Ugly Ending in Tallahassee

The word respect comes to mind when hearing about the Bobby Bowden “departure” at Florida State today; oh sorry, let me correct myself, the lack of respect comes to mind actually.  Being a Miami Hurricane fan myself, I shouldn’t really care that Bobby Bowden has “resigned” from his position as head football coach of Florida State University, in fact I should be happy.  However, the lack of respect that Bobby Bowden has received from the school that he literally put on the sporting map is quite disgusting.

Now looking from the outside in, it appears that Bobby Bowden has stepped down because it was time to having his moment in the sunset given that he’s 80 years old.  However, if you’ve been following the college football landscape and specifically the FSU situation for the last couple of years, the athletic director and the boosters of the program pretty much just showed him the door in a very undisclosed way.  Now granted, FSU has been on a slippery slope downward for almost the last decade and maybe it’s time to start a new era in Tallahassee, but for a man who’s been the face of the university since 1976 and who has brought  the program from obscurity to two national championships and a decade of dominance, it’s a shallow and coward thing to show Bowden the door this way.

It all started two years ago when they publicly announced that offensive coordinator, Jimbo Fisher the “coach in waiting,” which is a term and a trend that I absolutely hate.  From that moment on, it was a very small but major move in the final stages of the Bobby Bowden era at Florida State University.  For a man who has brought so much to the institution, among that millions and millions of dollars to the university, it’s a shame that he has to be let go in any other way than on his own terms.  The athletic department gave Bobby Bowden two options when the season ended; either he stay head coach for the final year of his contract, but his authority would be diminished severely or leave with a final year on his contract.  If he chose to stay one more year, which he said he wanted to do all along, he would pretty much just be there as a face of the university, but all the head coaching roles would be turned over to Jimbo Fisher.  Being the proud man that he is, Bowden decided to take the high road and “resign” today.

It’s a sad day for Florida State Seminole fans and a sad day for college football fans.  We’re losing an icon in a way that just isn’t right.  For that, I want FSU to lose that much more from here on out.

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