Alabama Not Just Football: 30 Amazing People Who Were Built By Bama
Oct 26, 2013; Tallahassee, FL, USA; Former Florida State Seminoles head coach Bobby Bowden is honored before the game against the North Carolina State Wolfpack at Doak Campbell Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Melina Vastola-USA TODAY Sports
Bobby Bowden
While Bobby Bowden will always be remembered as a Seminole, his first college football experience was with the Crimson Tide. He played quarterback on the Tide’s 1948 freshman team, but transferred to Howard College (now Samford University) to be closer to home and to marry his high school sweetheart.
After graduating from Howard, Bowden stayed on as the head track coach and an assistant with the football team. He left Howard to become the athletic director, football coach, basketball coach, and baseball coach at South Georgia College. He then returned to Howard as the head football coach. In 1963 he left Howard to become the receivers coach at Florida State.
After two years, he headed north to Morgantown to be the offensive coordinator at West Virginia. In 1970, Bobby Bowden became the head coach of the Mountaineers. In 1976 he was offered the Florida State job and like many sons of the south before him came home to see less snow and to be closer to his family.
Bobby Bowden was the coach of the Florida State Seminoles from 1976-2009, where he won 2 National Championships (in 1993 and 1999) and 12 ACC Championships. In 34 years as the head coach at FSU he had only one losing season (it was his first). From 1978 to 2000, the Seminoles won at least ten games every year and finished in the top 5 of the AP Poll.
In 1980, Bobby Bowden was named the Bobby Dodd coach of the year. He was named the Walter Camp Coach of the Year in 1991. In 1992 he was the Amos Alonzo Stagg coach of the year. Since 2010, the Over the Mountain Touchdown Club in Birmingham has sponsored a Bobby Bowden coach of the year award.