Coach Bobby Bowden witnesses on and off the gridiron

Dec 1, 2009
EVA WOLEVER
Newswriter

Photo by Miguel A. Olivella Jr. /FSU Sports Inform

Editor’s note: This story, originally published Sept. 25, 2007, is being re-published today in light of the news of Coach Bobby Bowden’s retirement as head football coach of the Florida State Seminoles.

TALLAHASSEE (FBW)—Known for his faith on and off the field, Bobby Bowden, one of the winningest coaches in college football history, credits God with his position as head coach of the Florida State University Seminoles and his success over the years.

“I feel like God gave me an opportunity to be the head football coach at Florida State,” Bowden said. “I feel like God has put me in a position to witness for Him.”

Bowden said he takes advantage of that opportunity by speaking to churches whenever he can and maintaining a positive witness in his job as a coach.

“My faith makes me realize that there’s something beyond life; it makes me believe there’s something beyond football,” Bowden said. “I think that helps me get over the pitfalls that occur in life, knowing that there’s a better one out there and knowing that you got it — you got it in your back pocket.”

Drew Weatherford, the Seminoles’ quarterback, said Bowden’s witness has affected many people on the FSU football team. Praying before each game or scrimmage and addressing the team on a regular basis are some of Bowden’s standard procedures, Weatherford added.

“He’s definitely the spiritual leader of this program,” Weatherford told the Witness in a pre-season interview.

“To know that [Bowden] believes in the same things that I believe in and has the same morals and values that I have just make it so much easier for me to live them out as well,” said Weatherford, a member of The Well, a new church plant in Tallahassee.

Bowden’s faithfulness reaches beyond the confines of his players. Mark Richt, one-time offensive coordinator under Bowden and now the head coach at the University of Georgia, told the Witness Bowden mentored him spiritually while he honed his coaching abilities.

“With Coach Bowden, what you see is what you get ... a man of faith, a man of family,” Richt said. “He not only taught me football, but he led me to the Lord and he was a tremendous role model for me in many ways.”

Bobby and Ann Bowden chat with reporters after a game. Photo courtesy of FSU Sports Information

Bowden’s witness also reaches far beyond the buildings of FSU, through speaking engagements in churches and through the Fellowship of Christian Athletes as well as his public platform in the media.

Bowden, a part of FCA since 1963, is in the organization’s hall of champions, according to president and CEO Les Steckel.

“FCA is enormously indebted to Coach Bowden, and would not have the national impact it does without his major involvement these more than 40 years,” Steckel told the Witness.

Bowden’s “passion” to see people come to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ propels the coach to speak “whenever and wherever possible,” Steckel added.

Using that public platform, Bowden spoke in defense of Fisher DeBerry, head coach of the Air Force Academy’s football team, who in 2004 was asked to take down from the locker room wall the creed issued by Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

“I said, ‘I can’t understand it with today’s youth like they are, and the problems we got,…, why can’t we tell somebody: Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill, thou love,’” Bowden said. “I’d go along with that if it was someone else’s religion.”

Bowden said he thought DeBerry did nothing wrong and that he respected the coach for his actions.

Bowden is not exactly known for being politically correct, according to his son, Tommy Bowden, head football coach at Clemson University.

Bobby Bowden meets a young fan. Photo courtesy of FSU Sports Information

“Being a public figure, he’s been in the media so long on a national scale [that] I’m sure people say, ‘I wonder if he’s really like that?’ and he is,” Tommy said. “He made some pretty strong statements in defense of Fisher DeBerry from a Christian perspective …. If he had been at home at the dinner table he’d said that. He said it in the public arena — which a lot of people won’t do.”

The older Bowden said he is often frustrated by criticism and regulations leveled at coaches for sharing their beliefs when a professor can espouse their beliefs with few consequences.

“Why can’t a coach express to his players what he believes?” Bowden asked. “You’re trying to help the kid.”

The political climate has changed in his tenure as coach, Bowden said. Political correctness is the mantra of today.

“If our nation goes down it’s because of political correctness in my opinion because political correctness might not be the truth. I think we should get back to the truth — whatever the truth is,” Bowden said. “I’d rather be spiritually correct than governmentally correct.”

College football also has changed, Bowden said. Athletes are bigger, stronger, faster and jump higher, he said. The boys’ hearts are the same, but their families and the way they are raised is very different, Bowden lamented.

“Parents have quit taking them to church,” Bowden said. “Parents have quit raising them — [they] go off and leave them, abandon them.” Bowden said, referencing statistics from the last 15 years.

“These kids come into my office and I look at them and talk to them and see that they’re 17, 18, 19–year-old boys with big hearts [who] make mistakes,” Bowden continued. “If they’re not well grounded before they get here — which to me is the parents’ responsibility — of what is right and what is wrong, then they’re still the same old kid, some of them hadn’t been taught that.”

Bowden insisted that he doesn’t try to “beat it in their brain,” but simply presents the Gospel to players.

“That’s the way it works,” Bowden said. “You present [the Gospel] then God will determine what’s done with it.”

Religion has no affect on how Bowden sets up the team roster, he said. He plays the best player for the position, regardless of faith. Bowden said he tells his players and their parents upfront that if they don’t want to participate in devotions, prayer or services they may be excused. Only two boys have taken advantage of this option in his 31 years at FSU, Bowden said.

His first priority in setting up a strong witness is leading by example, Bowden said. Clint Purvis, minister to students as First Baptist Church in Tallahassee — where Bowden is a member — has served as team chaplain 18 years. Bowden also prays for the team, asking God for guidance and protection.

Purvis said his role as chaplain and Bowden’s position as coach is not an “either/or” relationship, but rather a “both/and” one in offering the team spiritual guidance.

“We pray a lot in private,” Purvis said. “He is not perfect — no one is — but he is right before God.”

Purvis said Bowden shared with him a letter the coach wrote to his children telling them the most important thing to him was that they would know Christ. Without that relationship, “all the awards, recognition, wins and championships would mean nothing,” Purvis recalled Bowden wrote.

With his current good health, Bowden, 77, said he has no plans to retire. However, he hopes the Seminoles will “do better” in this football season, Bowden added.

Bowden has had many opportunities to accept coaching positions at other schools or the NFL, but consistently refused them, he said.

“I like it here, Bowden said. “This school, this town, this state has got everything you could want and I don’t think I could get situated in a school that I would enjoy more or a community I would enjoy more. Plus, I think I witness as good here as anywhere else in the country.”

With reporting by James A. Smith Sr., Executive Editor.

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