Legendary coach Bobby Bowden is retiring at the end of this season. (Scott Halleran/Getty Images)Florida State coach Bobby Bowden will end his 44-year coaching career after the Seminoles play in a bowl game later this season.
Bowden will retire as the second winningest coach in major U.S. college football behind Penn State's Joe Paterno.
The 80-year-old Bowden has won 388 games in his career at Samford, West Virginia and Florida State, where he spent the last 34 seasons.
"We've got one more game and I look forward to enjoying these next few weeks as the head football coach," Bowden said Tuesday in a statement released by the school.
'After you retire, there's only one big event left. And I ain't ready for that.'—Bobby Bowden
Florida State's bowl game has not been determined. The Seminoles are bowl eligible with a 6-6 record.
Bowden won two national titles with Florida State, in 1993 and 1999. Among his top achievements was a string of 14 straight seasons ending in 2000 when the Seminoles won at least 10 games and finished ranked in the top five of the Associated Press poll.
Florida State was 152-19-1, a .864 winning percentage, during that span. He has a 315-97-4 record with the Seminoles.
"He set records of achievement on the field that will probably never be equalled," university president T.K. Wetherell said. "Bobby Bowden in many ways became the face of Florida State. It was his sterling personality and character that personified this university."
FSU officials announced after the 2007 season that offensive co-ordinator Jimbo Fisher would succeed Bowden.
The end of the Bowden era has been brewing for years, and the call for change only grew louder this year, when loss after loss, many coming in the final minutes, began piling up. The regular season ended with a sixth straight loss to bitter rival Florida, a 37-10 blowout.
Football lifer
Bowden is a football lifer, who modelled his career after his idol Paul (Bear) Bryant, the legendary Alabama coach who died shortly after he retired in 1982.
"After you retire, there's only one big event left," Bowden has said over the years. "And I ain't ready for that."
Bowden is one of the most quotable coaches the game has known. He relished the spotlight and his folksy approach to the game was well received everywhere he went.
It was during the rare losses when Bowden is at his best, relying on his favourite phrase "Dadgumit" when discussing all those wide-right and wide-left field goals against Miami in the late 1980s and early 1990s that knocked so many of his teams out of national title contention.
He also got caught up in NCAA investigations. The school was hit with five years probation for a 1993 incident when several of his players were given free shoes and sporting goods from a local store. That led to former Florida coach Steve Spurrier calling Florida State "Free Shoes University."
Bowden entered this season faced with losing 14 of his wins as part of sanctions from the NCAA on an academic cheating scandal that involved two dozen football players. The school is appealing.
Bowden and winning, though, go hand in hand. He goes into a final bowl game with a 388-129-4 record.
After his first Florida State team went 5-6 in 1976, the Seminoles never had a losing season. However, the losing became more frequent. Florida State is 73-42 from 2001-09.
Among the stars who played for Bowden were:
- Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks Charlie Ward and Chris Weinke.
- Defensive backs Deion Sanders and LeRoy Butler.
- Running back Warrick Dunn.
- Receiver Peter Warrick.
- Nose guard Ron Simmons.
