the construction of new Doak Campbell Stadium, dedicated that Oct. 14 against Dixie Conference rival Howard College.

Here’s how the Howard yearbook recorded that game: “One of the Bulldogs’ greatest feats in 1950 was playing a strong game against Florida State, ranked among the top 11 small colleges in the country. The Seminoles had to resort to every possible resource to stop the marauding Bulldogs, 20-6.”

“Every possible resource” included an unlikely 150-pound defensive end named Jim Arnold.

Howard’s valiant sophomore quarterback would become a Small College All-American by his senior year, but even the inspiration provided by his Howard cheerleader-girlfriend Ann Estock wasn’t enough to overcome the Seminoles. Bowden recalled the game saying, “FSU had this little defensive end who was in our backfield all day long…we just couldn’t keep him out of there…I really believe he was one of the main reasons we were not able to beat them.”

Jim Arnold was only a freshman. “Four of us came down from Bainbridge to try out together,” he said. “Coach Don Veller told me I was too small to play but I stuck it out. There were about 100 walk-ons and players and they put us all up in those old Army barracks during three weeks of practice. It was terrible hot and every night boys were dropping suitcases out the windows and stealing away to quit the team.”

Arnold made the team, largely because of a drill the week before the first game. “In practice they had this big fullback who was probably 200 pounds…They ran him right at me four times, and I stopped him three.” Arnold said he was scared. “I was just a freshman, and little. I knew if they hit me they’d kill me, so I just had to out-quick ’em.”

Out-quick ’em is exactly what he did. He blocked two punts against Troy and started every game, helping anchor a defense that for the entire season allowed only 54 points, by far the best record for any Florida State team. Of that one game against Howard, Arnold said, “I had a desire to get back there in that backfield and get somebody, to hit somebody.”

That “somebody,” of course, is now the fellow with the most wins in Division I history.

Jim Arnold coached at Lake City Columbia High for four years, and earned a masters degree in industrial arts.

He is retired from the Florida Division of Motor Vehicles. Years ago, he helped to found the Lake City Seminole Boosters, the very first Booster Club to host a Bobby Bowden Day soon after Bowden’s return in 1976.