For those who are unaware, let’s go back to a time when Bobby Bowden, while he was just beginning his second decade as the head coach at Florida State, very nearly took the same job at Alabama.
Bowden, who was born and raised in Alabama, had long held that the Tide was his dream gig. Late in 1986, when Bowden and his Seminoles were in Birmingham for a bowl game, the news dropped that Ray Perkins was leaving UA to become the head coach of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers. With the timing, where he was when the news broke, everything, “it started to feel like something that was meant to be,” Bowden told Joe Posnanski of NBCSports.com‘s SportsWorld about becoming the head coach at his home state’s flagship institution. And he wasn’t the only one.
“Bobby, we want you to be the next coach at Alabama,” Guy Hunt, the man who was set to replace George Wallace as Alabama’s governor, told Bowden. Things, though, began to quickly unravel.
Bowden, 57 at the time, swore he wouldn’t interview for the job, felt he’d earned that right; he was ultimately pushed into what was essentially an interview anyway. He wasn’t offered the job after the non-interview interview, adding to the unraveling.
The final straw for Bowden? From Posnanski’s longform:Oh, he wanted it, still wanted it. There were rumors — these have evolved into legends, so Bowden won’t confirm or deny – that his family had gone into a sporting goods store to buy Alabama gear to wear at the welcome press conference. When he got back to Tallahassee, he found his front yard overflowing with television camera crews. “Nobody offered me the Alabama job,” he said. “I will not go chasing after it.” A few hours later, he heard – Alabama wanted Georgia Tech coach Bill Curry instead.
Bowden went back out to the press and said he was withdrawing his name from consideration at Alabama. “I’m happy at Florida State,” he said. “This is home.”
That, though, is only a part of the story when it comes to the Bowden-Alabama connection.The best part? Curry left three years later for Kentucky amidst a contract squabble, and Alabama came a callin’ on Bowden yet again, although this time he was offered the job. Over the phone. No strings attached.
“I thought, ‘Naw, I’m 60 years old now,’” he says. “I’m took old to be taking new jobs.”
But, I said to him, you were 57 the first time the job came open.
“That’s true,” he says, and there’s a twinkle in his eyes. “But a man can learn a lot between ages 57 and 60.”
What did you learn?
“Well,” he said. “I learned if they won’t hire me at Alabama, maybe we can make our own Alabama.”
For the entire piece, click HERE. It’s well-worth your time.
(Photo credit: Florida State athletics)