He’s been out of the game for a while and his career ended on a down note, but he was an outstanding guy. The only negative I ever heard about him personally was that he was a lousy tipper, but that was probably a product of the age he grew up in. The article also doesn’t mention that he lost most of his money in a ponzi-scheme run by his former son-in-law, so he never really got to retire, but kept doing speaking engagements until very recently.
As an FSU alum, I was also disappointed in his hard Trumpism which he trumpeted (pun intended) loudly.
But, I accept that many people are complex and aren’t total gods or total shitbags. He definitely put FSU football on the map and FSU was definitely a great place for college when I was a student
He was probably a good man and definitely a great coach. But my opinion of him is tainted by one memory: Sebastian Janikowski got himself arrested the night before a bowl game, and a reporter asked Bowden if he’d be suspended. Bowden just laughed at the ridiculousness of the idea.
I liked Bowden, and it’s coming from an LSU guy whose team got their asses handed to them so much that we ended up taking them off our schedule, lol. I’ve read/heard we had a chance to get Bowden (or was it Spurrier?). Don’t know how true that is, but the guy could coach. He generally ran a clean program.
Looks like there was also some homophobia with Bowden
Not quite. Janikowski broke curfew before the bowl game, but was not arrested. Sugar Bowl in '99. He was arrested for a bar fight (twice) and the infamous “bribe” scandal, but none of those was around a bowl game.
I missed that when it happened. Damn, that really does disappoint me.
RIP Coach Bowden. Thanks for what you did for the Thundering Herd.