TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Bobby Bowden lived life with three guiding principles: faith, family and football.
The longtime college football coach may have been known across the country for winning two national championships and 377 games, including 314 of them at Florida State from 1976 to 2009. But the eulogies delivered for him Saturday focused almost entirely on how his faith led him in life as well as how much he valued his family – and that included his thousands of players.
More than 300 players and coaches were among the crowd of about 2,500 who returned to the Donald L. Tucker Center to remember Bowden, who died last Sunday at 91 of pancreatic cancer. The two-hour service at Florida State’s basketball arena included sons Tommy and Terry Bowden as well as daughter Ginger Bowden Madden. Longtime former Florida State assistants Mickey Andrews and Mark Richt spoke, and so did former Seminoles stars Derrick Brooks, Bobby Butler, Warrick Dunn and Charlie Ward.
“Coach Bowden saw something in me that no one else saw,” said Dunn, who played at Florida State from 1993-96. “He believed in me, and that’s a powerful thing for an 18-year-old that is just trying to figure out life. Coach was the kind of man that used his faith and wisdom to shape boys into men.”
Dunn reflected on the lessons Bowden handed down when he needed to be a father figure for his younger siblings after his mother, Betty Smothers, died in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.